Parliamentary Speeches
2,337 speeches by Francis Scarpaleggia — Page 43 of 47
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the well-being of veterans and their families will always be a priority for our government. We know that Canadians across the country also want to help those who have given so much to our country. Whether through organizations that provide housing, mental health services or assistance for the transition to civilian life, Canadians are stepping up to support our heroes. Can the Ministe…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that there is a housing crisis in Canada. Our government is on the front lines fighting this crisis. We introduced Bill C‑56, which will eliminate the GST on the construction of housing and speed up residential construction across Canada. However, as we speak, the bill is still being debated in the House, which is causing delays in getting help to Canadians. Can the Minister o…
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Mr. Speaker, this summer we lost a kind man, or as his partner of 50 years would say, the kindest man. Roger Thibault left us and husband Theo Wouters after a long battle with Parkinson's. Roger and Theo were trailblazers. They became the first same-sex couple legally joined by civil union in Quebec, two years before same-sex marriage came into being. Sadly, they faced acute intolerance for over a…
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Mr. Speaker, the game of hockey has lost a true stalwart. Brian O'Neill served 52 years with the National Hockey League, nearly all of those as executive vice-president. Hired by Clarence Campbell in 1966, he oversaw the 1967 expansion, supervised the draft, managed scheduling and was the league's disciplinarian. During his tenure, 6,595 players played in the NHL in a total of 52,092 games. In 199…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member mentions the need for spending and partnership with the oil and gas industry in order to make the transition. I do agree that the oil and gas industry invests greatly, generally speaking, in green technologies. I think the member for Lakeland mentioned yesterday the amount of spending that goes on in green technologies by the industry. Recently the oil sands companie…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on this first day of the new parliamentary session. I would start by saying that the role of debate is to separate the wheat from the chaff, to use our experience, intelligence, discretion and insight to pinpoint what is really going on as opposed to what we think is going on, which can be influenced by the rush to easy assumptions and various biases, person…
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Madam Speaker, the percentage I quoted was 77%, which is extremely high. Yes, of course the system is under-resourced and that could affect this figure, no doubt, but it is such an overwhelming figure that I think it is compelling in its own right.
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Madam Speaker, what I was trying to bring out was the distinction between common sense and good sense. Easy slogans like “common sense” can hide a lot from the public. They can hide issues that need to be explored in greater detail. I think the distinction between common sense and good sense is important because it underscores the notion that, yes, things have to make sense but solutions have to b…
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Madam Speaker, that is a good question. It is something that may not be obvious to those who are watching us today. When our government took office in 2015, we reversed a previous practice. When the previous government knew that a bill might violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it had a member introduce it as a private member's bill so that it would not be scrutinized by the legal …
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Madam Speaker, the whole notion of productivity can be a little slippery. It is GDP per inhabitant, but especially in a country with a strong oil and gas sector like Canada, if the price of oil and gas goes up, then the productivity numbers will go up. The member was citing 2018 figures when the price of oil was rather low, so naturally Canada's productivity, using that simple measure of GDP per p…
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Mr. Speaker, we often hear from the other side that the price on carbon is fuelling inflation. However, I look at reports of the Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem's appearance before the finance committee in February. I will quote a newspaper article. In terms of the impact of the price on carbon on inflation, he said that, “prescribed annual increases to the price on carbon add about 0.1 perce…
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, entitled “The Government of Canada's Planned Phase-Out of Fossil Fuel Subsidies and of Public Financing of the Fossil Fuel Sector”. Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to t…
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to honour a sterling citizen and community stalwart. On June 24, Graeme Maag will be celebrating 50 years of community service, including 34 years with the Pointe-Claire Volunteer Rescue Unit. Graeme has helped structure and transform the rescue unit into a pillar of emergency response in Montreal’s West Island. In addition to responding personally to hundreds of calls …
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Mr. Speaker, Bill S‑5, the bill modernizing the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which had not had a major overhaul in more than 20 years, received royal assent yesterday. More than 50 hours were spent on this bill in parliamentary committee. The newly strengthened legislation includes major advances in protecting the environment and human health. Can the Minister of the Environment and Clim…
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Madam Speaker, I have two questions for my hon. colleague. First, he spoke about the American approach. It is true that the Americans have not put a price on carbon, except in California. They prefer subsidies. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act contains $329 billion in subsidies. Would my hon. colleague prefer that we spend more to achieve our goals? Second, he claims to be a nationalist, but a…
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Madam Speaker, I go back to the point that, unlike Milton Friedman's price on carbon model, ours includes a dividend to individual taxpayers, and that is what makes the price on carbon essentially a transfer. That is what I would say in response to the member's question.
