Government Orders
Madam Speaker, my colleague has spent a lot of time telling us that we need to shrink government and reduce debt and the deficit. I understand that; he is a Conservative. I respect his point of view, even though I do not share it. That being said, the government has fundamental responsibilities that should be important, even to a Conservative. One of those responsibilities is employment insurance.…
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Madam Speaker, our emotional colleague gave a very interesting speech. He told us that Canada is not yet in a recession because the GDP is going up. He is inventing some sort of recession that he calls a “functional” recession, where he tells us the per capita GDP is going down. That means, in his opinion, that the Canadian population is growing too quickly. First, if we receive too many immigrant…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that the Government of Quebec called for Bill C‑11. Quebec's cultural community called for Bill C‑11 or its equivalent. It is true that the Government of Quebec asked to be consulted when Bill C‑11 is applied in the Quebec context. Despite all that, the Conservatives continue to say that the bill violates freedom of expression based on the word of a single expert, Mr. Geist, w…
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Mr. Speaker, in response to the misinformation put forward by my colleague, I wish to point out that the Bloc Québécois has always supported and will continue to support freedom of expression, including the freedom of Quebeckers to live and thrive in their own culture.
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Mr. Speaker, by dismissing out of hand this legislative measure that the cultural community has been calling for for years, the Conservatives seem to be suggesting that all social media networks, which are not regulated enough, do a good job of promoting Quebec culture. I know that, like the other Conservatives, my colleague claims to be a defender of Quebec culture, including on social media. I w…
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Mr. Speaker, I am trying to understand the Conservatives. They oppose Bill C‑11, saying that it would undermine freedom of expression. However, they claim to be defending Quebec, because Quebec wrote a letter in which it asked for Bill C‑11 to be passed and stated that it must be consulted when the bill will apply in the Quebec context. In other words, Quebec would be opposed, in that context, to …
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Mr. Speaker, I will try again. Once again, my colleague from Abbotsford, like other Conservatives, says he is defending Quebec culture. I asked his colleague to name some Quebec francophone artists, but he could not, so I will help him out. We have, for example, our national poet, Gilles Vigneault. He is probably the most well-known artist in Quebec. Anyone concerned about Canadian culture, as he …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. For a while now, the Conservatives have been saying that they are standing up for Quebec by opposing Bill C‑11 and that their love for Canadian and Quebec culture knows no bounds. I will do my colleague a favour. I would like to give him the opportunity to name his three favourite francophone artists from Quebec, other than Celine Dion.
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Mr. Speaker, on February 14, I wished the NDP and the Liberals a Happy Valentine's Day. Today, to look at the budget document we have before us, I think that the union has been consummated. It is clear. What we learn from reading the budget document, which was summed up well by my colleague from Joliette, is that the federal government has a tremendous amount of means and that, with the help of th…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the leader of the official opposition for his very good speech, especially the parts in French. As he knows, the French language has a very rich vocabulary. We have a recipe for shepherd's pie: beef, corn, potatoes. For big numbers we say: millions, billions, trillions. I invite him to repeat after me. He began his speech with a lecture about consistency by using the M…
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Madam Speaker, when we look at the debt and the deficit, we have to look at it in proportion to the ability to pay. Any banker who is asked for a $2,000 or $3,000 loan does not treat someone with an annual income of $10,000 the same as someone with an income of $50,000 or $100,000. The same applies to people with assets and people with no assets. The first thing to look at is the debt-to-GDP ratio…
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Madam Speaker, there is no need to get angry. My colleague started by telling me that the government is good at administering programs, and he spoke about employment insurance. I hope that the government will not dip into the dental care fund as it did with the EI fund, because it is not doing a good job of administering that. Health care is a provincial jurisdiction and an area where the federal …
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Madam Speaker, last week, the member for Kingston and the Islands tweeted so much misinformation that Twitter had to put a warning notice on his post. I just realized that the Liberals are okay with that way of doing things. That way of doing things has spread from Kingston to Outremont. I am going to set the record straight on a number of things. We never said that everything in the budget was ba…
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Mr. Speaker, the aeronautics and aerospace industries are the pride of Quebec. Despite this, Canada is the only G7 country that does not have a comprehensive policy in that area. This budget contains nothing to correct the harmful effects of the luxury tax on small aircraft, which threatens 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in Quebec. When the time came to help Ontario's auto industry, Ottawa was alw…
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Madam Speaker, about two years ago, the Conservative member for Lethbridge said that Bill C-11 was just a way to protect old, out-of-date Quebec artists that nobody cares about anymore. My riding boasts our national poet, Gilles Vigneault, an extraordinary man. I have two questions for my colleague. Does he, too, feel that our national poet is an old, outdated artist? He has also been giving shout…
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Madam Speaker, as members have mentioned several times in the House, there is legislation dating back to 1991 that helps promote local content, including Quebec content. That legislation from 1991 has become a bit outdated. Inequality grew between the different platforms, so to continue to protect Quebec content, the legislation needs to be updated. We have three options. The first is to update th…
