Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, very quickly, at the height of the inflation crisis in 2022, when inflation was at 6%, 7%, 8%, the Bloc Québécois had called for that. We also called for the frequency of the cheques to be increased. At the time, the minister said that was inappropriate. All of a sudden, for the same reasons, it became appropriate. As the saying goes, it helps to sleep on it. The minister needed sever…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that no one can be asked to do the impossible. We cannot ask the minister to move mountains, although the minister has an unfortunate tendency to create expectations that are impossible to fulfill. It is true that the Conservatives questioned him about this in committee yesterday. I say this in a non-partisan way. It is a fact that tensions sometimes rise in committees. It is …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for unanimous consent to split my time with my colleague from Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debate and I can see that people here are getting worked up. The Liberals and the Conservatives are shouting at each other. I am surprised by that, because this motion was adopted unanimously. We adopted it at first and second readings of the bill, which was sent to committee. We are now at third reading. I think that we can offer legitimate criticisms of …
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Mr. Speaker, that is quite the question. My colleague is referring to the bill introduced by the member for Terrebonne, which did not amend any section of any act. The purpose of the bill was to have Ottawa do what it is already doing. In my riding, the people of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac have experienced flooding. The Liberals wanted the people of Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac to have a nice app to let…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's answers are interesting because, when we asked him whether he was in favour of increasing OAS benefits for seniors aged 65 to 74, who are facing discrimination, he told us that the government is focusing on what would have an impact. He thinks that helping seniors has no impact. Those are his words. I would like him to explain why, in his opinion, helping seniors aged…
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Mr. Speaker, it is true that Ottawa writes the Criminal Code, but the provinces are the ones that administer justice. If we really want justice for victims, then we need a justice system that works. That takes courthouses, courtrooms, stenographers and bailiffs. It takes resources. Does my colleague agree that the federal government is not doing enough to fund the justice system and to help the pr…
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Mr. Speaker, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to share my speaking time with the member for Shefford.
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Mr. Speaker, for your sake, I will only take five minutes and 25 seconds. As I said earlier, we support the bill because times are hard and food inflation is real. Prices have gone up faster than inflation. Even when price increases do slow down, prices will remain high. It is often children who are affected, and this credit has been designed to support families in particular. As I said, I have a …
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Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that the two main items in the market basket of individuals and families are housing and groceries. In terms of housing, we have a government that has implemented immigration policies and thresholds that they themselves recognize are inappropriate and are, in fact, impediments to successful immigration, which involves people coming here and having all the tools …
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Mr. Speaker, I will try to make the most of the five minutes I have before question period. The situation with Bill C‑19 is a bit like Groundhog Day. The Liberals have decided to send out cheques and this is not the first time they have done so. This time, we have to give the government credit. In the midst of a purchasing power and cost of living crisis where people know that, even if inflation i…
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Mr. Speaker, we probably have the highest food inflation in the G7. Between 1984 and today, the number of grocery chains in Canada dropped from 13 to five, including Walmart and Costco, so the Liberals have had plenty of time to increase competition in the retail grocery sector. What does my colleague think Ottawa should do to increase competition as quickly as possible, not only in the grocery se…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals say they will discuss matters directly with citizens, but in their Bill C-15, they put a gun to their heads. People back home are not excited to know that they may be sent an expropriation notice via email. They are not excited to know that they will not be able to dispute these notices for 30 days. The Liberals want to get rid of the requirement to hold public hearings a…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is asking an interesting question on the short term versus the long term. Obviously, we have a permanent problem. The price increases are here to stay. Sending out one-time cheques to address a permanent problem may seem like an attempt to curry favour with voters. Now, members need to understand that the government finally, after 10 years in power, took a few little step…
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Mr. Speaker, the residents of Mirabel are once again being threatened with expropriation by the federal government. First it was the white elephant that is the airport and now it is the high-speed train. A new rail corridor was announced for the train at the last minute, and it is going right through my community. There were zero consultations with elected officials, farmers or the residents of Mi…
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Mr. Speaker, this measure will cost just over $4 billion in the first year alone. For several years now, the Bloc Québécois has been calling for a 10% increase in OAS benefits for seniors aged 65 to 74 to put an end to the discrimination that the Liberals instituted between two classes of seniors. Our request costs exactly, or almost exactly, the same amount as the benefit being announced today. T…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not agree with the parliamentary secretary. With all due respect, I think that implying that no real dialogue happens in the House of Commons is, once again, a bit of a slap in the face to democracy and ultimately sends the message that the House of Commons is just for show and there is no point in going to committee. I believe in democracy. Sometimes people need to meet one anot…
