Government Orders
Madam Chair, once again the minister is sidestepping the question. The minister wants to impose standards, but he does not have the answers to questions about what is happening on the ground in Quebec. There are 200,000 patients waiting, and some are past the recommended wait time. The good Dr. Legault, of the FMSQ, said that it will take at least 10 years to clear the backlog. He stated, “The fed…
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Madam Chair, the minister says he wants the pandemic to end as soon as possible, but does he know that at the end of the third wave the lack of cancer screening meant that 10,000 people went undiagnosed? Does he know how many patients were waiting in the middle of the third wave according to the Fédération des médecins spécialistes du Québec, the FMSQ? I would like to note that we have reached the…
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Madam Chair, the throne speech was so empty we had a hard time understanding anything about the government's priorities other than its plan to interfere in areas under provincial jurisdiction. Since the minister avoided answering my question, I have to assume he is not aware of the work of the Standing Committee on Health. If he were, he would have known that all the experts confirmed that chronic…
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Madam Chair, the election was supposedly necessary and urgent. For those people watching us who do not know, I want to make it clear that it is the Prime Minister who sets out the new ministers' priorities in their mandate letters. The Minister of Health claims to know what the Prime Minister expects of him, so it would be great if he could table his mandate letter in the House soon after he recei…
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Madam Chair, I want to inform the minister that I am my party's health critic. It is 79 days after the election and 43 days since he was appointed, but the minister has not yet received the statement of priorities of his mandate. How does he explain that?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the COVID testing chaos at airports is straight out of the permit A38 scene in The 12 Tasks of Asterix. Quebec families who have gone through this airport fiasco will surely think of the minister when they watch Ciné-cadeau during the holidays. How is this government going to stop the chaotic management of testing from being “the place that sends you mad”?
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Mr. Speaker, last week it appeared as though Ottawa was being proactive at the border, but now we see that it just bungled things up more quickly. The government decided to require COVID-19 tests for passengers arriving by plane even though it knew that some airports were unable to provide these tests. People are confused and they are worried about having to quarantine somewhere while they wait fo…
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec government did not wait for the Liberal government to pass a law to deal with these types of protests held near institutions. That said, I would be remiss if I did not remind my distinguished colleague of the reason why we find ourselves discussing Bill C-3 about two weeks before Christmas. Earlier, the government referred to the 2019 report from the Standing Committee on H…
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Mr. Speaker, since I have not yet had the opportunity to do so, I would like to congratulate you on your appointment. I am sure that you will be up to the task of ensuring that the debates run smoothly. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on something that I have been thinking about. Does he not believe that, had the government not taken so long to bring Parliament back after calling an e…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, let me start by congratulating you. I am very happy to see you back in that chair to oversee our debates. I would also like to congratulate my colleague on winning his sixth election. I gather from the first part of his speech that he was disappointed about the disparity between the number of votes his party got and the number of seats it ended up with. Would he have liked to see a …
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Madam Speaker, back in May 2020, the Bloc Québécois called on the government to help businesses cover their fixed costs. This led to the creation of a general-purpose rent relief program that is not at all tailored to the realities of the hospitality sector. I wonder whether my colleague from Newmarket—Aurora would agree with me that the government should amend its restrictive rent relief program …
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Madam Speaker, since I have only 30 seconds, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Montcalm for trusting me to represent them in the House for the third time. I can assure them I will do my utmost to be worthy of their trust. Self-employed workers in the cultural sector are artisans fashioning the future of our nation. Every member of every party in the House voted in favour…
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Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate you. I am sure that you will make use of our speaking time fairly, as you usually do. Earlier, my colleague from Montarville asked the leader of the government a question. He did not get an answer. He was referring to what my colleague from La Prairie had been speaking out against since earlier. However, by way of response, the government House leader told us …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I am still in a state of shock after learning that a tornado struck the heart of Mascouche, in my riding. It took the life of a man, Jacques Lefebvre, and left devastation in its wake. I would like to extend my condolences on behalf of the Bloc Québécois and myself to the family and friends of Jacques Lefebvre. The whole region is there for them in this time of mourning. My thoughts g…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, when I introduced this bill in the previous legislature, it elicited contempt. There were 10 Bloc Québécois members in the House at the time, but now there are 32. The contempt has turned into the following question: Why should multiculturalism not apply in Quebec? It is because Quebec constitutes a nation; a nation that is still French-speaking on American soil; a nation that I deepl…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers and Canadians do not want an election during the pandemic, not when there are still over 50,000 active cases of COVID-19 in Canada. Members will vote this afternoon on a Bloc Québécois motion calling on the House to declare it irresponsible to hold an election during a pandemic and on the government to make every possible effort to avoid it. If the House votes in favour of …
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Mr. Speaker, can we put this posturing aside and get serious? I am asking the Prime Minister to commit to not calling an election during the pandemic because he often ignores the votes in the House. We voted to increase employment insurance benefits to 50 weeks for people who are seriously ill, but the Prime Minister ignored that vote and went with just 26 weeks. We voted to increase health transf…
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Mr. Speaker, there will be mailboxes in the offices of the returning officers, and right now, the votes that will be counted directly and centrally from Ottawa will be the votes of those who are unable to vote normally by mail because they are outside the country, for example. Within the ridings, the returning officers are not just responsible for getting the ballots to where they need to be. They…
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Mr. Speaker, not only do none of the parties want an election during the pandemic, but just last month, an Ipsos poll for Global News indicated that 57% of voters felt an election during a pandemic would not be fair. A Leger poll showed that 14% of Canadians want an election this spring, 29% want one this fall, and 43% want one later. Liberal voters are even more hesitant. Only 6% of them want a s…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure whether the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons is announcing that the government will impose another gag order to pass Bill C-19, but his arrogance is truly disappointing and distressing. In 2014, he said that it was unacceptable to suspend the rules of democracy in order to change them. Today, he is in power in a minority gov…
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Mr. Speaker, I acknowledge my colleague's intellectual honesty, so could he honestly tell us how many times he has had to vote with the government, against his own convictions, just to prevent an election?