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Madam Speaker, we are here in Ottawa attempting to modernize the Broadcasting Act to better protect our local content. Quebec has made some demands. We are trying to advocate for those demands. Conservatives say they are proud Albertans and want nothing to do with regulations. Today, people asked questions during question period. They asked the minister if the prospective order will respect Quebec…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to the men and women who are carrying on a very Quebecois tradition that is rooted in our history and our identity: making maple syrup. Quebec produces 72% of the world's maple syrup, and the rest is clearly nothing more than table syrup, a pale imitation of the peerless original. The Quebec maple syrup industry is investing in research, new technologies an…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals keep saying that health care is important to them and that the provinces and Quebec accepted the deal. The reality is that they were forced to accept one-seventh of what they were asking for. If I offered the member a choice between one-seventh of his income or nothing, and held a knife to his throat, he would likely take one-seventh of his income because he would have …
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about funding for health care. We all know that the provinces were calling for $28 billion per year, but the government only put $4.4 billion per year on the table. Therefore, the government is giving the provinces only $1 for every $7 they asked for. I have two questions for my colleague. Does she think that $1 out of every $7 the provinces were calling for is e…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague keeps doing the same thing while hoping for different results. He did not listen to my speech. When we say that we need solutions to permanently increase the incomes of Quebeckers and Canadians, and when we say that, during a crisis, we need to offer people temporary assistance to get through the crisis—
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Mr. Speaker, I will take a few seconds to remind or inform my colleagues that this is the first St. Valentine's Day that the NDP and the Liberals have spent together since they struck their alliance. I wish them a happy Valentine's Day. We, in the Bloc Québécois, are sovereignists, and we want Quebec to be its own country. We would like Quebec to make its own decisions and choices. There are many …
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Mr. Speaker, I feel like I am in a Kafka novel. An important figure in the Liberal Party is telling me that if he had the chance to be in the opposition—and we hope he does, because perhaps he needs it—he would move such a motion. He tells me this after the Liberals refused to hear from the provinces and meet with the premiers for 28 months, and after they had the nerve to call something that will…
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Mr. Speaker, while the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge was asking his question, I heard the member for Timmins—James Bay call him a monkey. Given that he has been in the House for nearly 17 years, I think the comments I heard are unbecoming of a parliamentarian who should set an example and apologize.
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Mr. Speaker, I will start again because I was responding to my colleague and it is important that he hear the interpretation. I was saying that if the Conservatives keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results—
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Mr. Speaker, if my colleague thinks he can keep doing the same thing over and over with different results, he is clearly not listening to our proposals to permanently increase the incomes of Quebeckers and Canadians. We must give temporary help to those who are going through this crisis, and we must undertake an energy transition. I wish the Conservatives good luck with the eighth, ninth and tenth…
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Madam Speaker, there is a code of silence in the public service when it comes to McKinsey. We know that the opposition has called on the federal government to disclose all its contracts with the firm. Yesterday, in committee, a senior public servant revealed that he warned the heads of all departments and agencies covered by our request to beware of MPs. He advised them to be careful what they wri…
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Madam Speaker, lack of transparency has been the key issue in the McKinsey affair from the beginning. The Comptroller General of Canada has recommended a culture of silence in the public service, and that is just wrong. This is an indication that the government regards Parliament and us, MPs, as nothing less than a threat. This is serious. The minister's response suggests that the federal governme…
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Madam Speaker, this is an attempt to hijack the debate. I, for one, have problems with all kinds of laws, from a moral standpoint. There are laws that are passed in other Canadian provinces, in Quebec, in other countries and just about everywhere that I disagree with, whether they use the notwithstanding clause or not. The precedents my colleague refers to come from trying to revoke the unconditio…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues from all parties for taking the time to consider the bill that I have brought to their attention. There were some constructive and positive comments in absolutely every case. This gives me a lot of hope. I hope to see this bill studied in a non-partisan and constructive way in committee as well. The people who need to be heard are not the MPs, certainly…
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased that you did not confuse me with the member for Jonquière, which would nonetheless have been a huge compliment. Furthermore, Madam Speaker, please accept my regards because today is an important day for me, a very special day that I never thought I would see. For years, the federal government, particularly the current Prime Minister, has told us that no one is inte…
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Madam Speaker, Canadians are interested in democracy in constitutional matters when they outnumber the minority nine to one. We saw this in 1982. We saw it in 1867, when it was pretty much everyone against Quebec, and we saw it in the previous constitutions, when it was the monarchy against us. Yes, Quebeckers are a minority. I think that Quebec should be sovereign, and that would be much better f…
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Madam Speaker, what Ontario does is its own business and the same goes for Alberta. We do not like the government's habit of wanting to stick its nose where it does not belong, so I am not going to start doing the same thing. As I said before, today's debate was actually initiated by the Prime Minister. It is the Prime Minister himself who wants to go before the courts when we are dealing with inf…
