Parliamentary Speeches
342 speeches by Francis Scarpaleggia — Page 4 of 7
Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I have two questions for my hon. colleague. First, he spoke about the American approach. It is true that the Americans have not put a price on carbon, except in California. They prefer subsidies. In fact, the Inflation Reduction Act contains $329 billion in subsidies. Would my hon. colleague prefer that we spend more to achieve our goals? Second, he claims to be a nationalist, but a…
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Madam Speaker, I go back to the point that, unlike Milton Friedman's price on carbon model, ours includes a dividend to individual taxpayers, and that is what makes the price on carbon essentially a transfer. That is what I would say in response to the member's question.
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Madam Speaker, since we are talking about fuel, gasoline and the like, today, I would like to ask you a question. It is a rhetorical question; I am not expecting an answer. Do you have a car? I am sure you do. I am sure you drive on two-lane highways and three-lane highways. If you are like me, you see, every now and then, a car that moves from one lane to the next and then back again, sometimes w…
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Madam Speaker, I am a firm believer in the official languages action plan, but we are talking about fuel today, not official language communities. I make no apologies for being in favour of funding to help official language minority communities across the country.
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Madam Speaker, any kind of an analysis around environmental measures, including the price on carbon, must take into account the effects of doing nothing.
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Mr. Speaker, water is our most precious natural resource. It is crucial to our well-being and our economy. Canada has 20% of the world's fresh water. It is both an asset and a huge responsibility. Last week, the Prime Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change were in Winnipeg to announce the creation of the new Canada water agency. Can the Minister …
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Mr. Speaker, the people I know in my community who are gun owners are among the most sterling citizens. They have a tremendous sense of responsibility. I would say that if their civic duty was shared by all Canadians, we would be better off as a society. I take the member's point that many people who are killed by guns are killed by illegal guns. However, I am sure that the member would agree that…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House for the second time to speak to Bill S-5. I was also very pleased to chair the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development when we studied and amended this bill. Members may not know that, in 1999, I was the assistant to a member who sat on the environment committee. I was therefore quite familiar with the process of the first r…
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Mr. Speaker, that was a good question. The bill is quite revolutionary in the sense that it would tighten control over the most hazardous substances, and it would put the emphasis on prohibition of the most toxic substances. One would not need a pollution prevention plan if the government, through the new CEPA, were to say there was a prohibition on the release of that particular substance. Also, …
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Mr. Speaker, it is true that the bill evolves every time we make amendments to it. There is already talk of a second bill in this session of Parliament to further strengthen the act. Perfecting the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a long-term project, so to speak. I can be less enthusiastic if my colleague would prefer. The member must admit that the whole idea of a right to a healthy envi…
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Mr. Speaker, indeed, we saw when we invited representatives of indigenous communities and representatives from Imperial Oil and from the Alberta Energy Regulator, that there had been a communications breakdown. I know “communications breakdown” is a term from the 1960s, but it is very pertinent when we are talking about what happened with the Kearl project. The minister has taken steps to bring th…
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Madam Speaker, as usual, my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands is asking a pointed and well-thought-out question. I do not have a clear opinion on the need to change the definition of refugee, but she is not wrong in saying that, in the future, there will be more climate migration, which will cause a whole host of other problems, such as peoples being repressed. My colleague's question is very in…
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Madam Speaker, that is indeed a challenge, especially for a company's human resources department, which devotes a lot of time to ensuring that the company is welcoming and that the employees are happy with the programs the company has in place for them. This is a challenge for every company, no matter what region they are in. We need to encourage people to learn French. I think that any newcomer i…
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Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question. We need to attract newcomers to Quebec who speak French or who are open to learning it. However, we need a strong economy to attract them. To have a strong economy, we need to address the labour shortage, so it is a bit of a vicious circle. A weak economy will not help Quebec. If the economy is weak, then people will look for work elsewhere. That hap…
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Madam Speaker, I will share my time with the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell. I am very pleased to rise today to discuss a topic of deep concern to my community and my constituency of Lac-Saint-Louis. Canada is confronting demographic issues and a serious labour shortage. Every time I am on the ground meeting with business owners, whether they come from the tourism, restaurant, farming or ma…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a very simple question for my colleague. Will the Conservative Party support the bill, yes or no?
