Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am always somewhat astounded to hear my Conservative colleagues defend people who are struggling to make ends meet and talk about their unfortunate reality while continuing to lobby for an oil industry that is making huge profits, but whose profits are going into the pockets of Americans. We are studying a motion that aims to restore Canada's sovereignty over the United States. Howe…
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Madam Speaker, as this is my first speech of the year, I would like to welcome my colleagues to the House and wish them an excellent parliamentary session. We are studying a motion to restore Canada's sovereignty vis-à-vis the United States. Pathways Alliance members account for 80% of oil sands production and are 73% foreign owned, 60% of which is American. These companies made $131.6 billion in …
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Mr. Speaker, in November 2023, the Standing Committee on Health tabled a unanimous report calling for a breast implant registry and the recognition of breast implant illness. Health Canada has been dragging its feet, and three years later, nothing has been done. This has been going on for 30 years. Shame on Health Canada for neglecting the health of generations of women in this way. Breast implant…
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Mr. Speaker, I see "help wanted" signs all over my riding. I have met with business leaders, entrepreneurs and workers at various companies. Of course, I am obviously not talking here about temporary foreign workers in the agriculture sector. The people I meet are concerned about applying a 20% standard, so reducing it to 10% would be a really big deal for them. The fact is that they cannot hire e…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his speech, which was rather nuanced. I wonder if he agrees with his leader's statement from September when he said that Ottawa must scrap the temporary foreign worker program if it really wants to help young Canadians find jobs. Can my colleague explain his leader's comments? Or does he agree with these comments?
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Mr. Speaker, youth unemployment is high. It has been said that people need to first get a job in order to gain experience. Often, that is a problem. If people do not have experience, they do not have the required qualifications and they do not get hired. The Canada summer jobs program allows young people to gain that initial work experience. How does my colleague explain the fact that the governme…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague raised an interesting point earlier, when she spoke about the costs associated with this. Let us not forget that the changes the federal government made to the Criminal Code with respect to cannabis meant that the federal government collected taxes and kept all the money for itself, while the provinces had to bear the administrative costs of these changes. In this specifi…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, what I am hearing from my colleague reflects my own opinion. This bill is utterly pointless. Of course all the provinces want to be able to provide appropriate care to their residents. I am not aware of any premier of Quebec or of any province who is happy with the current situation. However, accountability and transparency would also require the Liberal government to admit that it is…
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Mr. Speaker, thank you for calling me to order. I did actually think I could ask a question. I will continue with my speech. I doubt the member for Surrey Newton consulted the 44 members from Quebec. If he did not consult the provinces, he did not consult members from Quebec either. I would be curious to hear what those 44 members think of Bill C-239, because it does not seem to change anything in…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech. I heard him talk about the issue of sentencing. We know that, in the judicial process, judges are responsible for sentencing. They have the flexibility they need to apply a sentence that fits the crime. Does my colleague's current emphasis on sentencing and wanting to pass legislation reflect his belief, namely that judges are not doing the…
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Mr. Speaker, it blows my mind to hear my colleague talk about shared jurisdiction even as he says there is no need to consult the provinces on his bill. What a bunch of nonsense. My colleague is concerned about accountability. In Quebec and the provinces, accountability happens every time there is a provincial election. Can my colleague recall even a single time, during a federal election, when he…
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Madam Speaker, I am surprised by what the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government is telling us today, because the Liberals are always trying to teach the Conservatives a lesson, telling them to take note of the election result. The Liberals themselves should take note of the election result. The government does not have a majority. It is a minority government. As such, the Liberal…
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Madam Speaker, the question is not so much what has changed, and this is not limited to members. It is simply that we have to review the provisions of the law every five years, and that is where we are now. It is as simple as that. We have reached the point where we need to review the law, and we have submitted a report outlining the issues we wish to examine, because the world is changing and peo…
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Mr. Speaker, I commend my committee colleague who, I want to point out, is doing a very good job in the chair this afternoon. We did indeed hear from a few witnesses, including the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, who was very concerned that restricting conflict of interest rules could discourage “competent” people from entering politics. He said that we need to strike a balance: rest…
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Mr. Speaker, for me, engaging in politics is a noble pursuit. A key pillar of my work in politics is to make politics more ethical. Does my colleague realize that the other side of the House is setting a trap and trying to reopen the debate by playing petty partisan politics? Right now, I want to bring the debate back to ethics. Does my colleague agree that the Conflict of Interest Act should be e…
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Mr. Speaker, this is a clear example of the contempt toward the House of Commons that I mentioned earlier. For the Liberals, committees are just a way to keep people busy. They use them to get rid of issues they do not want to discuss in the House. However, it is important to discuss these issues in the people's place and not just in committees, whose reports just gather dust anyway, as we all kno…
