Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I would like to celebrate the retirement of an Alouette who refuses to have his feathers ruffled. Marc‑Antoine Dequoy is retiring after leaving his mark on the Montreal Alouettes. Although he was a defensive back in the team that won the 2023 Grey Cup against all odds, the broader public recently got to know him better through his appearances on television. The charismatic Marc‑Antoin…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech and I think we are more or less on the same page when it comes to supporting Bill C‑19. We consider it necessary because of the imperative need to support Quebeckers and Canadians through the extremely harsh financial circumstances facing families. Once again, however, I get a sense that we are good at extending support programs to help people in ne…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to clarify something, because I find the point of order raised by the government whip interesting. In your decision, I understand that the situation applied to the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, but the point raised here is nevertheless very interesting. In the case of a member who votes in person from their seat, then leaves the House befor…
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Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent among the parties for the following motion: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the member for Drummond be permitted to give the five-minute right of reply to close the debate on Bill C-245 on behalf of the member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères.
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Mr. Speaker, I love when you speak French and when you say the word “multiculturalism” in French. I know it is hard to say, and I commend you for it, which is why we are requesting a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, this government has perfected the art of devising band-aid solutions. Putting big band-aids on big problems is a good look for the government, since it creates the appearance of coming to people's aid. A measure is being introduced to assist people for five years. After that, these people will probably feel some anxiety, especially seniors, the most vulnerable in society, whose number…
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C-245, which was introduced by the Bloc Québécois, seeks to exclude Quebec from Canadian multiculturalism so that it can implement its own model for integrating immigrants. It is simple. The bill has just one provision, but the other parties are having a hard time understanding it. First, what is multiculturalism? We are hearing all sorts of things in the House, including a lot o…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Shefford on her speech and on her commitment to seniors. When the measure proposed by the government in Bill C‑19 ends in five years, seniors especially but also families will be faced with the prospect of losing it. There is also a growing number of seniors, particularly those between 65 and 74 years of age, for whom my colleague has been advo…
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Mr. Speaker, on January, 29, 2017, at approximately 7:45 p.m., we lost six Quebeckers in the tragic events that took place at the Quebec City mosque. Six Muslims were murdered for the sole reason that they were Muslims, for the sole reason that they had gone to pray that evening with their fellow believers. Quebec lost six of its own. Today, our thoughts are with the loved ones, families and frien…
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Mr. Speaker, it was on a sunny day in September 1759 that the beautiful partnership between the French and the English began. This beautiful friendship, born on the Plains of Abraham, would give rise to moments filled with affection, including the banning of French in schools, the hanging of patriots, the Durham report, the execution of Riel, the Quebec City riot over conscription, the War Measure…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague opposite on her speech. I am pleased that we are talking about Bill C-16, because I have a concern about victims, especially victims of aggravated and violent sexual assault. I spoke just last week with one such victim, the survivor of an extremely violent sexual assault by a repeat offender who recently completed his federal sentence and is now out of the …
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Mr. Speaker, that is wonderful. Rewriting the facts is contagious and rampant across the Liberal caucus. To hear the Prime Minister, it seems that Montcalm's dying words would have been: I die disappointed, saddened not to see the English reach Quebec City. The truth is that we were conquered, and since then the federal government has gone to great lengths trying to force us into submission. The P…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Vancouver East made her disdain for Bill C-12 clear. It goes without saying that I respect her opinion. There are groups that claim this bill will not stand up in court. I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the possibility of certain parts of the bill being challenged in court. I would like to hear her opinion. Does she think that is the case? Which parts…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. The collaboration between the Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois on improving Bill C-12 has been mentioned several times since the beginning of today's debate. In fact, the original version of the bill was unacceptable or at least, as my colleague said, parts of it were extremely hard to swallow. The government had made commitments, includi…
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Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑12 is the new version of Bill C‑2. The Bloc Québécois believes that the government is taking a step in the right direction with this new iteration, but there is still a major problem. In their platform, the Liberals proposed hiring 1,000 additional RCMP officers and 1,000 additional CBSA officers. The RCMP will be fine; it was in the throne speech. However, that is not the case…
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons should visit Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean. He would find out that people certainly are talking about building a country, the country of Quebec. I have even more suggestions for the “no” side. The federal government could respect Quebec laws, such as state secularism and the Charter of the French Language. It could fight the decli…
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Mr. Speaker, I know what the Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture should be fed up with. He should be fed up with Ottawa twiddling its thumbs while French is in decline. He should be fed up with Ottawa continuing to fund English in Quebec while French is under threat. He should be fed up with the fact that fewer and fewer Quebeckers are able to listen to music in French, read in French and se…