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Mr. Speaker, local news is vital. Voters rely on local news outlets to keep them informed. When the Liberal government passes legislation to ensure fair compensation for the use of community news content, Facebook responds by censoring the news. The Conservative leader, a friend of big tech, is happy to parrot the excuses offered up by the billionaire web giants, at the expense of Canadians' right…
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Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament who represents a great many anglophones, a minority community with unique needs in the Quebec context, I have studied Bill C-13 with a critical eye. First, I would like to say that my community is not impressed by the Quebec government's pre-emptive, and one could say almost perfunctory, use of the notwithstanding clause to escape judicial and political scrut…
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Mr. Speaker, I talked about the preamble to reassure my community that the government will not have the power to take away the rights of the anglophone community. With respect to the anglophone community, the English language is obviously not under threat in North America. Nevertheless, a community can face challenges without its language being under threat. The anglophone community has many cultu…
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Mr. Speaker, the member brought up hospitals. I can say that I fully supported the efforts of Gisèle Lalonde, who recently passed away. She was the leading figure in the fight to maintain all services at Montfort Hospital, and she was able to use the court challenges program to lead that fight. I want francophones outside Quebec to have their institutions. It is thanks to the Canadian Charter of R…
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Mr. Speaker, Irene Lambert is taking early retirement at 92, after years of dedicated service to the community. Visually impaired but always undaunted, Irene has advocated tirelessly for people with disabilities, including as a member of the provincial commission that led to Quebec's legislation on the rights of people with disabilities. Her efforts also resulted in Bell Canada's offering free dir…
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians deserve to have access to a fair and efficient passenger airline sector and to travel with relative ease and without major inconvenience and disruption. Many travellers, however, have experienced delayed and cancelled flights over the past year. They deserve to be compensated accordingly. Can the Minister of Transport inform the House on actions our government has taken to e…
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Madam Speaker, I hope to some day have the opportunity to visit that museum; I am sure it is quite impressive. In terms of the surveillance plane, my understanding is that a decision has not been made. It is not a file that I follow as closely as perhaps my colleague and others do. What I am hoping for and what I believe will happen is that the government will put together an approach to make sure…
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Madam Speaker, as a member from the Montreal area, I support any investment that strengthens the region's economy. I do not follow this file as closely as my colleague does, but I believe the government issued a report last summer on the state of the Canadian aerospace industry. I assume this report provided an overview of the industry's economic impact. I expect the report will be used as a basis…
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Madam Speaker, this is a good question, but it presumes that the government has not been making strategic investments all these years in the industry, and it has. It is part of an evolving approach that becomes a strategy over time. In terms of labour-management relations, I am not familiar with problems in that relationship, but I am sure industry and labour work pretty closely together, and I ho…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to address the issue of the aerospace and aviation industry. I grew up in Montreal, and my family and I were always aware of the existence of this industry, particularly when we went down what was then called Laurentien Boulevard in Cartierville. There was even an airport attached to the Canadair plant. Now it has become a residential area, but it was very impressive to…
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Mr. Speaker, on May 6, the Lakeshore Soccer Club will be named one of Canada Soccer's organizations of distinction. Founded in 1966, the club is a pillar of Montreal West Island's sports and recreational life and is home to around 4,000 players each year. In addition to its dynamic house leagues, Lakeshore Soccer fields regional and provincial teams at the A, AA, AAA and semi-pro levels and has br…
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, entitled “Main Estimates 2023-24: Votes 1, 5 and 10 under Department of the Environment, Votes 1 and 5 under Impact Assessment Agency of Canada and Votes 1, 5 and 10 under Parks Canada Agency”.
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Madam Speaker, it is a good question; unfortunately, I do not have a precise answer for it. However, the member hit on another important aspect of this bill, which is that it is not only about discoverability of Canadian content creators but also about levelling the playing field and making sure that streaming services pay their fair share. It is really not fair at all that traditional broadcaster…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise again to speak to this bill. I spoke to Bill C-10 in the previous Parliament and I have spoken to Bill C-11 in this Parliament, and this debate around the Senate amendments provides an opportunity to speak again. I would like to start out by saying that Conservatives fancy themselves experts on all things to do with markets and the marketplace, but ironicall…
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Madam Speaker, the law is very clear. I read the phrase in the law that said the government, and that includes the CRTC, cannot dictate algorithms. If by “criteria” the member means a request or a requirement that streaming platforms provide some visibility to Canadian content, I think that is a pretty wide-open criterion that leaves a lot of leeway to streaming services to do that in the manner t…
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Madam Speaker, this is a very technical bill, but my understanding is that the amendment in the Senate could encourage music companies to share music on platforms like YouTube instead of on music services like Spotify and Apple Music. The bill is quite clear that it is not meant to regulate the small, independent creator. As a matter of fact, it says here that proposed paragraph 5(2)(h) of the act…
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Madam Speaker, right now traditional broadcasters have to make payments to the Canada Media Fund, which is used to help in the production of Canadian content. At some point, through regulation, the streaming services will also have to contribute a portion of the revenues they earn in this country from Canadian consumers into the Canada Media Fund in order to help with the production of Canadian co…