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Madam Speaker, since we are talking about fuel, gasoline and the like, today, I would like to ask you a question. It is a rhetorical question; I am not expecting an answer. Do you have a car? I am sure you do. I am sure you drive on two-lane highways and three-lane highways. If you are like me, you see, every now and then, a car that moves from one lane to the next and then back again, sometimes w…
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Madam Speaker, I am a firm believer in the official languages action plan, but we are talking about fuel today, not official language communities. I make no apologies for being in favour of funding to help official language minority communities across the country.
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Madam Speaker, I would point out that, between 2019 and 2021, greenhouse gas emissions in Canada went down. Sure, they went up in 2021, but, as everyone knows, we were emerging from the pandemic, and the economy was recovering. We have to keep doing more, though. Clearly, the government's efforts since being elected in 2015 are starting to pay off. These things do not happen overnight, as the memb…
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Madam Speaker, any kind of an analysis around environmental measures, including the price on carbon, must take into account the effects of doing nothing.
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Mr. Speaker, water is our most precious natural resource. It is crucial to our well-being and our economy. Canada has 20% of the world's fresh water. It is both an asset and a huge responsibility. Last week, the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change were in Winnipeg to announce the creation of the new Canada water agency. Can the Minister …
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Mr. Speaker, the people I know in my community who are gun owners are among the most sterling citizens. They have a tremendous sense of responsibility. I would say that if their civic duty was shared by all Canadians, we would be better off as a society. I take the member's point that many people who are killed by guns are killed by illegal guns. However, I am sure that the member would agree that…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill S-5. I was also very pleased to chair the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development when we studied and amended this bill. Members may not know that, in 1999, I was the assistant to a member who sat on the environment committee. I was therefore quite familiar with the process of the first r…
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Mr. Speaker, that was a good question. The bill is quite revolutionary in the sense that it would tighten control over the most hazardous substances, and it would put the emphasis on prohibition of the most toxic substances. One would not need a pollution prevention plan if the government, through the new CEPA, were to say there was a prohibition on the release of that particular substance. Also, …
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Mr. Speaker, it is true that the bill evolves every time we make amendments to it. There is already talk of a second bill in this session of Parliament to further strengthen the act. Perfecting the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a long-term project, so to speak. I can be less enthusiastic if my colleague would prefer. The member must admit that the whole idea of a right to a healthy envi…
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Mr. Speaker, indeed, we saw when we invited representatives of indigenous communities and representatives from Imperial Oil and from the Alberta Energy Regulator, that there had been a communications breakdown. I know “communications breakdown” is a term from the 1960s, but it is very pertinent when we are talking about what happened with the Kearl project. The minister has taken steps to bring th…
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Madam Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. I am very pleased to rise today to discuss a topic of deep concern to my community and my constituency of Lac-Saint-Louis. Canada is confronting demographic issues and a serious labour shortage. Every time I am on the ground meeting with business owners, whether they come from the tourism, restaurant, farming or ma…
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Madam Speaker, that is indeed a challenge, especially for a company's human resources department, which devotes a lot of time to ensuring that the company is welcoming and that the employees are happy with the programs the company has in place for them. This is a challenge for every company, no matter what region they are in. We need to encourage people to learn French. I think that any newcomer i…
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Madam Speaker, as usual, my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands is asking a pointed and well-thought-out question. I do not have a clear opinion on the need to change the definition of refugee, but she is not wrong in saying that, in the future, there will be more climate migration, which will cause a whole host of other problems, such as peoples being repressed. My colleague's question is very in…
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Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question. We need to attract newcomers to Quebec who speak French or who are open to learning it. However, we need a strong economy to attract them. To have a strong economy, we need to address the labour shortage, so it is a bit of a vicious circle. A weak economy will not help Quebec. If the economy is weak, then people will look for work elsewhere. That hap…
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Mr. Speaker, local news is vital. Voters rely on local news outlets to keep them informed. When the Liberal government passes legislation to ensure fair compensation for the use of community news content, Facebook responds by censoring the news. The Conservative leader, a friend of big tech, is happy to parrot the excuses offered up by the billionaire web giants, at the expense of Canadians' right…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question for my colleague. Will the Conservative Party support the bill, yes or no?
