Government Orders
Madam Chair, the Minister of Finance is well aware that his Prime Minister bent the knee to Trump and paid the entry fee to negotiate. That is why he is avoiding the question. Now, in Bill C‑31, the government is once again bending the knee to President Trump by amending the Global Minimum Tax Act to exempt American companies. Does it trouble the minister that this coincides with a decision by Bro…
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Madam Chair, again, the minister calls bowing to the U.S. President's demands generational investments. It is worth noting that the government has asked Statistics Canada, the agricultural research centres, the National Research Council of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the National Film Board of Canada to tighten their belts, yet it has made cuts while finding money for the Governor…
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Madam Chair, once again, he is cutting funding for science, agriculture and the National Film Board of Canada, but he managed to find one-third of a million dollars for the Governor General. Does he think the Governor General and her office now have the resources to produce a nice film for us about the $7,000 shoes the Governor General just might buy with that money?
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Madam Chair, the Standing Orders allow members, during the consideration of the estimates, to ask the minister about the expenses of the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, which are on page 6 of the estimates. That is what I just did, having given myself that right with all due respect for the head of state. Now, through a unanimous motion, the National Assembly has asked for $733 mi…
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Madam Chair, we know the Minister of Finance. He is very nice and gets along with everyone, but when it comes time to comply with the unanimous requests of the National Assembly, he disappears. That is what we see in these estimates: The amount is not there, just like—I am guessing, though I wonder why—the $814 million stolen from Quebeckers when the Liberals bought votes in the last election by s…
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Madam Chair, the minister is allocating $710 million in additional funding to Alto, which is still officially called VIA HFR after a project that was scrapped at the last minute. I would like to know whether he is aware of how much of that amount will be used to pay for the expropriation of land, particularly in Mirabel, and how much of that amount will be used for Alto's advertising blitz, as thi…
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Madam Chair, if he considers infrastructure so important, why did his government decide to cut $5 billion over 10 years from the public transit fund?
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Madam Chair, I am very protective of my time. I guard it as if it were a pearl. We note that, in the budget, $229 million has been cut from Statistics Canada. I understand that the government has decided to invest elsewhere in science and research, but the last person to make such significant cuts to Statistics Canada was Stephen Harper, as part of his effort to ensure that Parliament and parliame…
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Madam Chair, the minister increased the funding allocated to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner by 2.5%, or approximately $225,000. I would like him to tell me what proportion of this additional spending will be used to monitor the Prime Minister's conflicts of interest.
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Madam Chair, speaking of resources allocated in the estimates, the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec and steelworkers are calling for a wage subsidy to help maintain the employment relationship between employers and workers who have been hit hard by the new tariff calculation. From what I understand, not a single penny of the budget will be allocated to a wage subsidy program. The mini…
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Madam Chair, you know I appreciate you. You deserve these last five seconds and more.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I invoke Standing Order 69.1 of the House of Commons to ask you to divide division 17, which amends the Canada Transportation Act, in Bill C-31, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget. As your predecessor reminded us in his ruling of January 30, 2024, the objective of Standing Order 69.1 is to enable the House to vote separately on provisions from an omnibus bill t…
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Mr. Speaker, regardless of the content of the bill, we know that today we are dealing with a government and a Minister of Finance for whom the democratic process is purely cosmetic. During the committee's study on Driver Inc. truckers, we saw them shut down debate. We have seen them curtail the work of committees and impose in camera proceedings. As soon as they had their majority, their first mov…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the Minister of Finance, cannot stand up and say how much he respects his colleagues and then not answer any of their questions. He cannot stand up and say that he respects the House of Commons and then avoid the questions. I asked a simple question, and I know that the minister is a smart man who is capable of understanding it. The government is shutting down debate, sa…
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask the Minister of Finance a question. I know he will not answer it because he is an expert at avoiding questions. We are debating a bill that is 34 pages long and contains 52 clauses. The minister says he likes to debate. However, by limiting the entire debate to three hours, he is leaving us with three minutes and 27 seconds of debating time per clause in the bill. If…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Since I applauded the Airbus announcement on LCN this morning at 6:35 a.m., I would ask you to recognize that the Minister of Transport intentionally misled the House and, as a result, I would ask you to send him to spend some time in the Centre Block dungeons at his own expense.