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Madam Speaker, I am very disappointed in my colleague's intervention. He says we should be talking something else, like Bill C‑3. He does that often. If the Liberals would stop sabotaging the work that is done in committee, we could make more progress on Bill C‑3. They need to take a look in the mirror. Today we are seeing the perfect example of the art of turning an ethical debate into a petty po…
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Madam Speaker, some people say it is because we need to encourage competent people to enter politics, as though competence has something to do with wealth or the fact that a person owns shares and interests in a number of companies. My question about the Prime Minister's conflict of interest screen is whether his chief of staff asked him to be careful when, at the G7 meeting, he took steps to exem…
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Madam Speaker, some witnesses told us that it was a smokescreen. Others talked about the need to work on the operational aspects of this. However, it became clear that this should not be managed by subordinates of the highest-ranking official, the highest-ranking person in the government, especially since he is the one who decides on economic policy. Also, when he first came to power, he took adva…
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Mr. Speaker, we did a lot of work during the previous Parliament on the issue of Chinese foreign interference. We debated that a lot. Today, we heard from a witness, an investigative journalist, who came to tell us about Brookfield's various ties to China back when the Prime Minister was the head of that firm. Does my colleague find that troubling?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, in her speech, my colleague said that this bill would do what it needs to do and that, among other things, it would ensure the integrity of the border. Good intentions aside, a bill is only good insofar as it can be effective on the ground. We are reportedly 2,000 to 3,000 border officers short of the number we would need to keep the border secure. Will her government act now to ensur…
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Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Health spent a year working on the toxic drug crisis. All the experts said that cracking down on clandestine labs was absolutely crucial. One way to do this is to take action on the precursors, in other words, the substances used to make illicit drugs. Part 2 of Bill C‑12 gives the Minister of Health the authority to better regulate these precursors. I would …
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Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Health studied the issue of the toxic drug crisis, and several witnesses told us that there needs to be better control of precursors, the substances used in the manufacture of drugs such as fentanyl. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about part 2 of the bill, which gives the Minister of Health additional powers with respect to precursors.
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Mr. Speaker, according to the Customs and Immigration Union, another 2,000 to 3,000 border officers are needed to protect border security properly. Does my colleague think that there is enough personnel to meet the bill's requirements?
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Mr. Speaker, as everyone knows, the debates we have here can help us develop and draft the best bill possible, but if we fail to ensure it is effective in the real world, it becomes a bad law. The Customs and Immigration Union tells us that we need somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 more border officers to keep the borders secure. Will my colleague join us in our efforts to make this happen and ens…
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Mr. Speaker, looking beyond the sexual scandal and abuse of power highlighted in the 2015 Deschamps report, does my colleague not also find it scandalous that it took more than 10 years to draft legislation to address the culture of silence in the CAF?
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure that my colleague from Winnipeg North would agree with me that, in an organization as hierarchical as the Canadian Armed Forces, we cannot allow a code of silence to hide sexual abuse or discrimination, or allow it to exist at the highest levels of the armed forces. We cannot have a system where those responsible for judging it are part of it, and military justice clearly fa…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech by my colleague from Quebec Centre. He invoked the principle that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” by reminding us of everything that needs to implemented before crimes are committed. We agree on that point. Would my colleague agree with the Bloc Québécois that something needs to be done about the amount of time before an accused per…
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Speaker, as I was saying earlier, the Conservatives are entitled to focus attention on Bill C‑242, which will likely be studied soon enough since it sits 10th in line in the draw for private members' bills. Ever since the debate started, members have been urged to set partisan politics aside. At the same time, the Conservatives moved a motion that we will inevitably have to vote against because it…
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois has also suggested ways to crack down on organized crime. Using an opposition day to focus on a private member's bill is fair game. As I understand it, Bill C‑242 is 10th on the list of private members' bills coming up for debate in the House. Why fast-track it today when we do not even know the bill's status? Is it going to be ruled in order or not on the basis of …
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Mr. Speaker, does my colleague from Les Pays‑d'en‑Haut agree with the Bloc Québécois that we need to crack down on criminal organizations, including by creating an organized crime registry similar to the registry of terrorist organizations? This would make it easier to prove that a crime has been committed for the benefit of a criminal organization. Does he agree that we should facilitate asset se…
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Madam Speaker, currently, subsection 515(10) of the Criminal Code sets out the bail conditions that a judge may impose. My colleague announced a bail reform bill. Is the government suggesting that judges are not doing their job properly?
