Parliamentary Speeches

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, first of all, I am troubled that my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie would question the fact that, as an English-speaking member from Quebec, I gave half of my speech in English. I was under the impression that we have two official languages in the House of Commons. Second, I see and I fully agree that French is the official language of Quebec. I have never denied that. Howe…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, this is one of the most important speeches that I have given in this virtual chamber. I want to clarify for the people in my riding and across Canada what this motion means, and even more importantly what it does not mean. I also want to contribute my views to the public record so that they can be examined by any court that may, in the future, be called upon to consider the signific…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I would like to let my hon. colleague how much I respect him and his intellectual acumen. I know there are many people throughout the country who misunderstand the symbolic nature of this motion, including my constituents and those within the English-speaking minority in Quebec and the French-speaking minorities outside of Quebec. There are certainly reasons why the House would want…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I am just as much a Quebecker as the member of the Bloc Québécois. I always find it frustrating that the Bloc Québécois does not recognize that I, who am an anglophone member, or my colleague from Hochelaga, who is an allophone, are just as much Quebeckers as the members of the Bloc Québécois, even though we are not of French origin. We are Quebeckers. We are part of the Quebec nati…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, today is the last day of Jewish Heritage Month. Unfortunately, this month, the celebrations have been overshadowed by the greatest wave of anti-Semitism that I have seen in my lifetime. Events in the Middle East should not lead to hate in Canada, but they do. People in their nineties have told me that they have not felt this level of fear since the 1930s, the time of the Christie Pits…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for whom I have a lot of respect. During the pandemic, the federal government made a lot of investments to help the provinces manage the crisis. When the crisis is over, there will certainly need to be a discussion between the provinces and the federal government on the issue of health in order to determine how we can work together to ensure that the federa…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Outremont. Today is May 13, and it my father's first birthday since his death. My father is among those people who died during the pandemic. The first part of the Bloc Québécois motion refers to all of the Quebeckers and Canadians who died during the pandemic. I want to express my condolences to all of the families in Quebec, in my ridin…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties, and if you seek it, I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: that the House recognize that each year thousands of Canadians are asked to serve on juries and contribute to the Canadian justice system, and designate the second week of May in each year as jury appreciation week in Canada, to encourage those Canadians …

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, in the last Parliament, the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights tabled a report on improving support for jurors in Canada. Across party lines, we came together to recognize that there was much work to be done to improve the experience of jurors. We found that jurors lacked information on their role and responsibilities, often were paid amounts that had not been adjusted sin…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I have huge respect for my hon. friend. I shared the view at committee that there should not be an election during the pandemic, on either side.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, who is a man of great intellect. Because he is a man of great intellect, he certainly knows that only the Prime Minister will be able to answer that question, as to what he can or cannot do. All I can say is that no one in the Liberal caucus feels like there should be an election, just like no one in the opposition caucuses feels that way. Nevertheless, we…

Emergency Debate

Mr. Speaker, I would like to tell my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean that I have a great deal of respect for him as well. I am not saying that it will not happen just because there has not been a spill in 65 years. What I am saying is that many studies have been conducted in the past five years, including the study by Dynamic Risk Assessment Systems in 2017. According to this study, the risk of the …

Emergency Debate

Mr. Speaker, in my speech I did not say there has not been any progress over five months. I said that we need the continued operations of the pipeline. I am in complete agreement with the member. We heard at committee how aggressively the government, our ambassador to Washington and others have been in making this very clear to the Americans. The saving grace is that Enbridge has taken Michigan to…

Emergency Debate

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to take part in a debate where all parties in the House have the rare opportunity to agree. We must do everything we can to ensure that Line 5 continues to operate. I had the pleasure of sitting on the Special Committee on the Economic Relationship between Canada and the United States and working with my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, the Conservative Party a…

Emergency Debate

Mr. Speaker, we are all in agreement that we need to make a transition, but I do not think that transition is going to happen tomorrow. Many Canadians rely on the good jobs and income that come from the oil and other liquids that are delivered in the pipeline. I do not believe it is going to get shut down tomorrow or imminently. The legal case, as I tried to illustrate in my presentation, is a ver…

Madam Speaker, our minister has received correspondence from companies that provide life-saving dialysis products. They are worried their goods are going to be unable to reach Canadian hospitals. We really appreciate the good faith of the union in offering to unload cargo that has medical supplies. However, the issue is that some cargo is bundled with all kinds of other cargo that does not have me…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to work with the member for Thérèse-De Blainville, even though we do not agree on this matter. We do agree that the Canada Labour Code needs to be modernized in many respects, including the matter of whether workers have the right to be paid if they are available for work, as is the case under the Quebec Labour Code. I understand the member for Thérèse-De Bla…

