Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, conversations about the auto industry are a bit triggering in Quebec. I would like to remind my colleague about what happened during the 2008 financial crisis. The federal government paid out $10 billion, and we know that about $6 billion of that became a direct subsidy to the auto industry. I would like my colleague to comment further on that. Earlier, I talked about the double stand…
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Mr. Speaker, the only benefit Quebec can derive from the automotive industry is if there are more electric vehicles on our roads and if people use more electricity. That way, Quebeckers get something out of it. The Leader of the Opposition's indifference toward Quebec is well known. Just think of Don Cherry and the Order of Canada. The leader of the official opposition supported his nomination, de…
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Mr. Speaker, we are in a situation right now where the price of gas is skyrocketing because of conflicts. We are also in a situation that calls for a certain degree of environmental responsibility. Everything points toward facilitating, or even accelerating, the electrification of transportation. The federal EV purchase subsidy is a perfect example. When the government decided to eliminate this su…
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Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today effectively represents federalism as we know it. The Conservatives are showing us their concern for the auto sector and for the oil and gas sector. However, apart from the Bloc Québécois, no one in the House ever takes advantage of an opposition day to talk about economic sectors that Quebec has a stake in. The economic sectors most affected by tariffs right…
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot be the only person who heard the Prime Minister say during the election campaign that he was going to implement an ambitious construction program to help our forestry sector, one of the economic sectors paying the highest countervailing duties and the most tariffs in Canada. Although nothing in the bill necessarily promotes the use of lumber, that is not what concerns me. By …
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech and noticed a potential blind spot. If the government wants to build more housing, it will have to support the forestry industry, which is going through one of the worst crises in its history. Right now, what we are seeing is consolidation within the forestry sector. This means that if a major construction initiative started tomorrow, a lo…
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Mr. Speaker, while the Liberals continue to bury their heads in the sand, there are still 69,000 pensioners who are having problems with their OAS pension because of Cúram. After 10 years of problems with Phoenix, the public service union said two weeks ago that there are still 233,000 files to be settled. These are not statistics. These are people who deserve these fiascos to end once and for all…
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Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concern that we may simply be adding another layer of bureaucracy. Will setting up a Crown corporation give the government the flexibility needed to respond to the housing crisis? That is also my concern. Could the government not have addressed these concerns by simply transferring Build Canada Homes funding to Quebec and the provinces, who have jurisdiction ove…
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec National Assembly was unanimous and now so is the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. All of the parties, including the Liberals, are asking the government to hold an inquiry into the following federal IT fiascos: Cúram, Phoenix and ArriveCan. Every time Ottawa gets involved in an IT project, it results in serious problems for citizens and staggering cost overruns. The H…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are deeply ignorant about Quebeckers and francophones, but now they have outdone themselves. They have nominated Don Cherry for the Order of Canada. If they had nominated his suits, that would have been one thing, but the man himself has been known for making francophobic comments his entire life. He has looked down on Quebec athletes and French-speaking athletes in …
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Mr. Speaker, housing construction generally falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. My concern is that the federal government is again creating a structure that will increase the amount of time it takes to build housing. Does my colleague agree with me that it would be much simpler to transfer the money to the provinces and ensure that the homes are built, as they are the ones in…
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that there are federal programs to support housing co-operatives. It is only natural for an MP to support projects in their constituency. That is simply part of an MP's job. What I wish the member for Winnipeg North would take away from my speech today is that the government is putting the cart before the horse. The government is creating a framework without first securin…
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Mr. Speaker, I said that the agreement with Quebec and its $1-billion infrastructure funding was a good thing. I certainly will not stand in the way of housing construction. It is the government's ineptitude that is killing one of the economic sectors that is essential to housing construction: softwood lumber. The federal government is literally allowing this sector in Quebec to die. There has bee…
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Mr. Speaker, what my colleague so eloquently highlighted is the injustice that Quebec has become accustomed to. Specific sectors of the Quebec economy are overlooked when it comes to government policy. Which two sectors are currently subject to the highest tariffs? They are the aluminum sector, which is predominantly based in Quebec, and the softwood lumber sector. Is anyone in government expressi…
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Mr. Speaker, I recall very well the Prime Minister's rhetoric during the election campaign when he introduced this initiative, Build Canada Homes, as part of a strategy that would allow the federal government to support the forestry industry. I have to say that we are disappointed. I will come back to that. It is very commendable for the government to want to respond to the housing crisis, but is …
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Mr. Speaker, I get the feeling that the government is going about things the wrong way. There is a major housing crisis. They are going to set up a Crown corporation to address this crisis, but they are not securing the materials we will need to build these homes. Right now, the forestry sector is facing the worst crisis in its history, and we are losing forestry sector players month after month, …
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague on the bureaucracy issue. I do not believe that creating a Crown corporation is the way to solve the housing crisis. The simplest solution would have been to take the money associated with this program and transfer it directly to Quebec and the provinces, which have the capacity to build these housing units. However, the federal government likes to slap a lit…