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a very friendly suggestion to my colleagues that they read a book that taught me a lot on the topic of this debate, since there seems to be some misunderstanding about it. The book is entitled The Charter of Rights and the Legalization of Politics in Canada. My colleagues can take notes. It was not written by a Bloc member, a sovereignist or a separatist, as the me…
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Mr. Speaker, no Quebec premier, whether federalist or sovereignist, signed the Canadian Constitution. Why is that? Because, lectures about respect for minorities aside, the Constitution took away our status as a minority and as a nation. Pierre Elliott Trudeau's fantasy about establishing bilingualism and biculturalism foundered in the murky depths of a ghettoizing multiculturalism that failed to …
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the courage of the member for Bourassa, who, unlike many of his colleagues, has spoken out on the substance of Bill 21. I find that very courageous. He opposes Bill 21, a bill that was democratically passed by the Quebec National Assembly. I do not know where he was in 1982, but I think he has forgotten something about the history of Canada and Quebec, specifically that t…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his eloquent speech. It covers all the essential elements of our cause. Since the Constitution was repatriated in 1982, a phenomenon known as the judicialization of political space has taken hold. In other words, we are constantly sending issues to the courts when we lack the courage to resolve them politically. If the Liberals object to the notw…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague claims that it is not the substance of the issue that is at stake, but rather the issue of the notwithstanding clause, which is not strictly a Quebec issue. I have a very simple question for him. What does he think of Bill 21?
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the debate since this afternoon. On one side, we have the Liberals engaging in wilful hypocrisy, and on the other, the Conservatives engaging in wilful blindness. The arguments we are hearing in today's debate in the House are arguments we have been hearing for the past 30 years. Economic interests are being promoted over environmental interests. In a world …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for using this bill to share his vision of what Canada is. I see that he recognizes the origins of this country in three nations coming together. However, the Bloc Québécois has been criticizing the concept of a postnational Canada for a long time, first of all because it undermines the Quebec nation's struggle to have our distinctiveness recognized and respected.…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for reviewing this bill's trajectory to date. It was debated in the House at second reading, and, had it not been for the election and, to a certain extent, the systematic obstruction of the business of the House, it probably would have been passed already. The Bloc Québécois would like to see a complete overhaul of the immigration system because it is not working…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have spent all day criticizing the broken immigration system, and that is fair enough. We feel the same way and agree with their criticism. However, was it worth spending an entire day debating the principle of a bill that basically poses few problems? My colleague believes so. Given that my colleague identified some things that he agreed with and others that he did …
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Calgary Centre's speech was a continuation of the criticism over the government's inept handling of the immigration file. The Bloc Québécois has asked hundreds of questions on the issue, particularly about Roxham Road and about the Century Initiative and its target of 500,000 immigrants a year. However, there was a court ruling, and we must respond to it. In his speech,…
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The problem arises if her children are born abroad.
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Mr. Speaker, I am trying to understand what injustice this bill is remedying. Let me give another example. I will speak slowly so my colleague can give me the right answer. I would like to talk about the case of Jean-François. His father was born abroad. Jean-François was born abroad when his father was doing his Ph.D. in the United States. Despite the fact that he came to Quebec at the age of thr…
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Mr. Speaker, just to be clear, I would like my colleague to tell me if he agrees that the situation I am about to describe should be resolved. Here we have the case of the child from the Brooke-Bjorkquist family. The child was born in Geneva in 2010 to his parents who were working abroad for the Government of Canada. Despite the fact that the child was born to two Canadian parents and she returned…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Mascouche is celebrating its 275th anniversary. This city, whose name comes from an Algonquin word meaning “bear cub”, is one of the oldest communities in Quebec. Known for its history and architectural heritage, this city has transcended time and has has reinvented itself from one century to the next. What sets it apart is the special way it blends nature and bucolic charm with a vib…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague how, considering our job description, we are supposed to be able do our work when the government is so lacking in transparency when it comes to being accountable. Before the election, he gave the Minister of Finance a mandate to prepare a budget. Before and during the election, it was ready. There was no issue. Now, after the election, the government i…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not a banker like the Prime Minister, but something is not working. On the one hand, we are being told that the government will balance the budget in three years. On the other hand, the government is cutting taxes and abolishing the retaliatory measures that would have helped workers and businesses, even though it knows that it will also have to help them. What is wrong with this…
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Mr. Speaker, this is a banker turned Prime Minister who, when pressed about his lack of transparency, shuts us down, saying that he understands the issue, that he would not be in politics if not for the crisis and that he is going to do what it takes to get all workers and families through the crisis. This is not a normal situation. We can all agree on that. It would have been great if we could at…
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