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Mr. Speaker, ever since the Jordan decision, when the Supreme Court determined what constituted a reasonable time frame in which to try an accused, criminals who have committed serious crimes have been released into the community due to a lack of judicial resources. This is unacceptable. Under the bill, relaxed criteria would allow judges to reassess the reasonable time frame issue. Ultimately, we…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, this is a somewhat unexpected turn of events, but since some members did not use all of their speaking time, I will take the liberty of adding a few remarks. Let me begin with a story. I grew up just north of the riding of Abitibi—Témiscamingue in a village called Lebel-sur-Quévillon. The population of the village was about 4,000 at the time. An older gentleman named Mr. Tremblay live…
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Madam Speaker, since this is the first time I am rising to speak in 2026, I want to start by wishing you a happy new year. I wish you all the best. May you have good health and may it continue. You know you have my best wishes. I also want to take this opportunity to wish a happy new year to everyone in the beautiful riding of Mirabel, to our local businesses, some of which are going through tough…
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Madam Speaker, we know that the minister has often been slow to appoint judges, even though there is no shortage of Liberal donors who are willing to take those jobs. As a result, with the Jordan decision, some criminals have been released. We know the story behind the Jordan decision. Did the minister ever consider using the notwithstanding clause to get around the Jordan decision in order to get…
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Madam Speaker, in the Jordan decision, the Supreme Court established reasonable time limits in which trials must be held. I understand that, in the bill, the minister is expanding the criteria that the court will have to consider when it redefines what constitutes reasonable time limits. I am wondering about the possibility that, ultimately, at the end of the exercise, with these new criteria, the…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very informative speech. What he forgot to mention is that, when it came time to vote on the budget, the Conservatives wanted to avoid an election so badly that they hid some members, including their House leader, behind the curtains. On voting day, they were hiding behind the curtains and in the washrooms to abstain from voting and ensure that the budget …
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Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Finance heard from the governor of the central bank, Mr. Macklem. The Conservatives asked him whether he thought that the industrial carbon tax was contributing to inflation. The Governor of the Bank of Canada confirmed that, unlike the consumer carbon tax, the carbon tax for large emitters did not generate any form of inflation, as this involves commodities …
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Finance was bragging about investing $115 billion over five years in his budget. However, if we take a close look at the numbers, we realize that, in fact, there will be only $9 billion in new funding over five years for all of the provinces from coast to coast to coast, including $5 billion earmarked to build hospitals and clinics. That means that the 10 provinces and…
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Mr. Speaker, in the budget, the government uses a definition of investment that does not exist anywhere else in the world. In committee, we pointed out that aspect of Bill C-15. The member for Whitby, who is the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, was unable to say where else in the world that definition is used. In the middle of the committee meeting, he consulted ChatGPT. He aske…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that this budget was put together in a hurry and that the Minister of Finance was not ready. The deficit will reach almost $80 billion this year alone. Now, to meet their deficit targets, the Liberals must find $50 billion in budget cuts over five years. Of the $50 billion in budget cuts, they have identified only $10 billion, and the Parliamentary Budget Officer and other obs…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague quite rightly referred to the report from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent officer of Parliament, which says that the federal government's programs will enable it to meet only 2% to 3% of its targets. Last week, during a Standing Committee on Finance hearing, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance and member for Whitby decided to filibuster…
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Mr. Speaker, at the Standing Committee on Finance, when the Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent official appointed by consensus by Parliament, issued reservations about the budget, the response from the Minister of Finance, who was in front of me, was simply to undermine the credibility of the institution, to say that the Parliamentary Budget Officer was entitled to his opinion, that it w…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today to mark the passing of a remarkable woman from Sainte-Scholastique and an important figure in the history of Quebec, Rita Léonard-Lafond. She was a woman of conviction and courage, who dedicated her entire life to defending her community at the height of the Mirabel expropriation saga. Through her efforts to support the public battles that le…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives rise to say that all Canadians voted in the last election to get rid of the carbon tax. However, the political reality is that people voted for the current Prime Minister because they were afraid of the Leader of the Opposition. They believed that getting rid of the carbon tax was a temporary compromise, even though they still supported the fight against climate chan…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very articulate speech in which he criticized the inappropriate comments that some Conservatives allegedly made about the national school food program. I would like him to know that, when Paccar, a truck manufacturing company in Sainte-Thérèse in my region, recently laid off 300 people, his Liberal colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville told these workers …
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 sets out a GST rebate for first-time buyers of new homes. The Prime Minister promised this rebate in March, when he was Prime Minister. We went on the campaign trail, then we came back. The Prime Minister finally tabled the notice of ways and means and the bill. Everyone who bought a home between the time the Prime Minister promised this rebate in March and the time of the el…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals have gotten into the habit of using the words “tax cuts for the middle class” for things that are not tax cuts for the middle class. In 2015, Justin Trudeau promised to lower the tax rate for the second income tax bracket. Those who benefited the most were the people earning more than $200,000 a year, because it is the wealthy taxpayers who go through all the tax bracke…
