Parliamentary Speeches
1,041 speeches by Alexandre Boulerice — Page 9 of 21
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, not only will it save lives, but a universal public pharmacare program would save the sick, workers, hospitals and employers billions of dollars. The Liberals need to make that happen. It is not just NDP supporters who are saying this. All the studies and reports show that. Even the Liberal Party delegates voted for universal pharmacare at three straight conventions. When will this go…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her great speech. I agree that eliminating the GST on rental housing construction is a small measure, too small to fix the current crisis. However, it is an NDP proposal, so I do want to defend it. The thing that has us concerned is that the Liberals went only halfway. They are eliminating the GST on housing construction, but with no guarantee that this will…
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Mr. Speaker, we are experiencing an unprecedented housing crisis caused by the Liberals and the Conservatives. It is unconscionable. Outside, tents are popping up faster than truly affordable housing. People are poorly housed, living with mould, but are unable to move because they have nowhere to go. People are suffering. The solutions, however, are no mystery. Will the Liberals buy land to build …
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Madam Speaker, I would like to share a story. There are four grocery stores just a block away from where I live. One of them is a major chain store, like the oligopolies my colleague is talking about. Another one is a small independent grocery store owned by a Portuguese family. All their children work there. Strangely enough, the prices at the small independent store are sometimes half of what th…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the previous member's speech. I never knew I was part of the government. I want to set the record straight, but I will also go a step further: We are not propping up the Liberals; we are using our leverage and bargaining power to force them to do things they never had the courage to do before. I am pleased to rise to speak to a subject of tremendous impor…
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Mr. Speaker, that is yet another answer that is completely disconnected from reality. Families who have to renew their mortgage soon are headed for a cliff. Negligence by the Liberals and the Conservatives has resulted in the loss of one million affordable housing units in the country. In the meantime, the government has given the Bank of Canada the mandate to increase interest rates without any r…
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Mr. Speaker, this summer, forest fires laid waste to parts of the country. We are experiencing the climate crisis first-hand. The environment minister's inaction is getting embarrassing. The International Energy Agency's recent report says that Canada must stop approving new fossil fuel projects and move its net-zero emissions target up to 2045. The Liberals have been doing the opposite, though. T…
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Mr. Speaker, when it comes to climate, the Liberals are asleep at the switch. The move to a new insurance company for the public service is causing a lot of headaches for employees who are already struggling with the cost of living. There are never-ending delays for drug and treatment claims. Some claims are being denied, even for sick children. It is almost impossible for people to get an explana…
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Madam Speaker, I understand that, today, the Conservatives are on a partisan mission to attack the Bloc Québécois. They can do what they want. It is their choice and their interest. I would simply like to point out that there are people like Rich Kruger, the president and CEO of Suncor, who had the gall to say that his company is going to stop talking about renewable energy and climate change, tha…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona for her hard work standing up for workers in Alberta. I think that we need to be able to make this transition, which will create sustainable jobs in sustainable energy sectors. This means that people could go through this transition with the vocational training and support they need to take on the jobs of the future in renewable energy. …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for acknowledging my indignation over climate change. Everyone knows that we are pushing the Liberals to do more on a lot of files, including the climate crisis and the housing crisis, because they are not doing enough in either of those areas. We negotiated an agreement to make them do things that they never agreed to do in the past. We are using our leverage t…
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Madam Speaker, I know that the member for Louis‑Saint‑Laurent likes facts. I will share some with him. Canada's population is 60th in the world in number of residents, but we rank 11th in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. We go from 60th to 11th place. If we think of it in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per capita, we are the second largest polluters in the world. Only residents of Saudi Arabi…
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Madam Speaker, first, I will be sharing my time with the super, dynamic, experienced, highly knowledgeable and learned member for Timmins—James Bay. I am tired of constantly talking about the carbon tax. I have reached my limit. The Conservatives have circled back to this nonsense five times in one year. That is just for one year and I am tired of it. It is Groundhog Day all over again. They keep …
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, the planet is literally burning. We saw it this summer in Quebec, in British Columbia, and pretty much all around the world. In this country, the oil and gas sector is responsible for 30% of all our carbon emissions, which are increasing every year. That is why we absolutely must have a strict cap on greenhouse gas emissions for this sector. The Liberals promised it in 2021, but we ar…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question, for her long-standing concern for environmental issues and for her work on this file. I wanted to make an important point. Canada is a laughingstock right now. Successive Conservative and Liberal governments have not been able to turn things around. The Paris Agreement tells us that in order to avoid catastrophe and keep the planet livable, we …
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Madam Speaker, I cannot believe my Conservative colleague's speech. What planet is he on? We have only one planet, and we are destroying it with the kind of pro-oil and pro-pollution ideology he is advocating for today. The goal of the Paris Agreement is to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as long as all states respect their commitments. At this point, 2.4°C of warming looks likely. That means there…
