Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I totally understand my colleague's frustration, but I do not think the defeat of her bill has anything to do with what we are debating today.
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Mr. Speaker, as always, you seem jubilant and you are in shape, so I will be pleased to talk to you about health. As my colleague pointed out with respect to implementing the economic statement, we do not find the required measures in this bill to counter the reality that affects us today, that being inflation. Members can rest assured; I will not take the same direction as my Conservative colleag…
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Mr. Speaker, I am indeed aware, but I feel like asking my colleague whether he is aware that since 1977, health technologies have advanced and the tax points given in 1977 are no longer adequate. Is he aware that the Séguin report came long after 1977? Is he aware that the reports from the Conference Board and the Parliamentary Budget Officer that prove that the federal government is not paying it…
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague. Respecting jurisdictions is one thing that could improve the federal system, which is completely dysfunctional. Unfortunately, we have a government that is very centralist when it comes to health. We now have a Minister of Mental Health. I did not know that was a federal responsibility. I completely agree with my colleague. Things would be better …
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Mr. Speaker, to be honest, I think the first thing that needs to happen is for the Minister of Health to understand that this is not just about who has the power. There are real needs on the ground. Unfortunately, the federal government does not have the skills to analyze those needs. It has to listen to health experts and it has to listen to the provinces. That is not what it is doing right now. …
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Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers want governments that work together, but the Liberals have opted to govern by taking hostages. When it comes to health care, the hostages are patients, victims of the feud between Quebec and Ottawa, which is withholding $28 billion from us. As for infrastructure, the government is holding municipalities hostage by forcing them to get their project proposals in by March or m…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health insulted Quebec and the provinces by saying that their demand for increased health transfers was futile. That is outrageous. Quebec spends more than 40% of its budget on health care. Allocating forty percent of a budget is not futile. That is not futile, especially when we know that, even with 40% of the budget, our system is depleted and out of resources becaus…
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Mr. Speaker, why not just increase transfer to 35%, then? I will quote the minister. When leaving the meeting on health transfers, the minister said, “My job is not to send dollars to finance ministers. My job is to make sure that whatever we do helps my colleagues, health ministers, do the difficult and important work that they are doing.” Quite rightly, all his health minister colleagues clearly…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health's fight against funding comes at a cost. It is not just the patients who are paying the price, it is every taxpayer in Quebec. Quebec invests more than 40% of its budget in health. Even with 40%, we know that expenses are going up in a hurry. All that money is money that is not going to our overflowing classrooms, it is money that is not being redirected to the …
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Madam Speaker, our Conservative friends are talking about how the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. They are saying that the government needs to use taxpayer dollars more wisely and eliminate waste. They are focusing on the $54 million that was spent on the ArriveCAN app. I agree with them that that was a stupid mistake. Last week, we pointed out an even stupider mistake: the mo…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about sound management, reckless spending, financial disaster and the fiasco surrounding ArriveCAN and its $54‑million price tag. He is right. However, there is another even greater fiasco that is part of what I would call the sacred cows of the Conservative Party. First, there is the monarchy, which represents $67 million a year. That said, the fiasco to end all…
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Madam Speaker, I am not mean-spirited. I will not start up again on the subject of hypocrisy, and I will not accuse my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable, whom I like too much, of being a hypocrite. However, there is a sort of hypocrisy in what I have been hearing for a while now. It is hypocritical to not recognize that Canada is an oil-producing country, which is the reason we keep missing our env…
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Mr. Speaker, today my riding is celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Association forestière du Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean. Founded in 1942, the association devotes its day-to-day activities to informing and educating the region's citizens about the importance of our forests, our natural wealth. The association is more than just an educational organization; it also champions the idea of cultivating an…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am having difficulty following my colleague. We are supposed to be talking about the monarchy, not the Liberal Party platform. I am not sure where he is going with his speech, but I do not see the connection between the motion before us and what he is saying.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague said that he did not understand why it was important to have this debate today. I would simply remind him that, during the worst of the pandemic, there was an opposition day in which the Conservative Party told us that oil was irreplaceable and that we needed a day to celebrate oil. It is clear to me that oil is what excites and motivates the Conservative…
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Mr. Speaker, I think the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader should focus less on partisanship, which seems to be blinding him. In yesterday's debate on the Uighur genocide, he spent 20 minutes attacking the Conservative Party because he did not think it was the time to talk about that. I just want to say to the parliamentary secretary that not a blessed day goes by that we do n…
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Mr. Speaker, all day long, both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have been trying to dodge the issue. They say it is not the right time to talk about this and we should talk about inflation and fighting the pandemic instead. Over the past few weeks, however, we have talked about bills C‑3, C‑5, C‑9, C‑20 and S‑4, none of which have anything to do with inflation or fighting the pandemic…
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Madam Speaker, first I want to congratulate my colleague, who is now the environment critic. That is a big file, so bravo. I was listening to him earlier and I was reminded of Bill C-225, which I introduced in 2020 and which gave Quebec precedence with respect to environmental assessments. My Conservative colleagues' penchant for oil is rather troubling. If there were ever an oil or gas pipeline p…
