Government Orders
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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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, 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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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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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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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, 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, 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, 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…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
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…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
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, 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, 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, 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…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
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, 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, 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, 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…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
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, 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, 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, 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, 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, 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, to make a long story short, today the Minister of National Revenue attacked a fundamental institution of the House whose primary role is to hold the government accountable. She tried to mislead the House. She was therefore out of order. Today she must rise, retract her comments and apologize.
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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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Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure I understood my colleague's speech. What has to be done to create more unity and inclusiveness in society is to get rid of taxes and lower income taxes so that one day there will be a trickle-down effect that will unite everyone in Canada and Quebec. Have I correctly understood the underlying Conservative mentality in the speech my Conservative colleague just …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets for her speech. Here are my takeaways from my colleague's speech: Not everything in this bill is black and white, and it could be improved. Also, the Conservatives want to vote against the bill just to prevent it from going to committee. In contrast, I think we can find common ground and amend it. I have to say that this unwillingn…
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Madam Speaker, we know that businesses and companies find data to be very useful for many purposes, including offering consumers the goods and services they prefer. However, data can also be used to reduce competition, charge certain selected individuals higher prices for a good, or increase delivery charges for food in locations where there is less competition. Data can therefore be used to stifl…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, on October 31, students of the secondary school in Oka took action to raise awareness among their peers. During a spooky haunted mansion tour on Halloween, nine young girls in black capes held a tombstone with the names of Quebec's most recent femicide victims. At the end of the tour, there was a banner that read, “Were you afraid? We don't want to spend our whole lives being afraid”.…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her very interesting speech, in which she explained how the CBSA's existing complaint management system can result in injustice, especially toward certain minorities that may be targeted. Just before that, my colleague from Kingston and the Islands said that, every time someone rises to talk about Bill C‑20, they are just wasting time and delaying pa…
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Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on what my Conservative colleague was saying. His excellent speech shows that, when there are good-quality, well-thought-out bills that people can agree on, then Parliament works very well, and the long series of gag orders supported by NDP are often unnecessary. I would like to hear his comments on that. As my colleague said, this bill needs to go to committee bec…
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Madam Speaker, while we are on this topic, I would like to ask my colleague a somewhat speculative question. Recently, last week in fact, a motion giving the government the power to unilaterally decide to make us sit until midnight every night, not just until December but until June, was rammed down our throats. These types of motions that give all the power to the government are obviously support…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague did an astute job of outlining the problems affecting the people in her riding. In addition to all the problems she referred to, there is the fact that some of my constituents are sick and in hospital. We know that Quebec and the provinces are unanimous in calling for health transfers to be increased immediately and unconditionally to cover 35% of system costs. Since th…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for an excellent and very interesting speech. The new trend among Conservatives is to say that for every new expenditure, an old expenditure must be eliminated so that the balance remains at zero. They are obviously forgetting about inflation and economic growth. That is forgivable, however, since we know that economics is not the Conservatives' strong suit. Havin…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I have read the bill carefully. I understand that there is a very proactive aspect to the bill, that is, setting up committees to improve processes so that we can avoid what happened in the past. The very sad reality is that the pandemic is not over. Hopefully we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but we are still very much in it. The government has made some management er…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague from Beaches—East York for introducing this bill. I must say I have a great deal of respect for that colleague. I think he is a free thinker and a top-notch parliamentarian. I noticed that even before I joined Parliament. I was waiting for the right time to tell him, and now it has come. Bill C‑293 essentially seeks to ensure that the Governmen…
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