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Madam Speaker, I think a great part of this bill is driven by the need to provide support to Quebec content, as well as other Canadian content, and that is why stakeholders in Quebec are so in favour of this bill. The stakeholders have been consulted by the government over and over, and Quebec stakeholders are particularly keen on this bill, and for a very good reason. I think it is a very importa…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same topic. I believe that whether a member is still present in the House or not, the member should be permitted to ask questions. In question period, a member of the opposition will address a question to a minister who may not be there, and someone else will get up and answer in place of the minister. Therefore, the fact that a member is no longer in the House does not …
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development on Bill S‑5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act. The committee has studied the bill and ha…
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Mr. Speaker, studies estimate that nearly 1 million Canadians will be living with dementia by 2030. Throughout the pandemic, people with dementia and those who care for them have been disproportionately affected. Last week, our government announced $68.3 million in investments in research on aging and brain health. Can the Minister of Health explain how this money will contribute to the health and…
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Madam Speaker, the member and the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent before him said that this bill would give the government the right to dictate algorithms to streaming services, but proposed subsection 9.1(8) of the bill says very clearly, “The Commission shall not make an order under paragraph (1)(e) that would require the use of a specific computer algorithm or source code.” It is here in black a…
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-317, An Act to establish a national strategy respecting flood and drought forecasting. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to table a bill to address a problem that has caused severe environmental damage across different parts of this country and created enormous financial loss for individuals, insurance companies and governments at all levels. I am talking about flooding…
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Madam Speaker, I listened intently to the member's speech, and I must say I found the first couple of minutes rather engaging and rigorous. It included an enunciation of principles. I did not agree with the suppositions and the line of argument, but it had rigour. Then, of course, the member lost me when she started comparing Canada to North Korea. I do not think anyone lends credence to that kind…
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Mr. Speaker, I am trying to understand, and maybe the member could help me by telling me how putting food on the table during a crisis, how helping Alberta get oil to tidewater, how lowering child care costs and how providing dental care to children is contributing to inflation.
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Mr. Speaker, I am a bit mystified. We are talking about a very solemn issue, the rights and freedoms of Canadians, and how those rights and freedoms can be maintained within a democratic framework, which includes the potential use of the notwithstanding clause, yet the member is bringing in a discussion about economic interests. I do not see the relevance.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by talking about this big, beautiful country we call Canada, a country blessed with a diverse abundance of riches that make us the envy of the world. Take hydroelectricity from Quebec, for example. It not only meets our energy needs and heats our homes, but it also supplies energy to our neighbours in Ontario and New York State, in the U.S. We also grow wheat and…
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Mr. Speaker, after reading the motion, I think I found an omission. The Bloc Québécois seems to have forgotten that the Parliament of Canada can also invoke the notwithstanding clause. It has never done so. I find it difficult to imagine a situation in which we would invoke that clause. My question for the leader of the Bloc Québécois is this: Should his motion be corrected?
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Mr. Speaker, that is a good question, and I appreciate it. However, we know that the court's decisions evolve over time, depending on the circumstances and how society has changed. Of course, I respect the Supreme Court's decisions. As I said in my speech, I have never supported the use of the notwithstanding clause by this Parliament. I respect the views of the court, but I would like to hear mor…
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Madam Speaker, first I would like to ask the member what he is afraid of. Why does he seem to be afraid of having an open, democratic debate on the use of the notwithstanding clause down the road in a legislature in public, in front of the media? I thought I heard him or someone else say earlier that this would not amount to anything, that too much money would be spent going to court only to arriv…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for her question. I think it basically goes without saying that many of my constituents are very concerned about what seems to be an increasingly common use of this provision as a preventive measure. It is indeed an issue of concern in my riding.
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Madam Speaker, I will say at the outset that I will be splitting my time with the member for St. Catharines. Canadians are hurting. That is obvious. We see it every day on the news, and we hear about it in the House. While employment is strong, and this is not an insignificant positive, inflation is at its worst in 40 years. We have always had inflation. Every year there is inflation. Two per cent…
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Madam Speaker, the policies the government implemented over the last two years did not cause the price of food to go up. They put food on the table for Canadians. John Maynard Keynes's words of wisdom still ring true today in times of crisis. John Maynard Keynes said that the economy will adjust over the long term. An economy will always adjust if there is massive unemployment, as unemployment wil…
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Madam Speaker, it is true that profits in a given sector go up and down. What should we do? Should we change the tax rate every month to reflect changes in corporate revenues and profits? No, that is not the way to run an economy. I agree that oil companies' profits have increased a lot. However, it is important to encourage these companies to invest in technologies that will reduce their greenhou…
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