Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think my speech was clear. The current situation in Canada is unprecedented. This government has put our public finances in a very bad state, and has caused unprecedented inflation and interest rate hikes. Workers can no longer make ends meet. They do not have enough money to pay their rent and their other bills at the end of the month. That is the problem. All of the opposition par…
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Mr. Speaker, right now I am voting to protect Canadian jobs. Right now, we have a problem with foreign replacement workers and we are not getting any answers. I am more than happy to talk about Bill C‑58, but we want answers. We are taking advantage of this debate to ask the government why companies will be hiring foreign replacement workers. In our opinion, that is the same thing as bringing in s…
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Mr. Speaker, first, I am sick and tired up of hearing my colleague ask questions based on the premise that we work the same way as in the U.S. We do not work the same way as in the U.S. As I mentioned in my speech, our concern is clear. We want a coherent policy and to take coherent measures to ensure that Canada is more effective when it comes to transport and energy. As for development, the futu…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to this morning to speak of workers, the labour context, industrial relations and replacement workers. One of the main factors to consider in today's debates is the Liberals' mismanagement over the past eight years. Liberal mismanagement has raised the cost of living for all Canadian workers. The Liberals' disastrous mismanagement and astronomical deficits sent inflation and in…
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Mr. Speaker, the president of the CBC is completely out of touch with reality. A month ago, she hired a Paris-based company to translate a podcast, rather than hiring Quebeckers, because she did not like our accent. Now, when hundreds of employees are wondering whether they will still have a job after Christmas, she has decided to head off to Australia for a good time, even though she is supposed …
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Mr. Speaker, the minister can laugh all he wants, but what will he say to the 30-year-old guy from Sherbrooke who has no place to live and cannot find a place to rent because $1,500 a month is more than he can afford? Right now, he says that he will have to live in a tent this winter at an encampment that has practically become a refugee camp, in the middle of Sherbrooke. It makes no sense. Every …
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Mr. Speaker, last Saturday, our leader premiered a documentary on the housing crisis to explain its cause to Canadians and outline the solutions he is proposing. The documentary Housing Hell has garnered nearly four million views for a good reason. After eight years of this Liberal government, the price of houses, rent and mortgages has doubled and the number of people who are homeless is skyrocke…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question and I thank him for his work as our party's shadow minister for veterans affairs. The fact that the government used veterans is what bothers me the most in all this. By citing a bad survey, a pseudo-survey, to claim that this was the veterans' choice, it was using veterans for its own political ends. As my colleague who did a tour in Afghanistan…
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Madam Speaker, I do indeed believe that we are at a crucial point in the process. It is not too late. There is still time to change things. All the government has to do is swallow its pride and say it thought it was doing the right thing, but, as it turns out, the poll results were not really what it thought they were. There are so many ways the government could backtrack. I am pretty sure that ha…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I enjoy seeing my colleague try to shift the blame off the Liberals while painting the Conservatives as people who do not care about veterans. I would remind my colleague that a Conservative government was at the helm during the war effort in Afghanistan, ready to provide the equipment that our troops needed on the ground. We made sure that things changed, because the mission got of…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I rise once again this morning to speak to a situation that, sadly, happens all too often in this country. For the past eight years of this government, we have witnessed a total lack of respect for the institution of government in its broad sense, as represented by the House of Commons and the various departments of the Government of Canada. Today, we are referring more specifically…
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Mr. Speaker, I will continue with my question. Children in Quebec have been sending their letters to Santa Claus to Opération père Noël since 1995. This year, instead of asking for toys, children are asking for winter boots and snowsuits. That does not make any sense. Does the Prime Minister think it is normal for Santa Claus to be getting these kinds of requests from children?
