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Madam Speaker, it is quite a challenge. This needs to be clear. That is why I tried to make it clear in my speech that people are free to wear their respective religious symbols. If I walk down the street and cross paths with someone wearing a kippah, I have no problem with that. On the contrary, it sparks my curiosity and makes me want to talk to them and learn more about their beliefs. What we a…
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question. I am not the one deciding on specific cases today. What do we do about Jewish police officers, Sikh teachers or Muslim judges? I agree that much work remains to be done. However, just because the challenge is great does not mean we should refuse to take it on. I repeat that, in my opinion, for example, if a Muslim, displaying Muslim religious symbols, is…
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Madam Speaker, that is yet another excellent question. Once again, I have to hand it to my colleague and thank him for the question. I too heard our colleague the Minister of Justice say this afternoon that he would seriously consider our proposals regarding the religious exemption if they were brought forward. That is great to hear. I just wonder why he did not make those same proposals himself f…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's riding, Thérèse-De Blainville, is next to mine. I am quite familiar with the folks who live in her riding, and I can say that she is right. Like my riding, Thérèse-De Blainville has a large immigrant population. In my riding, there are organizations in Saint‑Jérôme that are responsible for integrating newcomers. One that comes to mind is Le Coffret, which does tremend…
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Mr. Speaker, amending the scope of section 33 is not about defending the charter. The Liberals want Bill 21 on state secularism to be repealed. That much is crystal clear. However, it goes beyond that. They want to have the final say and make Quebec's laws subject to their approval and that of judges appointed by Ottawa. The Liberals want to fulfill their oldest ambition, which is to decide everyt…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With all due respect to my esteemed colleague, he is getting a bit off topic. Today is the Bloc Québécois opposition day, and we are having a debate on the Act respecting the laicity of the State and on section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, its constitutionality and ways to amend it, among other things. I do not think that is what my …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and leader for his speech, which I really enjoyed. Section 33 is a tool that makes it possible for certain laws to override provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Let us suppose that the Government of Quebec or another province passes a law that allows slavery. Does my colleague think that that government's legislation will be around for a long…
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. When I gave my speech, you signalled to me that my 10 minutes were up when, according to the timer that I set before I began, I still had some time left. What is more, you interrupted me. With all due respect, I am not saying that you do not have the right to do that. It is fine, but that also made me lose some time. I just rose to ask my colleague s…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals' challenge to Bill 21 goes far beyond state secularism. They are telling us with their factum that they have seen what Quebeckers have done with secularism, and at this point, they would even be capable of shutting down churches or newspapers if Ottawa were not there to stop them. The Liberals want to weaken the notwithstanding clause so that the federal government and, o…
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Madam Speaker, despite my white hair, I am afraid I am too young to have drafted the notwithstanding clause. The clause's limits are set out in the act that includes this provision, and none of those limits are like the ones that the current government wants to propose. Do the provinces have limits? They do not have any more than Quebec or the federal government. Section 33 exists, and it can be a…
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Madam Speaker, that is a good question. I mentioned it briefly in my speech. It has become clear that it is not just the Act respecting the laicity of the State, but all the laws in Quebec and all the Canadian provinces that are being jeopardized by the current government's legal challenge. The government is saying that the notwithstanding clause must be regulated, that its use must be limited. Ho…
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Madam Speaker, I cannot do anything about the Ontario government's slippery slope, but it is questionable. The important thing to understand about the pre-emptive use of section 33 is that it is neither preventive nor curative. That is how the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is set up. For the sake of argument, let us assume that the notwithstanding clause is not written into the bill. The…
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moved: That the House: (a) call on the government to fully withdraw from the legal challenge of Quebec’s Act respecting the laicity of the State before the Supreme Court; (b) call on the government to withdraw its factum filed on September 17, 2025, with the Supreme Court contesting Quebec’s right to invoke the notwithstanding clause; and (c) denounce the government’s willingness to use the Suprem…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but there is some confusion there. My colleague is right; section 33 does not help protect the Constitution. Section 33 enables the provinces, Quebec and the federal government to pass legislation that goes against, or does not take into account, the specifics of section 2 and sections 7 to 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It …
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Mr. Speaker, when the Liberals say that they are not attacking secularism before the Supreme Court, that is incorrect. What they should be saying is that their attack is not limited to secularism. By attacking the notwithstanding clause, they are also attacking protections afforded to the French language and signage in French. They are even attacking matters of consensus, such as protecting the id…
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Madam Speaker, I thank our Green Party colleague for her speech. I know she is an expert in this field. There is one thing I would like to hear her thoughts on. We could decide to continue along the same path and abolish the cap on greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, we could decide to just sit back, stay on the same path we followed in previous years and forget about the Paris targets. If w…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right. Crimes involving violence against women, but also against any individual, are unacceptable in our society, and we are proposing to fight this type of crime. As for mandatory minimum sentences, yes, we should consider using them in such cases. That being said, I want to reiterate that the Bloc Québécois is generally against mandatory minimum sentences. We trust o…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is correct in saying that the responsibility for fighting crime and managing the justice system does not fall solely to the federal government. It is shared with the provincial governments. However, I want members to understand that if we set an example by doing what needs to be done here, it may help the provinces follow suit. If the government fills all the judicial v…
