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Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that, during the vote, I was subject to the malicious influence of the member for Jonquière. I therefore seek unanimous consent and wish to vote against.
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Mr. Speaker, equalization is intended to level out disparities in fiscal capacity. For a fairly long time, Quebec's ministry of finance used to publish what was known as the update on federal transfers. It revealed that almost the entire difference in fiscal capacity between the so-called “rich” and “poor” provinces could be traced back to non-renewable natural resources. What happens when federal…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all the brave men and women who are here tonight and who will be staying up late. I was joking around earlier with my colleague and neighbour, the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. All kidding aside, I think that she knows that I really like her. I mentioned behavioural issues because she was talking really loudly. However, we really like …
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, this is one of those rare instances where Quebec will get its share of the cash, and it is a sign of recognition that the federal government is not good at this, not good at building things. The federal government is not on the ground; it is a government that is far removed from immediate matters. This is a case in point, where Quebec must negotiate with Ottawa and go cap i…
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Mr. Speaker, I explained that in what my colleague referred to as my wonderful speech. I explained that, when we were looking at the estimates, I asked the Minister of Finance a question, and he answered it. I asked him whether he had negotiated with Quebec and whether he was committed to ensuring that Quebec would receive its share of funding with no strings attached. What we understood from the …
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Mr. Speaker, that is a complicated question. There are all sorts of sovereign wealth funds. Every country has them. Norway's fund is used to accumulate oil revenues to benefit future generations, but above all to invest the money abroad in order to avoid Dutch disease. The same goes for Saudi Arabia. Also, China has funds that are used to influence geopolitics. However, all the funds that actually…
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague, it seems there is some sort of party going on in the Liberal lobby. Perhaps it would be appropriate to ask them to quiet down, please.
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Madam Speaker, it is a shame that I was interrupted. I was saying that she cares about her community. She is a wonderful person. I hope she enjoys a rest, and I wish her every success in her future endeavours. I think that it is well deserved. I think that we should take time to acknowledge the work of elected officials from all parties who are close to their communities. It is very important to m…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to take a moment to remind the parliamentary secretary to address his comments through the Chair and not directly to his colleague.
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure there is any point in asking my colleague a question. He is just going to stand like he did before and say that the government has a job to do for Canadians and that it is going to do that job, whether it was elected to do it or not. I would like to remind him that we debated another time allocation motion not so long ago. At the time, I was asking questions of the min…
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Mr. Speaker, before speaking to Bill C-30, I would like to take a moment to talk about a colleague. As we know, politics is not always easy on the politician's loved ones. It is not always easy on their family. No matter what party they belong to, a life in politics comes with a heavy personal toll. Last Monday, we learned that the MNA for Mirabel, Sylvie D'Amours, who is not part of my political …
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Madam Speaker, it is a question of dynamics. When the government arrives at committee saying that it has a majority, that it has a bill, that it is not going to accept everything, but that it is willing to discuss certain issues, things start moving again. When it starts a committee meeting by telling everyone else that all their amendments have been thrown in the garbage, that the government has …
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Madam Speaker, this is indeed a situation that concerns us. A closer look shows that all of this plays right into the hands of the airlines. A commissioner who receives complaints needs to be given the necessary tools to make progress and process complaints. The government should not take away or withhold resources from the commissioner, only to finally say that the system is not working and that …
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Madam Speaker, we made sure that the House recognized that the air passenger complaints issue had nothing to do with budgetary policy. The same goes for pesticides: They have nothing to do with budgetary policy. There should be a separate vote. In the face of all of these obstructionist tactics, we need to take the high road during debate and stick to the facts. I abstained from voting on all thes…
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Mr. Speaker, hundreds of farmers from Mirabel braved the rain today on Parliament Hill. They came to tell the Liberals that they are not happy with Alto's high‑speed train project in its current form. It is too bad that the minister did not come out to meet with them. He could have answered all the questions that Alto has been refusing to answer since January. If the Liberals think they are going …
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Mr. Speaker, this proves that the debate on high‑speed rail is not over; in fact, it has only just begun. We had set out four conditions: social licence, an independent financial assessment, no infringement of people's rights in the event of expropriation, and genuine consultations. They have scored zero out of four. It is no wonder that farmers are protesting. Alto is already on their land, carry…
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Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have been shouting themselves hoarse trying to convince us. Is there a recession or not? They want to launch a technical debate on this issue, yet the whole thing obscures the real debate, which concerns purchasing power and Canadian productivity. We have a problem: We are not growing. We have a productivity problem. Do the Conservatives not think it might be more …