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Madam Speaker, historically, thanks to Jean Lesage and René Lévesque, Quebec has used its hydroelectric resources to produce green, clean energy. There is no oil production in Quebec, although the leader of the Bloc Québécois was once briefly tempted by a project on Anticosti Island. However, we are among the world's biggest polluters. English Canada has a lot of work to do in the oil and gas sect…
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Madam Speaker, for months now, large grocery chains have been ripping off consumers. People are paying crazy prices while the companies make record profits. Now, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry is going on bended knee to the CEOs of those companies to ask if they can stabilize prices. Prices are already too high. Even if prices can be stabilized, people will still be paying too mu…
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague's analysis and how she sees things regarding the current emergency. We see the situation deteriorate every July 1. Homelessness is getting worse not only in Montreal, but throughout Quebec. I am convinced that my colleague is seeing this in her riding as well. It is an absolutely deplorable phenomenon. In Montreal, 23,000 people are waiting for social housi…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, but I find it strange that he is saying that we should be pleased that the bill does not preclude the construction of affordable housing. It would be incredibly ridiculous if the bill precluded the possibility of building social and affordable housing. We need to look at this another way. We need to make sure that this gets done, not just hope …
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Madam Speaker, I rise in the House to express my sadness and shock over events unfolding on the international scene. For several days now, Azerbaijan has been waging a brutal military attack against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which the people there call Artsakh. The attack is very serious. Civilians are being bombed, leaving some dead or injured. The Lachin corridor has been blocked…
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Mr. Speaker, the housing crisis is the result of Liberal and Conservative budget cuts to social housing and co-operative housing programs. Now we are learning that the elimination of the GST on housing construction does not include a definition of affordable housing. It is absolutely ridiculous, insulting even. What planet do the Liberals live on? Housing is a fundamental right. People's lives are…
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Madam Speaker, on July 6, 2013, a Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway train derailed and exploded in Lac-Mégantic, killing 47 people in one of the worst rail tragedies in our history. Philippe Falardeau made a documentary entitled Ceci n'est pas un accident or this is not an accident. This disaster could have been predicted as a result of government policies that were initially introduced by the …
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Mr. Speaker, all summer long we heard about how people cannot afford groceries. Prices are skyrocketing. Grocery chains are making record profits, and CEOs are cashing in big time. What did the Liberals do about it? They held a meeting. They told those CEOs to be nice or else. Or else what? What a joke. The NDP leader is going to introduce a bill to give the Competition Bureau real teeth. It is a …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the IT sector’s staff vacancy rate in the government as of June 1, 2023, broken down by department: what is the amount of vacant information technology (IT, Treasury Board code 303) positions, for each of the classification (i) IT-01, (ii) IT-02, (iii) IT-03, (iv) IT-04, (v) IT-05?
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to retirement benefits for the Canada Border Services Agency law enforcement officers in the FB bargaining group, who are employed by the Department of National Defence in the SV (FR) bargaining group: (a) what has the government done to proceed with its commitment to pursue the necessary legislative amendments to enhance early retirement benefits under the public service pension plan …
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With regard to Export Development Canada’s Canada account transactions to guarantee financing provided by commercial lenders to the Trans Mountain Corporation signed on April 20, 2022, March 24, 2023 and May 2, 2023, for each transaction: (a) was an assessment of the commercial viability of Trans Mountain Corporation completed prior to the guarantees being approved; (b) what evidence did the gover…
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Mr. Speaker, wildfires are ravaging our regions. People are fleeing their homes. Children are breathing in smoke when they go to school in the morning. What has this government done? Nothing. This Prime Minister promised billions of dollars to fight climate change, but we have learned that that money is still sitting in the government coffers while our forests are burning. What will it take for th…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I think that we see eye to eye when it comes to fighting tax evasion and the misuse of tax havens. We are on the same wavelength. The federal government is doing something it has never done before. The Canada Revenue Agency now measures what is known as the “tax gap”, meaning the difference between the tax revenue it should be collecting from indiv…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the leader of the NDP for his inspiring speech. It is true that, in Quebec, early childhood centres and public child care has been accessible for 25 years. This program should help fathers as much as mothers, but because of the inequity in family-related and domestic tasks, this kind of program is more advantageous to mothers. Economist Pierre Fortin even estim…
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Madam Speaker, obviously, we are delighted with the bill, even though, as I said earlier, it took the Liberal Party 30 years to get there. Our confidence in the Liberals was so low that we were careful to include this in the 27-point agreement we negotiated with the minority government. We pushed hard for this, and my colleague from Winnipeg Centre fought to ensure that accessible, public, non-pro…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. Obviously, we in the NDP support Bill C‑35. It is a good idea. We have been saying for a long time that child care is needed. The strange thing is that the Liberal Party has also been saying that for a long time. The first time they put it in their election platform was in 1993. I was still a student at the Université de Montréal. It took them 30…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, although, at the end, I was somewhat hurt by the fact that he did not talk about the possibility of an NDP government in five or six years. I will try to rise above that this evening. I completely agree with him that Quebec led the way with its accessible public child care program. That program changed the lives of tens of thousands of Quebec fam…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal government is very good at announcing sanctions. The Liberals say they are going to punish Russian oligarchs, they are going to seize their assets, their bank accounts and freeze everything. It is taking forever, and practically nothing has been done. At one point, the Liberal government even said that it was relying on the banks to deal directly with their Russian clien…