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Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to say that I feel like a bit of an impostor speaking on this topic tonight, especially since the person who told me about the issues facing the Uighurs is the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean. This topic is a major concern of his, which is clear from the political action he has taken. Technically, it should have been up to him to make this little presentation.…
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Madam Speaker, I am sure he will not mind. It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of all measures seeking to protect Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in China by resettling them in Canada. We are prepared to go even further. As a result of the member's discussions with some Uighur groups, we think the motion needs to be improved. We need to increase the number of refuge…
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Mr. Speaker, I think that the best thing we can do is listen to the Uighurs themselves. I think that what is proposed in this motion, namely to welcome 10,000 Uighurs over two years does not have the unanimous support of Uighurs themselves. They do not think that is enough. The best thing we can do is listen to them and shape our policies around their needs. We do not need more proof. A genocide h…
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Mr. Speaker, in my introduction, I admitted that I felt a bit like an impostor since I did not follow the entire course of the work in committee. I was made aware of this political issue by my colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean, who has made the Uighurs a prominent part of his work. To answer my colleague's question, I think what we need to do is focus on humanitarian concerns. Unfortunately, in the ca…
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague. Before preparing this speech, a book that I used to make my students read came to mind. Entitled If This Is a Man, by Primo Levi, the book is about the Holocaust. Everyone who reads this short book by Primo Levi thinks to themselves, “never again”. What we read about in If This Is a Man by Primo Levi should never happen again. Still, it seems to m…
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Mr. Speaker, what can we do? We definitely need to continue the work here, but I think in the short term the best thing to do is listen to people like Mr. Tohti who are being threatened. We must listen to the testimonies of the Uighurs being forced to live with this constant threat and we must continue our work here in the House to come up with solutions to keep Uighurs safe from a regime that has…
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Madam Speaker, you are looking sharp this evening. I am sure it will improve the quality of the debate. I am pleased to rise to speak to Bill C‑31. Perhaps I should start by reviewing the principle. I identify as a progressive. If I were asked whether I would support a dental care program, I am inclined to say yes, as a progressive. I believe that what most progressives want, in practice, is to su…
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Madam Speaker, I do encourage them to leave the chamber, since I am sure their conversations are less interesting than what I am presenting. I would like to get back to the government's motivations. In the early 2000s, a major study was done in several Canadian universities to define Canadian identity. They wanted to distinguish between the identity of Canadians in North America and the identity o…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my whip for that great question. I truly believe that the motives of the Liberal government and the NDP leave much to be desired. Obviously, more investments in health would have been good. If we look closely at the bill that is before us, we quickly see that a health care program could be a possibility a few years down the road in a different context. At the stage we are at n…
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Madam Speaker, perhaps my colleague misunderstood what I was saying. What is really incoherent is forging ahead with a dental care program when home care services for seniors and health care funding are completely inadequate. To me, that is what is incoherent. When my house is on fire, I do not worry about the colour of the curtains. I focus on what needs to be done immediately. Everyone is in agr…
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Madam Speaker, I do not feel that the government is recreating something that already exists. It seems to me that it is interfering in something that is none of its business. It is up to the provinces to develop a health care system. If they want to do it, they will do it. The federal government should do what it has the power to do, which is transfer money to improve health care funding.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague said earlier that there have been a number of references to the fact that certain provinces already have dental care programs, which may provide partial coverage, and other provinces do not. However, the government in Ottawa should not be proposing this type of program. If my colleague is interested in social policy programs, my advice is that he run for provincial offi…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is indeed a great democrat, and I am sure he would like to share his time.
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Madam Speaker, I am a tad skeptical about what seems to be the greatest hypocrisy in Canadian politics. I cannot believe the Conservatives would use inflation to try to advance the interests of big oil. That is a first. Leave it to the Conservative Party to come up with that. I remind members that when the conflict in Ukraine started, the Conservative Party told us that the solution was more oil a…
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague, who is always very reasonable, on his speech. I really appreciate the fact that he is always so measured. I was shocked earlier to hear the Leader of the Opposition say that he did not know that Quebec had its own carbon exchange. Seriously? A party leader who wants to become prime minister does not know that Quebec has its own carbon exchange. Does my c…
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Madam Speaker, I have great respect for my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable. I would like to take this opportunity to extend my condolences to him on the death of his mother. We have but one mother, and she is a significant figure in our lives. I want to come back to what he said earlier. I did say to the Leader of the Opposition that I thought his motion was hypocritical. The reason I said that i…
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party's ideas never cease to amaze me. Canada's largest greenhouse gas emitter is the oil and gas sector. During an opposition day in March, the Conservative Party proposed temporarily reducing the GST and the QST on gas, ostensibly to give consumers a break, but doing so would just help the oil and gas sector. They like the idea; I see them nodding. Today's proposa…
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague. The government could do more. I would reiterate the solutions I mentioned earlier. If we stop dumping money down the bottomless fossil fuel well, maybe we will have more money to support our communities.