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Madam Speaker, anyone who has ever been a teacher knows that repetition is a teaching tool, so I am going to repeat the question my colleague from Rimouski—La Matapédia asked. Is spending $34 billion of public funds on a pipeline inflationary? Is spending $34 billion of public funds on a pipeline inflationary? Is spending $34 billion of public funds on a pipeline inflationary? Is spending $34 bill…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to extend greetings to my colleague. We work very well together on the Standing Committee on Finance. As he said, he spent 20 years in banking. I would like to know whether he and his fellow optimists believe that spending $34 billion on a pipeline for the dirtiest oil in the world and funding a new pipeline forms part of what he referred to in his comments as Canada's …
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, but even more so when it is before you. I will take a second to say that we obviously need to build a strong Quebec, and to build a strong Quebec, we need forward thinkers. I saw a lot of young people this weekend when I did the rounds of Young Entrepreneurs Day. I know there are young entrepreneurs in every one of our ridings. I also wa…
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Madam Speaker, this issue has to do with the business of supply, because we just voted supply for the project. With Bill C‑15, the Minister of Transport callously decided to make people along the Alto corridor second-class citizens. He decided to take away their recourse and their right to question the need for expropriation for a train. Through his actions, the Minister of Transport is destroying…
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Madam Speaker, it appears that we were not watching the same election campaign. When I was campaigning last year, I did not see the Prime Minister spend 30 days campaigning on the idea that he was going to strike a deal with Indonesia. That was not what the Prime Minister was saying during the campaign. He said that 80% of our trade was with the United States, that he was the best person to negoti…
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Madam Speaker, it is true that the government has become increasingly arrogant since it bought itself a majority. First, as we saw during the consideration of all votes, the Minister of Finance has not answered a single question in his political career. This did not begin last week. Let us consider Driver Inc. People have died because of these truckers. Children have died. During the debate in com…
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Madam Speaker, the devil is in the details. We need to look at the numbers and break them down a little. During question period, the Prime Minister stated that average wages have risen faster than inflation. However, we need to look at the people at the bottom of the ladder. Being rich in Canada today is not an issue. They can still afford to buy big cars. They can even afford to pay $2 a litre fo…
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Madam Speaker, there is no business plan. We ask questions and Alto responds by spending millions of dollars on advertising instead of giving us the facts. For the first full year of operation, according to McGill University researchers, Alto is overestimating the number of passengers by 15 million per year. According to the McGill University study, over the years and in today's dollars, more than…
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Madam Speaker, the government keeps saying that it is trying to control what it can, but that there is very little that it actually can control. It is going to pay out benefits and put together a package of stimulus measures, as if this could go on forever. The government keeps saying that it is not to blame. However, in this case, the government messed up, because the Prime Minister was elected o…
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Madam Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues for contributing to the debate on this important motion. I am not saying that everything in it is right, nor am I saying that everything in it is wrong, but it is an important motion. Before I begin, I want to say that we have concerns about the impact AI will have on our lives. Just today, in fact, I think we saw an example of how AI can insinuate itsel…
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Madam Speaker, we sometimes get asked what the Bloc Québécois would do if we were in charge of the negotiations instead of the Prime Minister. Personally, I cannot promise miracles. We have always said that we would support the Prime Minister once he has a clear and intelligent strategy that he shares with us. After more than a year, that still has not happened. I have the figures for the last fiv…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to say two things. My colleague, who knows I hold him in high regard, thinks that we do not have enough time for debate. I suggest that he go and talk to cabinet and tell them to stop imposing gag orders because we are not short on time in the House. They are the ones who do not want to debate. They have a caucus meeting tomorrow morning. I think that the member should …
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Madam Speaker, no government in Canada has ever argued that diversification is a bad thing. I believe it was Stephen Harper who signed our free trade agreement with South Korea, was it not? I would have to check. I think it was. Governments have signed free trade agreements. Government members go around saying that Canada is protected, that it has the most bilateral agreements with G7 nations. Of …
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Madam Speaker, there is growth, wealth, income and the way they are distributed. The Bloc Québécois's approach is quite simple. We note that fiscal capacity and room to manoeuvre are concentrated in Ottawa. Education, child care, health care, social services and municipalities—which are facing a homelessness crisis—fall under provincial jurisdiction or are directly provincial responsibilities. If …
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Madam Speaker, free trade allows us to specialize in the things we do best. It is not a contest to see who is the best and who is not. What I was trying to illustrate is that diversification has always been a constant battle for successive federal governments. The miracle that this Prime Minister is promising is decades in the making. The thing he is promising to deliver within three years in orde…
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Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member for Madawaska—Restigouche is asking the minister how this was received by the industry, because we know that Air Canada was getting ready to implement section 17 of the bill before members of Parliament had even seen the text of the bill. Today we are discussing democracy and time allocation. We are wondering, first of all, whether the privilege…