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Madam Speaker, we have been very welcoming to the Ukrainian refugees fleeing the brutal invasion by Vladimir Putin's dictatorial regime. However, compared to many European countries, Canada is not taking in that many refugees. The NDP believes we could be doing more in some very specific situations, including taking in LGBTQ refugees from Iran, Saudi Arabia or, more recently, Sudan, where certain …
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Mr. Speaker, it is too bad, but Bill C-41 is not the solution to such a vitally important issue. This bill was flawed from the start. The work should have been done by Global Affairs Canada, not Public Safety Canada. The NDP cannot support a bill that says that the international solidarity sector must request the Canadian government's authorization to go save lives abroad. The premise of this bill…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada's ninth interest rate hike is hitting Quebeckers hard. Someone may have worked very hard for years to be able to realize their dream of purchasing a home and then a few years later is forced to sell it because their monthly payment has increased from $2,300 to $3,780, a 64% increase in one year. That is the harsh reality of families in Quebec and right across the co…
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to this crucial motion, which is really important to the NDP caucus. I want to congratulate and thank my colleague from Vancouver East, who has already spoken to this issue. This motion is important because it talks about a phenomenon that sadly still exists in Canada and Quebec, anti-Asian racism. As other colleagues mentioned, it is important to r…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent motion. I have just one question. Did the leader of the Bloc Québécois read the motion before my hon. colleague moved it? The leader of the Bloc Québécois, when he was minister, was very much in favour of developing oil on Anticosti Island. He circumvented BAPE three times on development projects. He authorized McInnis Cement, one of the most p…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which I found to be very compassionate, because it focused on the people who have had to be evacuated because of the wildfires and whose lives have been turned upside down. There is one thing that I think we do not talk enough about and that is the loss of expertise necessary to build water bombers in Quebec and Canada. Canadair and then Bombardi…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Mirabel seems to be extremely concerned about what is happening with the NDP in Alberta. I find that really interesting. I would like to bring his attention back to the environment and to what is happening in Mirabel, more specifically in Kanesatake, where, for years, there has been an illegal dump. Foul-smelling, toxic water is leaking from that dump, and it is ha…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. It is quite true that Canada, under the Liberals, ranks 58th out of 63 countries when it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I agree with him that this is an admission of failure. However, we cannot blame this solely on the carbon tax or the price on pollution. It is a good tool, a market-based tool, that provides incentives to pollute …
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Mr. Speaker, we have seen the images of New York's Statue of Liberty completely shrouded in smoke from Quebec's wildfires. It is astonishing to think that 128 million people in the United States are under air quality advisories. The air quality index for New York City peaked at 413 on a scale of 0 to 500 by the end of the day on Wednesday. Figures like these have not been recorded in 20 years. Cli…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her work and her speech. We have an excellent motion before us today. However, based on experience, I fear that the Liberals will vote in favour of this motion and then do nothing. In other words, they are all talk and no action. What would my colleague like to see the Liberal government do once this motion is adopted?
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Mr. Speaker, that would be more believable if the Liberals had not bought the Trans Mountain pipeline and approved the Bay du Nord project. Listening to the Liberals, it sounds as though everything is sunshine and lollipops. The problem is that the sun is hidden by the smoke. It is getting harder and harder for the Liberals to keep pretending everything is fine when the entire country is burning. …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Drummond for his extremely relevant question. The NDP is indeed proud to have secured gains that will benefit Quebeckers, such as dental care for seniors and teenagers and housing for indigenous communities. We are making progress on these fronts, but we are also continuing to put pressure on the Liberal government and to condemn oil subsidies. Under the ag…
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Madam Speaker, I think it is very important to rise in the House to speak on this extremely important issue. I have the pleasure of following the leader of the NDP, who gave a truly inspiring and highly informative speech. I think that it should be shared with all parliamentarians and all Canadians and Quebeckers as well. We are currently seeing, experiencing and feeling the impact of the climate …
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Madam Speaker, it is pretty funny to hear the Liberals tell us that greenhouse gas emissions went down in 2020-21. Something happened during that time: the COVID-19 pandemic. The economy slowed down to roughly zero. Of course greenhouse gas emissions went down. There was no economic activity. Now that the pandemic is over and economic activity has resumed, greenhouse gas emissions have increased. …
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Madam Speaker, this budget is far from perfect. There are big gaps we are very worried about, but there are still major gains for ordinary people. It will come as no surprise to my colleague that this budget expands dental benefits for children aged 12 to 18 and for people 65 and up, as well as for everyone earning less than $70,000 a year or whose household income is less than $90,000 a year. Thi…
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