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Mr. Speaker, people representing the furniture industry are on Parliament Hill today. My colleagues and I met with them this morning. I know that people from the industry are meeting with colleagues from the other parties as well. When we met with them, they basically told us that the measures announced yesterday would not go very far for very long. They also told us that time is ticking and that …
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Mr. Speaker, the Alto steamroller is barrelling down on the people of Mirabel for the high-speed train project. At first, Alto employees were knocking on people's doors to ask permission to perform inspections on their property, but now, they are sending letters to try to buy unlimited access to properties for three years, day or night, for $1,500. Imagine how stressful that is for citizens who ha…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I work together on the Standing Committee on Finance. Things have been going well, at least so far. We will make sure it stays that way. My colleague mentioned the auto industry in her riding and many other large industries that have a certain degree of resilience and are able to secure the loans ranging from $2 million to $50 million that were announced yesterday. Fo…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague just touched on the point I was going to start with when she said that we talk a lot about companies, industry and big name corporations, but that the reason we are having this debate today is, first and foremost, for the people who work, for the workers. Since the start of this tariff crisis, 9,700 jobs have been lost in Quebec. I am talking about well-paying, skilled jo…
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Mr. Speaker, I am in touch with wood processing plants in my riding that have been somewhat impacted for a long time. Some sectors have been subjected to 50% tariffs for a long time, and we know that a solution cannot come fast enough. The aeronautics and aerospace industries have been relatively spared, at least for the time being. In Mirabel, we have been lucky, but small businesses are worried.…
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Mr. Speaker, the short answer is yes, for the most vulnerable businesses. Similarly, I would like to point out that it is not equally easy for all types of businesses to diversify and seek out new export markets. A large manufacturing company has the resources to do so, but a smaller company often exports a larger proportion of its production to the United States. It is therefore more difficult, t…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is a macroeconomist. This explains why he lacks an eye for detail in certain areas. In the case of the wage subsidy, its purpose is to allow the business to pause operations while production is halted, in a context where the EI system is inadequate or where its actuarial structure means that if these workers were covered, then smaller SMEs would end up being taxed m…
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Mr. Speaker, I did not talk about that investigation specifically, but it is clear that it is a problem. It is clear that the Minister of Finance was right to take that initiative. Just because we are opening our borders and there is a type of free market between the countries does not mean that everything coming into our country is competitive. There are problems with Chinese products. That is tr…
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Mr. Speaker, if there is one sector that does not need government support, it is the energy sector, particularly in the west. I believe that the oil companies are getting about $10 billion a year in subsidies for small modular reactors that make it possible to produce even more oil. The accelerated capital cost allowance has also been expanded to include enhanced oil recovery, which basically invo…
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, businesses are not going to get help quickly that way. The program is not agile enough. I did not say that the program was all bad. I said that these two programs were never designed to handle a situation as urgent as the one we are facing today. That is what I said. These are good tools for doing something, but not for doing what needs to be done today.
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Mr. Speaker, this government, which was elected as a minority government, bought itself a majority by getting members to cross the floor. It is taking the democratic work of a committee and undoing it. Today, it is using the majority it bought to impose a gag order, but that is not the worst part. We have here a minister who is simply repeating the same old lines and who cannot answer a single one…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, all I can say is that the Minister of Finance was boasting about having a smaller-than-expected deficit. We see in the forecasts that the deficits for the next four years remain the same. While he is boasting about having a good year, he is not telling us that he feels guilty about forecasting four bad years. It is clear that the government needs to tighten its belt, and we expect the…
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard to form an opinion about a document that is so unfinished. The purpose of an economic update is to take stock. We know that the government shifted the budget cycle and tabled a budget in the fall, a budget it was probably not ready for. We saw that certain measures were unfinished. We saw the advance GST cheque. The government did not table a budget after it was elected, ev…
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I thank my colleague, Mr. Speaker. Basically, the finance minister keeps saying that the world has changed. In his view, the world is always changing, so the situation is serious. Here is what has changed recently. A little over two weeks ago, the U.S. president signed a new executive order changing the way tariffs are calculated on goods exported by Quebec and Canada. Previously, about 85% of our…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I know that she has worked with us in the past, in a former life. We never spoke much, but I appreciate her, and I would invite her, if she fancies some 100% pure maple syrup, to come to Mirabel. I would be delighted to give her some. Ours is 100% pure. Following that little joke, which comes from the heart, I can tell her that it is true that there…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that, a few months ago, my colleague did not speak a word of French. It is extraordinary that she is able to ask questions in French, and I want to commend her for that. My colleague was probably referring to the sovereign wealth fund. We have no information about this sovereign wealth fund. It is hard to criticize what we do not know. However, one thing is certain…
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Mr. Speaker, I am on page 129. Essentially, what the government is going to do is borrow $25 billion. It is going to funnel that money into a corporation somewhere where there will be a lack of transparency, a corporation that will not be subject to parliamentary oversight. We, the taxpayers, will be paying interest on that every year. We asked the government how this would be financed, and what k…
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Mr. Speaker, I certainly did not intend to offend my colleague. Incidentally, my riding includes the beautiful community of Kanesatake, and I want to say hello to everyone there. I certainly did not intend to offend anyone with my terrible sense of humour, which is sometimes a bit of a trademark for me. On the environmental issue, there may be pipeline projects, but in this economic update, the go…
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Mr. Speaker, our colleagues opposite are certainly not wrong to say that the composition of committees should reflect the composition of the House. It is true that, according to British parliamentary tradition, a majority in the House normally means a majority on committees. However, that does not mean we have to agree with how things are done. We understand that the government has a short fuse an…
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Mr. Speaker, the members opposite can say what they will, but we are dealing with a government that no longer has the slightest regard for our parliamentary traditions. It started in the previous Parliament, when the government decided to change the rules of how the House operates without unanimous consent. Today, they are telling us that it is normal for a majority government to have a majority o…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I say this with all due respect for the historical events the member is referring to, but we are debating a time allocation motion. I think it is written in the Standing Orders that we must not ask questions that are off topic. That is in the Standing Orders, and this is not a point of debate. Mr. Speaker, I invite you to make a ruling on this.