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Madam Speaker, I understand that members want to debate the content of Bill C‑31, but I want to remind everyone that we are in fact debating a time allocation motion on this bill and the decision to allocate a specific amount of time for debate on it. I have a question for the minister. Why did we have to spend more than three weeks asking officials from the Department of Finance for a technical b…
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Madam Speaker, with all due respect, sometimes very smart people, like the minister, say things that are far below their level of intelligence. The minister's answer to my last question falls into that category. I will explain why. The minister is telling us that three weeks is not much time to read 300 pages and that we were short on time. He is wondering why the government would give us a techni…
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Madam Speaker, typically, we used to be able to count on the Conservatives to champion decentralization and the protection of provincial jurisdictions, sometimes even at the cost of cutting transfers to the provinces. I just heard what my colleague said. He literally said that, in areas of jurisdiction that fall exclusively under the provinces and Quebec, like professional associations, showing le…
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Mr. Speaker, it seems we are doomed to disagree with the member for Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford today, not least because we appreciate the sound of the voice of the Assistant Deputy Speaker, who sat in the chair just before you. Beyond that, I would ask you, if possible—
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Mr. Speaker, we have a Conservative colleague who has come right out and asked us here in the House why it is easier for a company in southern Quebec to do business with New York state than with British Columbia. I think there is a reason why geography must remain a compulsory course for high school students. It is very important. The answer is that there is a continent separating Quebec and B.C. …
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Mr. Speaker, questions like that are a waste of time. Even a bad 300-page novel will have seven or eight good pages. That does not mean the whole book makes for pleasant reading. That is the government's same old strategy. It throws a few good things in with a bunch of unacceptable things. Backbenchers stand up and cry foul when we vote against the bill as a whole. If they think it is so important…
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Mr. Speaker, if we had had more time to debate this bill, we could have discussed the parts that should have been removed. That would have made the member for Acadie—Bathurst happy. We could have discussed the parts that could have been voted on separately. Since the member for Acadie—Bathurst is going to vote in favour of time allocation, we will not be able to do so. However, all joking aside, t…
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Mr. Speaker, I enjoy hearing the member talk about aeronautics and aerospace. There have been developments. We are happy to see that. For years, the federal Liberal government has refused to have an industrial policy on aeronautics and aerospace. We do not have one. There are even members from my region who go around telling unions that people do not want one, that it is pointless and that even th…
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Mr. Speaker, does my colleague believe that the Prime Minister understands the crisis and, if so, why is he acting in this way?
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Madam Speaker, as my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île said, a lot of climate policies have been walked back. The government ended the carbon tax and, for all intents and purposes, the industrial carbon tax. It is also allowing hydrogen made from methane to be classified as clean hydrogen, granting new oil subsidies, and so on. Despite all this backtracking, including the funding for new pipelines…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, today's schedule has been disrupted, albeit in a positive way, by the arrival of the Olympic and Paralympic athletes we welcomed earlier. In light of that, I would like to ask you to confirm what time the consideration of Private Members' Business will begin.
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Madam Speaker, this bill is more than 300 pages long and contains many questionable amendments and provisions. Among other things, there are measures that expand the government's powers and reduce transparency. There are measures that limit who can file a complaint with the procurement ombudsman and what types of complaints the ombudsman can review. Given that procurement, especially military proc…
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Madam Chair, I thank my colleagues for being here. I send my regards to the minister and thank him for being here. We always appreciate him. Minister, officials from the Department of Finance and the Department of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities gave us a briefing on Bill C‑26, which you yourself tabled. We were reassured. We understood that the bill would not impose any conditions on the …
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Madam Chair, thank you for reining in the minister's enthusiasm. I think he needs that from time to time. Minister, your government decided to—
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Madam Chair, I also need reining in. The government has decided to cut funding for agriculture and agri-food research, notably by closing the Quebec Research Centre in the riding of the Minister of Government Transformation, Public Works and Procurement and Quebec Lieutenant. This cut is being criticized by the entire agricultural community, and it will hinder productivity gains and research. Wher…
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Madam Chair, the minister has just told us that there is not a penny in these estimates to reopen the agricultural research centre in the Quebec City region. Farmers in Mirabel and elsewhere will remember that. I would like to know where, in these estimates, the additional $37 million needed for the independent local news fund is to be found. Our francophone media outlets are in crisis, and that m…
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Madam Chair, on budget day, the minister no doubt appreciated the way opposition members demonstrated in a compelling and humorous fashion how the government lacked ambition when it came to supporting the media. The Prime Minister said he refused to pay an entry fee to negotiate a trade deal with President Trump, but all it took was a post on President Trump's Truth Social for the Prime Minister t…
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