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Madam Speaker, earlier, my colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean asked a Conservative member a question after his speech. He noted that the Conservatives tore apart the Liberal budget in their speeches, and rightly so. However, my colleague wanted to know what efforts the Conservatives made to defeat this budget. The Conservative member replied that his party tried its best to defeat that budget when it c…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister was in Alberta, where he announced federal approval for the pipeline project that crosses British Columbia and terminates at a deep-water port on the Pacific coast. Yesterday, the Bloc Québécois asked the government a question, and the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons spontaneously answered yes to that question. The question was whether this project …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister just announced that he is approving the construction of a pipeline to transport oil from Alberta, through British Columbia, to the Pacific Ocean. First nations in British Columbia are threatening to take legal action because they disagree with this decision. There is no social licence for it, unlike what my Conservative colleague said earlier. The Government of Brit…
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to pick up where my Conservative colleague left off. My question to the leader of the Green Party is one I ask with both consternation and curiosity, as there was a great deal of speculation around her support for the budget prior to the vote. It was not completely clear, but it seems that she found reassurance in commitments made by the Prime Minister. Today, I find it har…
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Mr. Speaker, every year, on November 11, we have a duty to remember those who served in uniform and those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the armed conflicts Canada has been involved in over the decades. This year is a very special one for me. I was asked to serve as the poppy campaign's honorary chair for Branch 51 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Drummondville. I proudly accepted because, as M…
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Madam Speaker, yes, it is important to make criminals pay. Yes, it is important to support organizations that help victims, that provide victims with assistance. However, there already exists a process that works for victims. The Canadian Victims Bill of Rights, which my colleague referred to, does indeed affirm the right to restitution. The same Canadian Victims Bill of Rights also defines a vict…
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-238. First of all, I want to acknowledge and congratulate the new mayors and municipal councillors who were just elected in my magnificent riding of Drummond. I also want to give a special shout-out to Drummondville's new mayor, Jean-François Houle, who is a trained lawyer. One of the challenges awaiting him is to calm public fears …
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals take a lot of flack. I would agree that the government is quite often clumsy and imperfect. There may even be some incompetence in certain areas. However, the Conservatives are claiming that a Supreme Court ruling is due to the policies of the government that has been in power for the past 10 years. I would remind my colleague that the Supreme Court assesses the constit…
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Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague from Oshawa for her speech. I would like to acknowledge her concern for victims of domestic violence. This is an issue that affects us all and one on which we must all stand together. That is why I think there are some interesting aspects to Bill C‑14. When Parliament resumed this fall, the Conservatives introduced Bill C‑242, another bill that deals with pretty…
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Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the Bloc Québécois supports Bill C-14. However, we still have some concerns about the text of the bill, including the discretion that it gives to judges to reverse the burden of proof for certain crimes. These include some serious crimes for which it would be justifiable for a judge to keep the accused in remand. However, some crimes on this list, like au…
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Mr. Speaker, I commend the member for Winnipeg North for doing such a great job getting our Conservative colleagues all worked up. It happens every time: As soon as he gets up to give a speech, emotions run high in the opposition benches. It livens things up a bit in the House of Commons, and we should be grateful to him for that, even if we do not always agree with what he says. As we have been s…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague made several interesting points in her speech. First, she said that the Liberals are not going to change the Constitution just because they do not like a law. In that regard, I would like to draw the House's attention to Bill 21, which was passed by the Quebec National Assembly and which the government is challenging all the way up to the Supreme Court because it disagr…
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With regard to case number 41231, English Montreal School Board, et al. v. Attorney General of Quebec, et al., as of June 17, 2025: (a) how many hours have public servants dedicated to this legal challenge; (b) how much money has the government spent on the challenge; (c) what resources has the government employed with respect to the challenge and how much money has been allocated to each of these…
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With regard to the challenge to Quebec’s Act respecting the laicity of the State, broken down by case in which the government was involved: (a) how many hours have public servants devoted to each legal challenge; (b) how much money has the government spent on each challenge; (c) what resources has the government employed with respect to each challenge and how much money has been allocated to each …
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Mr. Speaker, first, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères for tabling this bill, which shows once again that the Bloc Québécois really listens to what Quebeckers want. What do Quebeckers want? What the current Government of Quebec and the vast majority of the Quebec National Assembly want is for Quebec to be able to choose its own integration model. …
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Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I just want to say that I find it rich of the Liberals to add a day of debate on Bill C-12 and then not put up any speakers for the day. When it comes time to ask questions after a speech, we can debate the ideas that were presented, but we cannot deny the fact that the Conservatives are addressing the issue on the agenda. I find it especially deplorable that…