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Mr. Speaker, it is 2026. The first allegations against General Vance date back to 2015. At the time, rather than taking action, the Harper government gave him a promotion. Since then, we have had the Arbour, Deschamps and Fish reports, and yet here we are, still talking about this crisis in Canada's military justice system. I have two questions. First, I would like to know why all the governments,…
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Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the first allegations against General Vance came out in 2015. The Harper government gave him a promotion. This has been going on for over 10 years. It is now 2026. We got the reports from justices Arbour and Fish, and Justice Deschamps examined suggestions for legislative changes. However, in the bill before us today, the government has decided to ignore a major rec…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Chambre de commerce et d'industrie de Mirabel. This is a major milestone that deserves to be acknowledged. For 50 years, Mirabel's chamber of commerce has been deeply involved in the community. Since I was elected in 2021, I have seen an organization that listens to its members, that is innovative and that is essential to the region's econom…
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Mr. Speaker, the economic update is also an opportunity to remind the Liberals that the tariff crisis is not the only crisis happening right now. Yes, we have to invest in defence, but that is no reason to cut health care funding, which they plan to do starting in 2028. It is no reason to abandon our media. It is no reason to cut funding for public transit. The Liberals can tackle all of these cri…
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Mr. Speaker, we obviously agree that it is important to implement modern treaties. Although we support Bill C-10, in a way it is also disappointing that we have had to resort to this measure to ensure that the treaties are properly implemented. This legislation establishes an office of a commissioner. The commissioner will be able to make recommendations and submit a report. However, this commissi…
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Mr. Speaker, I will rephrase the question that I asked earlier since I did not get an answer from the Liberals. Through this bill, the government is creating an office for a commissioner whose decisions will not be binding. Under this legislation, what will the consequences be if the government fails to respect the commissioner's recommendations?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. He raised some very valid points in many respects. I would like to know what he thinks of a government that wants to grant more powers to police and intelligence services but that has just slashed the budget of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, which is supposed to monitor those services, to save a few pennies. How can…
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Mr. Speaker, members will recall that Bill C‑2 was split, in part because certain aspects of the bill were unacceptable. Today, it is back as Bill C‑22. One unacceptable part of Bill C‑2 was that it used reasonable suspicion, rather than reasonable belief, to allow authorities to obtain information simply by getting a court order. A number of experts spoke out about this and told us that it could …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette—Manawan for giving an excellent and very informative speech, as usual. His answers to the questions were equally insightful. We are here to discuss gas prices, because the situation today is truly troubling, distressing and worrisome for families. One of the reasons we are discussing this issue today, if not the only reason, is President Trump's Iran…
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Mr. Speaker, I am quite fond of the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. It is a pleasure to work with him. The answer is yes. That is why we voted in favour of that benefit and that is why we welcomed that cheque. That is exactly what we were saying. This cheque, which is the former GST rebate, takes into account household composition, family allowances and income. It is targeted, and it is the kind of…
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Mr. Speaker, I take issue with the question itself. The structure of the question seems like sophistry. What the member is saying is that because the transition will take time, there is no point in doing it step by step and we should abandon the attempt altogether and just drown ourselves in oil. We have consistently acknowledged that this will take time. We have not said that all pipelines must b…
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Mr. Speaker, this reminds me of the discussion we had yesterday and the witnesses we heard from at the finance committee. We all agreed that Canada has a productivity problem and that we need to grow our collective wealth. We also have to make sure that people's income, especially that of the poorest 20% of households, rises faster than the cost of living. That calls for private investment. We als…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I would like to give my regard to my colleagues on this Monday morning. I am pleased to rise on behalf of the Bloc Québécois to speak to Bill C-242 regarding interim release. I read the bill and examined it very closely. In short, this bill seeks to do 12 different things. Let us start with the first one. First, it is important to remember that the bill seeks to replace the principle …
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