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Madam Speaker, there are some good things in Bill C-4, but basically it is a collection of election promises, including the tax cut. My colleague must know that the amounts of many of the tax credits received by the most vulnerable members of our society, including the disability tax credit, are calculated based on the tax rate for the lowest tax bracket. That means that, under Bill C-4, people wh…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Edmonton West for his speech. I very much enjoy working with him. Bill C-4 demonstrates the fact that the Prime Minister was willing to promise anything during the election campaign, without having done the math, without knowing how to go about it. This bill was introduced without any attention to detail. My colleague gave a very good example of that. In March…
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-4 is the story of a Prime Minister who runs in an election, promises everything but the kitchen sink, comes to sit in Parliament and then introduces a bill too quickly. The bill is poorly crafted and poorly thought out. For example, for the tax cut where the first bracket is reduced by 1%, the government failed to consider all of the potential effects because it worked too quic…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised in March to provide first-time homebuyers with a GST rebate on new homes. When we came back to Parliament after he was elected, he made the GST rebate effective only as of May in the original version of Bill C-4, which meant that thousands of homebuyers who believed what the Prime Minister said were ineligible for the GST rebate. The Bloc Québécois proposed…
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Mr. Speaker, it is sad when debates become personal. What we just heard from the parliamentary secretary is rather appalling. As far as the proposed amendments are concerned, since my colleague has likely spent 1,095 consecutive days in Canada, she would be eligible. Her child may have to take a test to be eligible. I am sure he can pass a test. I would like to know where in this debate anyone acc…
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Mr. Speaker, once again, I am pleased to speak here today. This debate is somewhat surreal. I am standing here yet, given the nature of the debate, I feel as though I am somewhere up in the stratosphere, floating in a space shuttle. We know how Liberals think. Liberals have a switch with two positions: “off” and “on”. They think one thing on Monday, switch to “off” that evening and then to “on” th…
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Mr. Speaker, do you see what is going on? Insults are being tossed back and forth. Here are the facts on these amendments. The committee determined that, for a person to be considered to have a substantial connection to Canada, they must have lived in Canada for a certain number of days over a certain period of time. Anyone over the age of 18 has to be able to speak an official language, undergo a…
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Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister and the mathematician across the way said that they were reaching out to the opposition, we thought it was so that we could work together not so that we could get slapped around. That promise is broken with threats of an election. Some will say that this is not the only broken promise. The Prime Minister also promised to protect us from Donald Trump. However, u…
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Mr. Speaker, in his previous speech, the member for Bourassa was once again a bit theatrical when he said that the amendments adopted in committee would distort the bill. This shows that he is both incompetent and disingenuous. Why do I say “incompetent”? The member knows full well that the amendments were accepted by the Chair. This means that they do not change the nature of the bill. The member…
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Mr. Speaker, I am wondering about the Liberals' tone and attitude in this debate. First, they are trying to turn the debate on Bill C‑3 into a debate on immigration, when it is a debate on the conditions that lead to citizenship. A few seconds ago, the member for Winnipeg North stood up and said that the opposition was out of touch. However, the minister was invited to appear before the committee …
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. For the umpteenth time, I think the member for Winnipeg North could quiet down and let my colleague finish his speech.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday we debated a committee report here in the House. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons stood up and told us the debate had no place here in the House. He said that the committees would handle this, that they were capable of doing their job and that, when the committee in question completes its work, the government would take note…
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Mr. Speaker, on immigration, there needs to be consistency between the various legislative measures. Those hoping to become naturalized have to fulfill certain requirements. They are required to have lived in the country for 1,095 days over a period of five years. A security assessment is done, a language test is administered, and a citizenship test is completed. Those are the rules. That is exact…
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Mr. Speaker, the cat is out of the bag. Yesterday, the government House leader openly threatened a Christmas election if the House does not support his budget as it stands. The Liberals did not hold any pre-budget consultations, did not hear from any witnesses in committee and did not include any of the opposition's demands in the budget. Now, they are already resorting to blackmail instead of try…
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Mr. Speaker, I would never question the Chair's good faith or way of working, but we can still assume that his decision will have consequences. From what I understand, the parties may not share the same opinion on two categories of amendments. The parties do not seem to have the same opinion on the number of days of continuous residence in Canada as on the other qualification criteria, including t…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Terrebonne for introducing this bill. This subject is very important to me. As members know, I am the member for the riding of Mirabel. A large part of my riding borders the Lac des Deux Montagnes. Folks in my riding are very familiar with extreme weather events that have a devastating impact on our built heritage and people's lives. As everyone knows, in 2019, …
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