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Mr. Speaker, to give a clear answer in French to the member here, who made this type of comment before on May 5, 2009, I would say that my colleague from Lethbridge apologized to the committee. That being said, can the government tell me what it is thinking—
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we learned that the American economy grew by 5.2%, while the Canadian economy shrunk by 1.1%. The American economy is booming and the Canadian economy is at a standstill. Americans are getting richer, while Canadians are getting poorer. Nothing has been working in Canada for the past eight years. Given these numbers, will the government recognize that its economic plan is a…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, in his speech, the member for Jonquière personally accused me of calling people in the riding of Richmond—Arthabaska to ask them to call the member and ask him to resign. I never did that. He directly accused me of doing that as the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. I am just saying that I did not do that.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, after all this smearing of Conservative MPs from Quebec, I would like to reiterate my point. I never did what the member for Jonquière is accusing me of, and I would like him to retract his accusation.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I do not know what is the matter with the member for Jonquière today. He has a long list of smears. What he just said is totally false. I would like him to withdraw his words.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, what is clear, and we saw it in last week's economic statement, is that the Liberals want to drastically increase the carbon tax. However, Conservative Bill C‑234, supported by a majority in the House, will carve out an exception to the carbon tax being imposed on Canadian farmers. The Minister of Environment has promised to resign if this bill passes. Perhaps that is why he is going …
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years under this Prime Minister, we are once again seeing that he has no respect for a decision made by the House of Commons. A majority of MPs voted in favour of Bill C‑234 and sent it to the Senate, where it has stalled. The Minister of Environment is even lobbying senators. Will the Prime Minister ask his minister to stop exerting pressure to block the bill, respect the…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Canadians recently learned that a second Northvolt battery plant, subsidized by the Liberals, will give hundreds of jobs to foreign replacement workers rather than to unionized workers. Those jobs should be for Quebeckers. The government allocated over $7 billion in taxpayer subsidies to this project. We found this out after hearing that Stellantis will be doing the same thing at its …
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Mr. Speaker, all we have been seeing for the past eight years is out-of-control spending by the NDP-Liberal government, with the help of its Bloc Québécois friends. That has created the following problem: Experts at Scotiabank have calculated that the government's excessive spending has added two percentage points to Canada's interest rate. That represents more than $8,400 a year in interest on th…
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Mr. Speaker, the first thing we are going to cut is wasteful spending, like the $54 million for ArriveCAN, the $200 billion in COVID-19 spending, since the Parliamentary Budget Officer cannot even tell what that money was used for, and the $135 million that Frank Baylis got for nothing. The government has done a lot of spending over the past eight years. There is a long list of things it has spent…
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Mr. Speaker, as if losing $173 million to Medicago, which up and left the country at the beginning of the year without warning, was not bad enough, we now learn that the Public Health Agency of Canada has lost another $150 million to this company. This means the agency burned through a total of $323 million, money that vanished into thin air. My question is for the member for Québec, who has been …
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Mr. Speaker, that is funny. Now Infoman is guiding the federal government. Hello to Infoman. The problem is that after eight years of this Liberal government, a new coalition formed yesterday, the Bloc-Liberal coalition. The Liberal-NDP coalition was bad enough. Now we are stuck with a coalition of sovereignists and separatists who are supporting the Liberal government to keep it in power for anot…
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois separatists joined the Liberals yesterday in voting down our motion to axe the carbon tax on home heating for all Canadians. Quebec, however, endorsed a statement released jointly with the other provinces that supported our initiative. The Bloc Québécois is working against the Premier of Quebec and for the Prime Minister of Canada. Who would have though it possible?…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Quebec, in collaboration with all the provincial premiers in Canada, supported a joint statement sent to the Prime Minister calling for a pause on the carbon tax on home heating. Although the Bloc Québécois claims to work in the interests of Quebec and in collaboration with the Quebec government, it opted to turn against the Premier of Quebec, who supported the Council of the Federati…
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Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleague from Quebec that his Atlantic colleagues had a different take on what he calls the price on pollution. What we saw in the Atlantic provinces is that people were being financially squeezed. They were forced to ask the Prime Minister to flip-flop, change his policy and cancel the carbon tax. What we are asking him to do now is just to be fair to all Canadians, in…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to lay out some facts. The carbon tax affects the price of food in Quebec. The second carbon tax will apply in Quebec. The Bloc Québécois wants to radically increase the Liberal taxes on fuel and food. Quebeckers are turning to food banks in record numbers every month. The Prime Minister announced a break on the carbon tax, but only for the Atlantic provinces. It is unfai…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change said that he will not grant any more carbon tax exemptions while he is minister. He seems to think that people in the Atlantic provinces are the only ones suffering as a result of these taxes. Meanwhile, what is the Bloc doing? The Bloc is asking the government to drastically increase the Liberal taxes. It seems as though the Conservative…
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Mr. Speaker, as for the tax, I watched the show not once, not twice, but three times, and it was clear what the minister said. He even said that, as long as he is environment minister, there would never, ever be any further changes to the carbon tax elsewhere in Canada. He essentially confirmed that there will be no other pauses as long as he is in that role. It remains to be seen what the Prime M…
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Mr. Speaker, last Thursday, the Prime Minister looked at the polls as our leader arrived in Nova Scotia. He started to panic. What did he do? He temporarily suspended the carbon tax in the Atlantic provinces. His environment minister said yesterday in an interview that he was not willing to help out Canadians in other provinces, not even back home in the minister's and my home province of Quebec. …
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Mr. Speaker, here is another major problem. According to a Nanos survey, 28% of mortgagees in Quebec will have to renew their contracts within a year and a half, and 79% say they are worried about their upcoming renewal. More than one-third of Quebeckers cite rising interest rates as the main reason for their financial concerns. After eight years under this Prime Minister, Quebeckers are worried a…