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Madam Speaker, there are real concerns, but situations are sometimes exaggerated in order to stir up public opinion, and I find that questionable. My colleague spoke about supervised injection sites, saying that the Liberals are practically deliberately setting them up near schools and early childhood centres. I found her wording a little questionable, although I agree that it is a sensitive issue…
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Madam Speaker, I understand why the Liberals and the Conservatives are squabbling, but I still think that there are some worthwhile aspects to Bill C-12. I am thinking, for example, of a situation that the Bloc Québécois has often spoken out about in recent years, and that is how refugees who entered the country irregularly between official border crossings and hid for 14 days were given the right…
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Mr. Speaker, this is just sad. The Liberals are adding another day of debate on their bill, Bill C‑12, but they are not rising. They are not giving speeches. They are just sitting there. When it is time to ask questions, theirs have nothing to do with the bill. I would ask the government to get serious so we know we are not doing our job for nothing. I have a question for my colleague. I put this …
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech. Unlike the Liberals, I have been listening to my Conservative colleagues' speeches all day. I find that they offer interesting perspectives. At the very least, they are contributing to the debate that the Liberals have decided to prolong today. That is to their credit, because we can sometimes engage in discussions with them without necessari…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are always bragging about all kinds of things and throwing numbers around. They are saying that they have lowered interest rates and curbed the massive inflation we have been experiencing in recent years. However, the reality for Quebec and Canadian families is that prices are still very high. After the pandemic, prices did not go back down, but wages also did not go up. …
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech and his ability to focus. For a guy who celebrated his birthday yesterday and must have gone to bed very late, he seemed very focused despite the noise in the House. Good on him. Now, he is part of a government that has given up about $90 billion in revenue, according to the most reasonable estimates. His government is still going to provide $…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech. What spirit. Earlier, my colleague asked a question of the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, who is an economist and former Quebec finance minister. He lived through the period of austerity, which he helped create. My colleague mentioned the $83 billion in support that is being paid out to the oil industry. The member for Marc-…
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague from Trois‑Rivières can respond to that. In the last Parliament, the finance minister at the time, Ms. Freeland, did not want to table a budget with a projected deficit of nearly $42 billion. She thought it was outrageous to propose—
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Mr. Speaker, the speech that my colleague from Thornhill made earlier was very interesting. Finally, we have a Conservative motion that the Bloc Québécois can get behind. Of course, it is easy to say that this government's management is abysmal when everyone can see we are digging ourselves in deeper and deeper. This government needs to manage a financial crisis for families in Quebec and Canada a…
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Mr. Speaker, my apologies, I know that. I suppose I must have forgotten that this government is the same as the last. I apologize for my blunder. I withdraw the remark. This former finance minister chose to resign rather than propose a budget with an outrageous $42-billion deficit. We are about to see a budget tabled with a deficit of nearly $100 billion. How is it that the $42 billion was so outr…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech. I always find it a little strange when I hear the Liberals boast about providing relief to the middle class with tax cuts, when it is the middle class that is currently struggling the most because of the cost of living. They are drowning. Despite that, right after the election, the Liberals decided to forgo nearly $90 billion in potential rev…
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Mr. Speaker, I am a little concerned because I am watching the Liberals, and I see them cutting measures that could generate billions of dollars in revenue, such as the digital services tax, which has been eliminated, as well as countertariffs, which we have not seen at all. The same can be said of the Conservatives. When I asked the Leader of the Opposition earlier what he would do to put money b…
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Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, the Liberals are doing a lot of boasting about lower interest rates. They are boasting about having eased the tax burden, the financial burden on middle-class families. In reality, people are more in debt and are having a tougher time taking care of their responsibilities and meeting their financial obligations at the end of the month. The Conservatives are proposin…
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Mr. Speaker, in his work Zadig; or, The Book of Fate, Voltaire said, “It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent one.” This is a principle that exists in all democracies, in all developed societies around the world. Keeping an accused person in jail rather than making efforts to release them under the presumption of innocence goes against all the basic rights that we s…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are not entirely wrong. There are several reasons why we really do need to focus on the justice system, look after it and reform it. One of the problems that was identified a long time ago has to do with the appointment of judges. The government is behind on that. However, Quebec has long been asking to have its say on the judges Ottawa appoints to sit on higher cour…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like my colleague to talk to us about the fact that the Conservatives are moving a motion on a bill that has yet to be assessed by the law clerks or even found in order. The Conservatives are trying to use this motion to muzzle the House of Commons. That approach seems rather unusual to me, and I would like my colleague to talk to us about it.
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Mr. Speaker, people often say that the Conservatives put forward simplistic solutions to highly complex problems, but their proposal today makes some sense. It is true that we have a duty to protect our communities and it is also true that a growing number of repeat offenders are being released into the community awaiting trial, including people charged with violent crimes against women. Maybe we …
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