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps we should bring the debate back to the substance of the bill. The bill says that a person cannot promote hatred under the guise of religion. We have been debating this for far too long already. In committee, there has been systematic obstruction from the Conservatives that makes no sense. From what I understand, my friends think that a person should be able to promote hatred i…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague said in his speech that the government had not presented any cases where hate speech had been uttered based on religious principles. In Quebec, there is the case of Adil Charkaoui, who called for the death of Jews. The director of criminal and penal prosecutions decided not to prosecute him because of the religious exemption. My question for my colleague is very simple. D…
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Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debates all day and I want to say one thing: There is an immeasurable gap between what I am hearing and Quebec's position. People are probably familiar with the expression “the two solitudes”. When it comes to religion, clearly not many members of the House are in tune with what Quebeckers think. There may be a few among the Liberals, but certainly not amo…
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Mr. Speaker, when someone wants to promote hatred, that is an offence. That is what we are talking about today. There is a religious exemption that allows people to promote hatred based on a religious text. My colleague says we should keep that because it is part of religious freedom. He says people should have the right to promote hatred if it is based on religion. Furthermore, he said at the beg…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to come back to something important that we seem to have forgotten since this morning. The bill aims to remove the exemption that allows religious speech to promote hatred. For ideological reasons, I will use another example: a socialist. Conservatives have a special fondness for socialists. A socialist could not promote hatred against individuals with a different ideology, say…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague's previous question is a good example of what we have been experiencing with Bill C‑9. I would describe it as blatant misinformation. I have received calls at my office from people who have a very narrow view of the purpose of the bill. Hate speech is hate speech. We need to make that clear to people. We are not taking away anyone's right to practise their faith. We are n…
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Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague is a serious member, so I am confident that he will respond with his usual seriousness. I am wondering whether he truly believes, as some of his colleagues are suggesting, that under this legislation, people will no longer be allowed to quote specific passages from the Bible. Does he think it is the role of a legislator to spread misinformation, in the hope of…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, on February 16, we were deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Thomas De Koninck, an internationally renowned philosopher and pillar of Université Laval's faculty of philosophy. Thomas De Koninck will, of course, be remembered as the inspiration for Saint-Exupéry's character the Little Prince, but to students like me who knew him personally, he was a legend in a different way. He …
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois will be voting in favour of Bill C-221. The bill seeks to better inform victims about decisions made by the Parole Board of Canada and the Correctional Service of Canada. This measure will not change the whole game for victims and their loved ones, but it would nevertheless allow for greater transparency. It could answer some of the questions raised by victims, who …
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec company Lithion will be bought out by the Americans if Ottawa does not invest $30 million by March 3. There are four days left to avoid losing another company in our battery industry, this time to an American rival heavily subsidized by Washington. The battery recycling market is expected to top $70 billion by 2040. It is worth the investment. Abandoning a Quebec company to…
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Mr. Speaker, we have repeatedly pointed out the lack of consistency in the budget regarding the tax credits that will be given to the oil and gas sector. The member for Winnipeg North is trying to tell us that this is the best thing since sliced bread. However, one of his colleagues does not believe this. Just this week, on a podcast, the member for Laurier—Sainte‑Marie said that he has had many m…
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Mr. Speaker, I would simply like to point out to my colleague that he spoke at length about the temporary foreign worker program, which his leader wants to abolish it. Before criticizing our Liberal colleagues, whom we can criticize all we want on this issue, perhaps he should persuade his leader not to abolish the temporary foreign worker program.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier, the member for Winnipeg North did not answer my question. He said we want to shut down all of oil. That is not an answer. We never suggested shutting down the oil sector. What we are saying is that the federal government should not submit to the industry's will and use Quebeckers' money to give very generous tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration. That is not all. A…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my optimistic colleague who told us that the government is there to help economic sectors that are struggling. He reminded me of the former prime minister, who often said that they would be there to be there. Now that is what I would call really being there. I would simply like to point something out to my colleague. He mentioned Build Canada Homes in his speec…
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate my colleague for Calgary Centre, who used to serve with me on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. His mother is from Jonquière. That is why I like him. I know that he shares some of my views on the special tax treatment given to the oil and gas industry. In the budget, there are major tax credits for carbon capture and sequestration. There is also the ac…
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Madam Speaker, I want to take a moment to commend the work of my colleague from Mirabel. The government often accuses the member for Mirabel of levelling harsh criticism. When we take a closer look, we see that he is a model of co-operation. He is a champion of collaboration. Through this bill, he managed to get the government to add phosphate to the list of critical minerals, which will ensure th…