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Mr. Speaker, the media is reporting that one in 10 Quebeckers are using food banks each month. That is more than 870,000 people. It is 2023. That is the situation after eight years of Liberal governance and inflationary spending. It is like the ArriveCAN app, which cost $54 million and is currently under investigation by the RCMP. Who is going to stand up for Quebeckers who are struggling to put f…
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Mr. Speaker, what we know is that, after eight years under this Prime Minister, people are worried about ending up on the street. Not once, but twice, the Bloc Québécois voted against a motion to cancel the two carbon taxes, namely the federal carbon tax and the clean fuel regulations, which drove the price per litre up by 17¢ for Quebeckers. Twice the Bloc Québécois said no. The Liberal member fo…
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Mr. Speaker, according to an Angus Reid report, half of Canadians are worse off financially than last year, and it is expected to be even worse this year. That is the reality after eight years under this government. It gets even worse. The Bloc Québécois, the Liberals' ally, is pushing for a drastic increase in the carbon tax, driving up the cost of gas and food. It is costly to vote Bloc Québécoi…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know where she got that good news from. According to Statistics Canada, inflation in Quebec has jumped to 4.8%. Quebec has had the highest inflation rate in Canada for four consecutive months. Food price inflation stands at 6.7%. After eight years under this Prime Minister, supported by his Bloc Québécois friends, people are literally struggling to feed their families. Are th…
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Mr. Speaker, there is going to be a wave of mortgage renewals in the coming months. The Royal Bank of Canada, for one, will be renewing 41% of its mortgages. Non-stop interest rate hikes will make that difficult. Inflation is driving mortgage costs up by 30% every month. After eight years of the Prime Minister, everything is broken. Can he explain to people how they are supposed to pay their mortg…
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Mr. Speaker, what does the minister have to say to Montrealers who have to earn $116,000 a year if they are thinking of buying a property? Elsewhere in Canada, in Toronto for example, a house hunter would need an income of $235,000, and in Vancouver, they would need an income of $250,000. It is easy to understand why young people have lost hope of ever becoming homeowners. This government has aban…
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years under this Prime Minister, the situation in Canada continues to deteriorate. That is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer says. It is hard to believe that things could get worse, but they can. Spending and the deficit are even higher than projected. That is nothing new with this government, which only knows how to do one thing: waste taxpayers' money. Will the gover…
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Mr. Chair, quite obviously, my colleague is absolutely right. There has been a lot of talk about an attack on Israel. Now, it is true that some people are trying to downplay the reality of what happened and the disgusting way Hamas attacked Israeli citizens. Canadians died. Some victims were from the United States. There were people at a concert. Young people were there to have fun and listen to m…
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Mr. Chair, sadly, my colleague just informed me that two more Canadians died as a result of Hamas's unspeakable attacks. That is why I took the time in my speech to describe Hamas. I think that is worth repeated reminders. We often tend to hear people say they are against Hamas, but there is always a “but”. There should be no “buts”. We must be 100%, unequivocally, behind Israel in fighting Hamas …
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Mr. Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley. First of all, we are having a lot of trouble clearly identifying who we are dealing with when it comes to Hamas. Last week, for example, I was flabbergasted to hear that CBC/Radio-Canada had asked its news anchors not to use the word “terrorist” to refer to Hamas. Last night, on the program Tout l…
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Mr. Chair, as we have indicated today, we are in favour of establishing a humanitarian corridor and providing support in safe zones. We also support the evacuation. As a priority, we obviously call on Hamas to release the three Canadians being held hostage and to allow the evacuation of other Canadians in the Gaza Strip or elsewhere in Israel who want to leave. Obviously, we support those calls.
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Mr. Speaker, is the minister aware that about 20% of mortgages are now in negative amortization? The monthly payment does not even cover the principal and interest. Our leader has repeatedly warned about the inevitable outcome of rising inflationary spending. No one listened, not the Bloc Québécois nor the Liberals. After eight years of disastrous management, will the Liberals stop their inflation…
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer expects the federal deficit to reach $46.5 billion next year. That is 16% more than the Liberal government had initially projected. That being the case, he does not expect interest rates to drop until April 2024. Given the ongoing housing crisis, that is truly a disaster. Will the Minister of Finance confirm that the deficit will really be $6 billion h…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, Hamas launched a number of terrorist attacks on Israel last week. Many civilians were killed or taken hostage. The terrorists committed rape, decapitated children and launched numerous rockets, hoping to kill as many Jews as possible. In response to the murders and violence perpetrated by Hamas, the Iranian foreign affairs minister warned Israel to stop defending itself, saying that t…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, the debates on Bill C‑325, which I introduced last spring, are drawing to a close today. I am pleased to see that, following the tragic events that have taken place and the serious cases brought to our attention, the Bloc Québécois has finally decided to support Bill C‑325, even though it voted in favour of Bill C‑5 at the time. I agree that amendments to the bill in committee are n…
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Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the government being out of touch with reality, this is exactly what we are talking about. The minister is completely out of touch with the reality of Canadians, people who are currently seeking help from food banks that are overwhelmed. Food banks are so overwhelmed that they are not able to provide food to all those who are asking for it right now. There are famil…
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Mr. Speaker, according to a recent National Payroll Institute survey, almost two out of three workers spend all of their net pay and 30% spend more than their pay. We can help them by rejecting the second carbon tax. That tax applies in Quebec, and the Bloc Québécois supports it. People are suffering. They are having a hard time putting food on the table. This is a serious issue; it should not be …
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Madam Speaker, I really enjoy hearing the NDP member shout himself hoarse like that. I would remind him that he lives in downtown Montreal. All he has to do is walk five minutes in one direction and then five minutes in the other and he has covered his entire riding. We live in rural ridings, and people need to get around. They live far from urban centres. They need cars to get around. They cannot…
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