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Madam Speaker, I am not an economist. However, what I am hearing from economic experts is that we are in a supply crisis, not a demand crisis. Very high fuel prices and labour shortages are what got us into this supply crisis, which is driving inflation. How can we address labour shortages? The Bloc Québécois has made a number of proposals. Allowing seniors to return to work and providing incentiv…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. For my first speech after the summer break, I would have liked to talk about something a bit more divisive, but, unfortunately, Bill C-30 is fairly uncontroversial. It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour, since it is a suggestion that was set out in all…
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Madam Speaker, I will try to respond to my colleague while I finish my speech, talk about what needs to be done and suggest some solutions. I never thought I would have to say this, but I think that we need to protect the independence of the central bank. I never thought a politician would have to say this, but in light of the attacks by the member for Carleton, I have to say that we must indeed p…
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Madam Speaker, earlier my NDP colleague said that there is the Bloc Québécois and the “block everything” party, in other words, the Conservatives. What he forgot to say is that in politics the primary principle is to establish a balance of power. Since the marriage between the NDP and the Liberal Party that balance of power no longer exists. That leads my colleague from Mirabel to believe that the…
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Mr. Speaker, on June 13, a house in the beautiful area of La Baie was destroyed by a major landslide. Since then, 95 homes have had to be evacuated, which means 192 people do not know if or when they will be able to return home. My region is no stranger to natural disasters. In 1996, 600 residents of La Baie lost all of their worldly possessions in a flood and, in 1971, a landslide in Saint‑Jean‑V…
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Madam Speaker, I quite like my friend from Brandon—Souris, who serves with me on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. He said at the end of his speech earlier that we should not try to regulate the Internet. However, regulating the Internet is not the purpose of the bill. I am sure my colleague is well aware that if Quebec wants its culture to flourish in a sea of anglophones, it needs sup…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech, but I would like to come back to what my colleague from Saint-Jean and my colleague from Rivière-du-Nord said earlier. One thing that is missing from Bill C‑9 is the judicial appointment process. Members will recall the uproar caused by the Liberal government's use of the infamous “Liberalist” database. I would like to know if my colleague ag…
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Madam Speaker, I think my colleague got some things mixed up in his speech. I believe that we must work to stop profiling by police. However, I do not think that eliminating mandatory minimums with Bill C‑5 for people who discharge a firearm with intent will help eliminate racial profiling. I think that this sends a mixed message in Quebec, which is seeing a surge in gun crimes. Could my colleague…
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Mr. Speaker, my friend Sylvain Gaudreault has just a few days left at the Quebec National Assembly as the MNA for Jonquière. A professor and historian who was first elected in 2007, Sylvain has filled almost every role a parliamentarian can hold, including serving as a “super-minister” in the Marois government from 2012 to 2014 and as interim leader of the Parti Québécois. However, by his own admi…
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Mr. Speaker, I read in the Journal de Québec this morning that Suncor's profits are basically set to triple from $4 billion to $11 billion for the coming year. The same is true for Imperial, which will have profits of $6.2 billion. As we know, Boris Johnson's government has imposed a 25% tax on oil companies' profits. Earlier, I heard my colleague say not to vote for the Conservatives, but to vote…
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague. Carbon pricing is certainly a worthwhile way to fight climate change. However, given what we have learned today and what I read in Le Journal de Montréal on the huge profits that oil companies like Suncor will be making—to the tune of almost triple the profits—I think the Conservatives' proposal is shameful. I also think it is shameful that the government …
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Mr. Speaker, earlier, I pointed out to my Conservative colleagues that it was rather shameful to ask the government to lift the GST on gas, particularly since oil companies are making record profits right now. Big oil companies are the ones robbing the middle class of what little wealth it had managed to accumulate. I am wondering whether my colleague is aware that the government is supporting oil…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-19, especially since it might give me a chance to reconcile with the member for Winnipeg North. We had a bit of a discussion about Quebec's political weight this week. I am soft at heart and did not want to offend him, so I thought to myself, why not try to be optimistic for 10 minutes? I will start by saying that there is a pretty big r…
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Madam Speaker, my most sincere apologies. How rude of me. I got carried away, and I apologize. I cannot finish without speaking about what is missing from Bill C‑19. This bill provides $2 billion for health, but this is a one-time, non-recurring payment. Has a nurse ever been hired on a non-recurring basis? We cannot say that we need a nurse or medical specialist for the year 2022-23 but will no l…
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