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I would like to repeat that the special legislation will reinstate the original collective agreement. The parties will have the powers they had under the collective agreement, but will not be able to make unilateral decisions. I gave the example of the guaranteed minimum weekly income. Under the original collective agreement, the employer could…

Madam Speaker, I can only speak for myself, but I am pleased to tell my hon. colleague what happened. The hon. member for Thérèse-De Blainville asked me a question and asked for the department's response. We received the response and I passed it on. The current collective agreement will be reinstated and extended. This means that any actions not permitted by the collective agreement will no longer…

Madam Speaker, I have heard this question from a number of people in this debate. How does the law guarantee procedural fairness to both the union and the employer? I am going to mention four ways. First, it provides the parties with meaningful input into the selection of the mediator. Each party will have 48 hours to provide a list of three people to the Minister of Labour, and if both parties ag…

Madam Speaker, I do not think any good employer is going to sit there and not bargain, hoping that two and a half years later a government is going to adopt legislation. I think that is far out. NDP provincial governments and Liberal governments across the country have sometimes used back-to-work legislation. However, we do it reluctantly and sparingly.

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear from my good friend from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. Our Minister of Labour is the daughter of a steelworker, and this is the last option the government wanted to take. It is the last option she wanted to take. We essentially had no choice in the matter. For those who say we rushed to judgment, last August we allowed a strike of 13 days to continue at …

Mr. Speaker, as I finished yesterday, I was talking about the history of the Port of Montreal and the dispute that has led us to this legislation. The government made a strong and concerted effort to help both parties come to an agreement over two and a half years. We did this because we firmly believe that the best agreements are the ones reached at the bargaining table. However, in some cases, d…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the labour dispute at the Port of Montreal, there is now a general strike. Is there any duration of a general strike at the port that the hon. member believes would require the government to intervene with back-to-work legislation? Hypothetically, let us say, for example, the strike lasted for a month. Is there any length of time in any strike that the hon. member beli…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, the Port of Montreal is vital to the economies of both Canada and Quebec. It is the main point of entry for goods and materials that Canadians and businesses depend on, especially in Quebec and Ontario. A partial work stoppage began at the Port of Montreal on April 13. On April 26, it became a full work stoppage. The Port of Montreal is the second-largest container port in Canada. Eve…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his always fair and nuanced position on how he approaches issues such as this. I wanted to mention something that he raised, which is the fact that a very significant percentage of work in the port relates to the Midwest of the United States. The port has already seen a 19% decline in goods that were originally ordered by customers in the American Midw…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a), a number of ESDC-Labour officials are working on the issue of forced labour. Those officials are part of the international and intergovernmental labour affairs, IILA, directorate. The team working on forced labour includes policy officers, policy analysts and managers, under the supervision of a director. With regard to part (b), the forced labour import prohi…

Private Members' Business

Mr. Speaker, my colleague for Edmonton Riverbend has been absolutely exemplary in terms of this private member's bill. When people watch question period, they often get a very false sense of what politicians do, who we are and the way law-making works. This bill is a tremendous example of how people can cross party lines, work together and create a good piece of legislation. It is an important tes…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to recognize International Mother Language Day, an annual observance led by the Bangladeshi diaspora in Canada and across the world, which is held on February 21. The day's goal is to promote respect for linguistic and cultural diversity, and it exists because of the fight for the respect of the Bengali language when Bangladesh formed one country with Pakistan. Internatio…

Private Members' Business

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to participate in today's debate on Bill C-220, an act to amend the Canada Labour Code for compassionate care leave. I want to thank the member for Edmonton Riverbend for putting this bill forward to allow caregivers to take additional days off when a loved one dies. During the course of this pandemic, we have become even more sensitized to the important role of…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the hon. member on pay equity. Pay equity is not just the right thing to do; it is the smart thing to do. That is why we passed proactive pay equity legislation in 2018. When Canadian women can count on equal pay for work of equal value, our economy grows stronger. Karen Jensen has been appointed to serve as Canada's first employment pay equity commissioner, and she is de…

Emergency Debate

Madam Speaker, my colleague said the website came down. He did not say that forecast information related to Pfizer came down and should go back up. There is a big difference between one small section of the website dealing with forecasts from Pfizer and the entire website coming down. It is fair to criticize, and I have no problem with criticism. However, the point is that when criticism is made, …

Emergency Debate

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time, to the extent I can, with the hon. member for Parkdale—High Park. If he has a chance to speak tonight, he will be superb. I want to start by thanking the incredible health care workers in my riding, at the Jewish General Hospital, Mount Sinai Hospital and all of the long-term care centres in my riding, which have been at the centre of the COVID epidemic. T…

Emergency Debate

Madam Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member for Montcalm that the message at the beginning of my speech was meant just as much for me as anyone else. We must all be careful with our words because the public is nervous and afraid. Misinformation can hinder our collective effort to beat COVID-19. To come back to our plan, we know that we are receiving six million doses in the first three months …