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Madam Speaker, I do not have to speak to Bill C-2 right now, so I will not bother. I will reserve the right to speak to it when the time comes. Bill C‑2 has both good and bad aspects. One of its proposals is an invasion of people's privacy, and this type of intervention strikes us as deplorable and dangerous. We will have to look at this bill and clarify some things. However, it does have some pos…
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Mr. Speaker, we heard about Justice Leckey this week. This judge has donated money to the Liberal Party and criticized Quebec's laws on secularism and the French language, and we feel it is inappropriate for him to become a Quebec Superior Court justice. That is but one example. There are many others. I would be delighted to talk about them with my colleague.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I hear his concerns about keeping our streets safe. What does he have to say about the Bloc Québécois's proposal to create a registry of criminal organizations and treat them like terrorist organizations? What does he have to say about our proposal to amend the Criminal Code to remove the two religious exemptions that permit hate speech? What does …
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House this morning on behalf of my constituents from Rivière‑du‑Nord, who once again placed their trust in me last spring. Today, we are talking about the Conservative Party's motion, which raises an important issue, the 50% increase in violent crime. The Bloc Québécois is concerned about this issue and has raised it in the House many times in recent year…
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Mr. Speaker, the partisan appointment of Robert Leckey as a judge of the Quebec Superior Court also challenges Quebec's unique legal system. By appointing Mr. Leckey even though he does not have the necessary experience at the Quebec bar, the federal government is choosing a judge who does not have sufficient knowledge of Quebec's unique civil law system. By appointing Mr. Leckey, who is a public …
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. There is indeed a great divide between Quebeckers' values on this religion issue and those of the rest of Canada. I am not saying that Quebeckers are better than anyone else. That is not the point. There is a difference, though. We believe that religion should remain in the home, in each individual's heart and mind. In our view, when it comes to religi…
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Mr. Speaker, the Judges Act is clear. Section 3 states, and I quote: 3 No person is eligible to be appointed a judge of a superior court in any province unless ... that person (a) is a barrister or advocate of at least 10 years' standing at the bar of any province However, Robert Leckey has been appointed a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec even though he has been a member of the Barreau du Qu…
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Mr. Speaker, let us talk about their robust and independent judicial appointment system. The appointment of Robert Leckey, done through that very system, violates Canada's Judges Act. We believe that he was appointed precisely because he is a Liberal. The Liberals expect him to defend Liberal positions on secularism and the French language within Quebec's courts. Quebec should get to select the ju…
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Mr. Speaker, when the legal challenge against Bill 96 was in full swing, Mr. Leckey was a vocal opponent during demonstrations against it. When the legal challenge against Bill 21 was in full swing, Mr. Leckey argued that the courts should prevent the provinces from using the Constitution's notwithstanding clause. He is an enemy of Quebec's laws, and yet the Liberals appointed him as a judge. In p…
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Mr. Speaker, in January, the Liberals appointed Robert Leckey as a judge on the Quebec Superior Court. However, Mr. Leckey had only seven years of experience at the Quebec bar, whereas the requirement is 10 years. He did not meet the legal criteria, but he certainly met the Liberal criteria. In addition to being a Liberal donor, Judge Leckey is a fervent activist against bills 21 and 96. He is aga…
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Mr. Speaker, as everyone is saying, we have spoken to this bill a number of times before. Here we are again, spending another day studying this bill even though our position on it has not changed. We took a position last year, and if the House had not been prorogued and an election called, the bill would have been passed already. Instead of doing what we are doing now and going over the same groun…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Joliette—Manawan for his excellent speech. Earlier, a Conservative colleague said that if this bill were passed, people with no connection to Canada could end up becoming citizens. However, I believe that this is addressed in the wording of Bill C-3, which states that a substantial connection is required. What I find a little more troubling is t…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague, the minister, for her bill. The Bloc Québécois has already said that we will vote in favour of this bill, so she does not have to work very hard to convince us. However, my colleague from Drummond asked her a question that we did not get an answer to. I worked with the minister on the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in the last Parliament, so I kn…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question, and I can confirm that to be the case. We have said this many times, and I do not want to repeat myself, but we also want to fight organized crime, drug trafficking and fentanyl, which is a terrible scourge. What we are saying is that the government cannot do it any which way. Just because I am against criminals does not mean I agre…