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Mr. Speaker, we have already had this debate. The members of the Bloc Québécois moved a motion during an opposition day to close Roxham Road and to call on the federal government to reimburse the health care costs of certain asylum seekers because Quebec was the place that was receiving the most asylum seekers. The Conservatives did not seem overly concerned about that at the time. I find it odd t…
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Mr. Speaker, the worst thing a legislator can do is to use their speeches to increase public cynicism and cause people to lose confidence in institutions, to lose confidence in the role of legislators and politicians. I have been here since 2019, and since the arrival of the new Conservative leader, I have seen more and more of this type of rhetoric. We were told some time ago that people are aski…
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Madam Speaker, it goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill S-210, which seeks to designate September as Ukrainian heritage month. By supporting this bill, we want to recognize the role that the Ukrainian community plays in Quebec society and reaffirm our commitment to supporting the efforts of the individuals and families who settle in Quebec, learn French, discov…
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Mr. Speaker, those are two entirely different things. I just want my colleague to acknowledge the facts. What he can do today is acknowledge the facts in front of him, reread the motion and speak to the motion. If he believes that irreparable harm has been done to the people of Mirabel, I invite him to convince his colleagues to vote in favour of the motion. It would be a gesture of reparation. If…
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. If they vote against the motion, they will be standing up to say that they do not recognize the wrong that was done to the people of Mirabel in 1969. Not only would they be refusing to acknowledge that wrong, they would be refusing to apologize and to ask for forgiveness. As far as their conscience is concerned, it would mean they are prepared to do the …
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Mr. Speaker, the government could start by apologizing, and if it does not want to make the same mistakes again, maybe it should not give itself the means to make them. I would invite my colleague to listen to my speech again. Bill C‑5 and Bill C‑15 give the government the tools to make those mistakes again. The hon. member can talk to her colleagues if she wants to prevent that from happening.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. At the beginning of my speech, I talked about the speech in which the Prime Minister referenced Václav Havel and said that we should live in truth. If the government wants to live in truth, it should take responsibility, apologize and ask the people of Mirabel for forgiveness. The only reason it would not do this is that it thinks there is a political…
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Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to the debates since this morning and I see what the government is trying to do by suggesting that we are fearmongering and that we are living in the past. I want to clarify something. I want to clearly state what our intentions are and also explain something that is very troubling to every parliamentarian here. I want to come back to the motion. The motion very …
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Mr. Speaker, I am always amazed at the cynicism behind the Conservative Party's motions. They are using a real problem, namely food inflation, but ascribing it to a completely far-fetched cause. They say that food inflation exists today because there is a carbon tax. Only the Conservative Party would try to further the oil companies' agenda by raising an issue that is affecting the entire populati…
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Madam Speaker, I will take my colleague at his word. He said in his speech that we need to be honest with Canadians. The government's strategy to get us through the tariff crisis is to invest in more oil and gas infrastructure. That is what the Liberals said. They are ready. They invested $34 billion in a pipeline, and they are ready to help the industry develop new infrastructure. I do not know i…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague had a lot to say about affordability. If we want to help the most vulnerable people, one pretty easy way to do that is to increase the old age security benefit. We have been calling for this for a long time. Many of the people with the lowest incomes are seniors. The government is dragging its feet on this issue. In fact, it never agreed to do it. Not only that, but now…
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Madam Speaker, earlier I was telling a Conservative member that I was rather surprised by the connection being made between the carbon tax and food inflation. However, a connection can be made with the cost of energy. High energy costs can, in fact, cause inflation. A proper analysis of energy costs will show that, since 2021, oil companies have drastically increased their refining margins to the …
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Madam Speaker, earlier, I asked a Liberal colleague who was looking for the best way to help the most vulnerable members of our society deal with food inflation whether he thought that increasing OAS benefits was a good idea. He said that he did not think the effects were significant enough. We will just leave his statements at that, but I will repeat my question for the parliamentary secretary. I…
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Mr. Speaker, a great wordsmith has left us. Although his work may not appear in any collections, it echoes throughout our land. Henri Dorion was a geographer, toponymist, professor, diplomat and architect of the Quiet Revolution. As the first president of the Commission de toponymie du Québec, he recorded and standardized place names throughout Quebec. He chaired the Commission d'étude sur l'intég…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois will support his bill. I just want to say that something jumped out at me when I was reading the bill. It is safe to say that there are various Arab identities. It is not only one community. An intermingling has taken place in the Canadian context that also implies a plurality of identities. In m…
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Madam Speaker, I found the last question very interesting because democracy was thwarted during the committee's review of Bill C‑12. Amendments were presented, duly voted on and supported by the majority. Unfortunately, the government used a sleight of hand to then overturn them here in the House. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on this and on whether she feels that what happened was …
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Madam Speaker, the exchange we just witnessed is somewhat symptomatic of what we frequently see in the House. Let us just say that some people are extremely sensitive when it comes to immigration. The Bloc Québécois has spoken many times about the Roxham Road issue and the influx of asylum seekers, which was putting enormous pressure on Quebec without the federal government agreeing to pay its sha…
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