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Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament who represents a great many anglophones, a minority community with unique needs in the Quebec context, I have studied Bill C-13 with a critical eye. First, I would like to say that my community is not impressed by the Quebec government's pre-emptive, and one could say almost perfunctory, use of the notwithstanding clause to escape judicial and political scrut…
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Mr. Speaker, I talked about the preamble to reassure my community that the government will not have the power to take away the rights of the anglophone community. With respect to the anglophone community, the English language is obviously not under threat in North America. Nevertheless, a community can face challenges without its language being under threat. The anglophone community has many cultu…
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Mr. Speaker, the member brought up hospitals. I can say that I fully supported the efforts of Gisèle Lalonde, who recently passed away. She was the leading figure in the fight to maintain all services at Montfort Hospital, and she was able to use the court challenges program to lead that fight. I want francophones outside Quebec to have their institutions. It is thanks to the Canadian Charter of R…
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Mr. Speaker, Irene Lambert is taking early retirement at 92, after years of dedicated service to the community. Visually impaired but always undaunted, Irene has advocated tirelessly for people with disabilities, including as a member of the provincial commission that led to Quebec's legislation on the rights of people with disabilities. Her efforts also resulted in Bell Canada's offering free dir…
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve to have access to a fair and efficient passenger airline sector and to travel with relative ease and without major inconvenience and disruption. Many travellers, however, have experienced delayed and cancelled flights over the past year. They deserve to be compensated accordingly. Can the Minister of Transport inform the House on actions our government has taken to e…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address the issue of the aerospace and aviation industry. I grew up in Montreal, and my family and I were always aware of the existence of this industry, particularly when we went down what was then called Laurentien Boulevard in Cartierville. There was even an airport attached to the Canadair plant. Now it has become a residential area, but it was very impressive to…
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Madam Speaker, this is a good question, but it presumes that the government has not been making strategic investments all these years in the industry, and it has. It is part of an evolving approach that becomes a strategy over time. In terms of labour-management relations, I am not familiar with problems in that relationship, but I am sure industry and labour work pretty closely together, and I ho…
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Madam Speaker, I hope to some day have the opportunity to visit that museum; I am sure it is quite impressive. In terms of the surveillance plane, my understanding is that a decision has not been made. It is not a file that I follow as closely as perhaps my colleague and others do. What I am hoping for and what I believe will happen is that the government will put together an approach to make sure…
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Madam Speaker, as a member from the Montreal area, I support any investment that strengthens the region's economy. I do not follow this file as closely as my colleague does, but I believe the government issued a report last summer on the state of the Canadian aerospace industry. I assume this report provided an overview of the industry's economic impact. I expect the report will be used as a basis…
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, entitled “Main Estimates 2023-24: Votes 1, 5 and 10 under Department of the Environment, Votes 1 and 5 under Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and Votes 1, 5 and 10 under Parks Canada Agency”.
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Mr. Speaker, on May 6, the Lakeshore Soccer Club will be named one of Canada Soccer's organizations of distinction. Founded in 1966, the club is a pillar of Montreal West Island's sports and recreational life and is home to around 4,000 players each year. In addition to its dynamic house leagues, Lakeshore Soccer fields regional and provincial teams at the A, AA, AAA and semi-pro levels and has br…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again to speak to this bill. I spoke to Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament and I have spoken to Bill C-11 in this Parliament, and this debate around the Senate amendments provides an opportunity to speak again. I would like to start out by saying that Conservatives fancy themselves experts on all things to do with markets and the marketplace, but ironicall…
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Madam Speaker, the law is very clear. I read the phrase in the law that said the government, and that includes the CRTC, cannot dictate algorithms. If by “criteria” the member means a request or a requirement that streaming platforms provide some visibility to Canadian content, I think that is a pretty wide-open criterion that leaves a lot of leeway to streaming services to do that in the manner t…
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Madam Speaker, I think a great part of this bill is driven by the need to provide support to Quebec content, as well as other Canadian content, and that is why stakeholders in Quebec are so in favour of this bill. The stakeholders have been consulted by the government over and over, and Quebec stakeholders are particularly keen on this bill, and for a very good reason. I think it is a very importa…
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Madam Speaker, it is a good question; unfortunately, I do not have a precise answer for it. However, the member hit on another important aspect of this bill, which is that it is not only about discoverability of Canadian content creators but also about levelling the playing field and making sure that streaming services pay their fair share. It is really not fair at all that traditional broadcaster…
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Madam Speaker, right now traditional broadcasters have to make payments to the Canada Media Fund, which is used to help in the production of Canadian content. At some point, through regulation, the streaming services will also have to contribute a portion of the revenues they earn in this country from Canadian consumers into the Canada Media Fund in order to help with the production of Canadian co…
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Madam Speaker, this is a very technical bill, but my understanding is that the amendment in the Senate could encourage music companies to share music on platforms like YouTube instead of on music services like Spotify and Apple Music. The bill is quite clear that it is not meant to regulate the small, independent creator. As a matter of fact, it says here that proposed paragraph 5(2)(h) of the act…
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on Bill S‑5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act. The committee has studied the bill and ha…
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