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Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking Rosie, because I really enjoy working with her brother, who is a serious and hard-working member of Parliament. I am pleased to recognize that today. That being said, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, I think he is right to point out that we need to strike a balance between protecting our borders, protecting our streets, keeping people safe and res…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is also a man who works hard for his riding and his constituents. I am very proud to work with him as a member of the same party. That said, parallels can indeed be drawn between the problems we are seeing now with Bill C-2 and Bill C-5, the gag order and what is looming over our heads without us knowing it. We have been sitting for three weeks, not even four. We shall se…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech. Unfortunately, I have some concerns about what she considers to be the strengths and virtues of this bill. The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the bill so that it can be considered in committee, but I am not sure the Bloc Québécois will support it when it comes back to the House for third reading. We will see what happens in com…
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Mr. Speaker, today's debate is an odd one. We hear the government that was in power before the previous government calling it out for things that the new government claims are not its fault, because the Liberal Party of Canada has changed leaders. The whole thing is Kafkaesque. I cannot wrap my head around it. Personally, it does not bother me if the government is Conservative, Liberal, red, blue,…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague talks about fairness when it comes to the carbon tax rebate. Does he agree that this money was paid on April 22 for the period of April, May and June, while the carbon tax was abolished on April 1 by his leader, the Prime Minister of Canada, by order in council? Effective April 1, there was no more carbon tax. The government supposedly reimbursed the taxes that should hav…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mirabel for his speech, which was, as always, well founded, well articulated, very interesting and very clear. That said, I would like to ask him a question, because he has expertise that I do not. To my knowledge, the carbon tax was abolished on April 1, but the carbon exchange that applies in Quebec and British Columbia was still in effect on April 1, and c…
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Mr. Speaker, in the early 1980s, René Lévesque, a man I greatly respect and who inspired Quebec and Quebec society as a whole, said that Canada is not a gulag. Once that was said, a number of federalists began to ask why people still wanted to separate from Canada. Why would Quebec want to become a full-fledged sovereign country if, in the end, Canada is not a gulag? Perhaps we should read the sec…
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Mr. Speaker, I understand what my colleague from Winnipeg North is saying. I wish I could have owned a grocery store in his riding during the pandemic. During that time, my colleague probably did not have time to go grocery shopping. However, based on his logic, he would still have given a cheque to that poor grocery store because they expected to receive one. If I have an electric vehicle instead…
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Mr. Speaker, I also salute my colleague, who is someone I respect a great deal. I met him in 2015 and have been friendly with him ever since. That said, merely stating that someone is going to do something nonsensical and immoral does not make it acceptable. I completely agree with my colleague: The Prime Minister announced it during the election campaign and he followed through. However, I think …
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague. In fact, as I said earlier, I am one of the people who believes that the Prime Minister is smart, despite what some may think. I truly look forward to seeing him table a budget or explain how he is going to pay for all this spending and make this equitable. He must have a printer in his office that can print Canadian dollars or something. I do not have that …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague would think if I suggested that she invest her savings in a bank whose CEO spent hundreds of millions of dollars without ever making any budget forecasts, without ever checking to see whether he had the necessary funds to pay for these expenditures, even though they are nice expenditures that make people happy. If I told my colleague to invest he…
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Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague's speech. I agree with a lot of the things she said. I listened to what our colleague from Winnipeg North said. He seemed to be staunchly defending Pierre Poilievre for not tabling figures, for not critiquing or looking at budgets, for believing that it would be all right to spend tens or hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars without draftin…
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Mr. Speaker, our colleague from Winnipeg North says that it is more important to first get things right and that it would be better to wait before coming up with a budget. I fail to understand how he can say that. I respect him enough not to believe for one second that he would hand his money over to people who would announce all sorts of spending but promise to tell him how they would finance it …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his bill. It addresses many of the Bloc Québécois's concerns regarding border security, organized crime and so on. However, there is one thing in this massive bill that bothers me and raises numerous questions, and that is the security of personal information. The bill would significantly expand police powers. Would it not be possible to limit the ability to c…
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Mr. Speaker, for nearly 15 years, we had the privilege of working alongside a man who left his mark on the history of Quebec and Canada. In the mayhem of parliamentary sparring and our political debates, where partisanship takes over and things heat up rather quickly, far too often we forget the greatness of the women and men we encounter. I am guilty of that. Here in the House, there are women an…
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Mr. Speaker, the report on Islamophobia tabled by the Standing Committee on Justice yesterday recommends that the federal government implement all of the recommendations made by the Senate in 2023 regarding Islamophobia. However, the Senate's recommendations are an all-out attack on Quebec's secularism, which the Senate considers to be racist and Islamophobic. If this report is intended to combat …
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Madam Speaker, I would say that it is not a good idea to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of the public about the effectiveness of our justice system. That is not and never will be a good idea. Instead, we should seek to improve our institutions and improve the public's perception of them.
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Madam Speaker, I still believe that Bill C‑5 is a good bill with a good foundation. Unfortunately, the amendments we proposed were rejected, leaving us with provisions that are far from perfect. The point that my colleague raised is worrisome. However, I think we need to be careful when we look at justice statistics. We need to consider each case individually. When a court is seized with issue X i…
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