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Madam Speaker, I applaud the minister and my colleagues. At the end of last year, we learned that the RCMP had allowed Sinclair Technologies, a company with ties to communist China, access to its security systems. We then were witness to a failure of regular surveillance mechanisms and a failure by the government to try to control access to our technologies by this company controlled in part by Ch…
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Mr. Speaker, Dominic Barton himself admitted that McKinsey did not consider the impact on French before recommending unprecedented increases to immigration. Unless and until we see the studies the Bloc Québécois has been calling for, we have to assume that the federal government did not consider the impact on French either before implementing McKinsey's recommendations. Obviously, that raises othe…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is not very united with the public service, because this contract sends the public service a very bad message. An 80-year contract with McKinsey shows that the government does not recognize its own public service's expertise and that it does not intend to rely on that expertise in the long term. In other words, the government is telling us that it does not intend to dev…
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Mr. Speaker, 2100 is a long time from now. I am not sure which party will form the government, nor whether the parties here will still be around, but I do know two things: In 2100, Quebec will be a country and McKinsey will still have a contract or arrangement with Canada. This raises important questions. Regardless of which party governs here, regardless of who voters elect, McKinsey will still b…
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Mr. Speaker, on October 18, a man died in a burning vehicle on Mirabel airport property. His name was Sylvain Richard, and I want to offer my sincere condolences to his family. This is a tragic event that calls for reflection, because at the time of the tragedy, Aéroports de Montréal chose to prohibit its firefighters from intervening. Despite this, as a matter of principle, firefighter Francis La…
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Madam Speaker, our Conservative colleague spoke about free enterprise and individual initiative. He also spoke about the need to reduce the size of government as much as possible. At one time, the proponents of conservatism wanted the market and capitalism to work properly. However, what I am hearing today is a member who is defending a market in which two companies hold an 80% to 90% share of the…
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Madam Speaker, a man died recently on Mirabel airport property after Aéroports de Montréal prohibited its firefighters from responding to a fire. I wonder if my colleague is comfortable with the fact that today we are reviewing legislation dealing with sanctions for judges and calling for more accountability for the judiciary, while non-profit organizations like Aéroports de Montréal, which act li…
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Mr. Speaker, justice is important, but the appearance of justice is just as important. In Quebec, they say that the Supreme Court is like the leaning tower of Pisa. It always leans the same way: against Quebeckers. I wonder if Quebeckers' declining confidence in the Supreme Court is due in large part to the secrecy and long-standing lack of transparency we see over and over in judicial appointment…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that the federal government subsidizes the oil industry, but so does the Canadian banking sector. In two years, the Royal Bank of Canada's investments in oil rose from $19 billion to $39 billion. That is a lot of money. It more than doubled its investments in two years. If the government was truly committed to fighting climate change, it would do two things. It would make it h…
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Mr. Speaker, we are debating a motion on the carbon tax, which, according to the Conservatives, is the enemy of humankind. What is more, we have before us Bill C-234, which will give our farmers some tax relief on farm fuels and the sales tax on propane used for drying grain. We have many farmers in my riding of Mirabel. I would like to know what the government thinks about that. We know that, pre…
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Mr. Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou. Mr. Speaker, I went to the cafeteria on the first floor yesterday to get a grilled cheese, and I was really hoping to see you there. You are very charming and I really appreciate you. In the end, upon reflection, it was just as well that you were not there, because I ran into a Conservative…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that I appreciate him. I welcome the fact that Valero Energy refines Canadian oil for domestic use. This further confirms that we do not need to increase production for export. I thank him for pointing that out. The Conservatives do not seem to understand that most days. Second, they need to understand that abolishing the carbon tax in provinces that are not environ…
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Mr. Speaker, today I want to reiterate how proud I am to be a Quebecker. When everyone was drawing back, pulling out of the Western Climate Initiative and reneging on their climate responsibilities. Quebec, as a nation, decided to take responsibility and set up its emissions trading system. Today, it is working so well that the Conservatives are jealous and are attacking it. In politics, when you …
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Mr. Speaker, many of our competitors that produce agricultural commodities are subject to similar tax measures in competing countries. What I tried to tell my colleague earlier in my speech, not my question, is that we recognize the impact on farmers, so we want targeted measures. What my colleague forgot to mention is that the carbon tax applies to markets in general. We care about farmers, and w…
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Mr. Speaker, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, urged banks to join the fight against climate change. He wants them to do one simple thing: Come up with verifiable plans for a swift transition to renewable energy. Meanwhile, Canada's big banks are among the top 20 fossil fuel backers in the world. A lot of oil money comes from Canadian banks. Will the government implement measures to enco…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a quote from the Auditor General's statement: “With the audits we are releasing today, the focus of our work is shifting to look at how federal departments and organizations managed programs and services for Canadians as the pandemic continued to evolve”. Today, in the House, the Minister of National Revenue questioned—
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