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Mr. Speaker, I am really surprised by the tone of my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. I understand his bitterness, because he had to betray his convictions. Politics is a balance of power, but I will not give him an intro to politics course. The leader said that he is ready to go, for integrity reasons, and that there will be provisions to ensure the safety of the vote. I understand that …
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, the Prime Minister is using this opportunity to trigger an election so that his party can form a majority government. That is clear, and I am not the only one saying so. The commentators are even saying it. The fact that he is cutting a $500 cheque to seniors over the age of 75 right before an election is a clue. The polls are making him think that he could win a majority. …
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Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing how the Liberals will vote on the motion. Will they vote against the motion, claiming that it is self-serving and hypocritical, or will they go after the wording of the motion? I would remind members that, in a 2014 debate, the current Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons said that the Elections Act and the Parliament…
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Madam Speaker, I would also like to acknowledge our former colleague, Romeo Saganash, who worked very hard for this cause to be heard and whose main political commitment was ensuring the rights of indigenous peoples. I salute him and I am thinking of him. The Bloc Québécois has supported the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples for a long time. Even before it was signed, …
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Madam Speaker, it is the beginning of the 70th annual Mental Health Week. This year's theme is “Get Real”, because the first step toward mental health is to name the emotions we are feeling. I encourage everyone to “get real” by conquering their fears and realizing that asking for help is not only okay, it is healthy. As for politicians, they also have a second responsibility. They need to “get re…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the member for Beauport—Limoilou. Before I comment on the Conservatives' vaccination motion, I must offer my condolences to the family of Francine Boyer, who died of adverse effects from the vaccine. Her family has shown incredible resilience and a sense of duty. In spite of their grief, they continue to assume full respon…
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that the reality is different from one territory or province to the next. To be honest, I do not know what the member is referring to exactly. The vaccination strategies, especially in Quebec, prioritized vulnerable people and groups with a higher mortality rate. I recall that these strategies led to the establishment of criteria and that this categorization was not question…
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Mr. Speaker, the very premise of the member's question is partisan. Since I unfortunately was not able to finish my speech, I did not get a chance to point out the problems with the government's approach. It is clear that both the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party share responsibility for our inability to manufacture a vaccine and our dependence on other countries for vaccines. Neither of t…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is giving me the opportunity to recognize the efforts of frontline health care workers and to thank them for doing such a great job of taking care of us. It is thanks to their hard work that Quebec is currently quite well positioned and ranked eighth in the world for its inoculation capacity. The connection that I am making with health transfers is that it would be nice i…
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Mr. Speaker, in ethics, a value is said to be authentic when an individual has a chance to practise or apply it and chooses to do so. Otherwise, it remains only an intention. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is certainly not the first time we have seen the Liberals trample workers' rights. We saw it in the Aveos case, where the court ruled in favour of the workers. The Liberals…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is making the same mistake with mental health, allocating $45 million to develop pan-Canadian standards. Once again, what the health system needs is workers and psychologists, not standards. What we need are people who provide care to people. People who are experiencing mental health issues right now need to talk to health professionals, not Health Canada bureaucrats. W…
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Mr. Speaker, the federal budget does not include a recurring increase in health transfers for the next five years: not a penny for health for five years. However, it contains $3 billion to create Canada-wide standards for long-term care homes. I wonder how many thousands of nurses we could hire with $3 billion. The federal government prefers using that money to produce reports and create more bure…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, today is Earth Day, a day to remember that not only is climate change real, but that it is already having a major impact on our health. The consequences are not something that will happen in the distant future. They are happening now and affecting our loved ones. Climate change is causing increasingly intense heat waves, which could have serious consequences for seniors this summer. I…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague ended his speech by saying we cannot afford to do nothing. Why did his government decide to do nothing about non-COVID-19 patients? Over the next 10 years, they will become the major victims of the pandemic. To give just one example, does he know that in gastroenterology there are currently 110,000 patients waiting for testing and treatment of colorectal and colon cancer,…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague said in his speech that his government was going to invest and had invested where COVID-19 has struck hardest. One area that COVID-19 has struck hard and will continue to strike hard for the next 10 years is cancer care. Gastroenterologists, oncologists and hematologists in Quebec have told us that cancer is a chronic illness, and if it is not diagnosed and treated in t…
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order because there is no interpretation. I want to make sure that I hear my colleague's answer.
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Mr. Speaker, the fourth clause of the motion states: (iv) the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom have both released public plans for economic reopening, while Canadian officials have not yet given Canadians clarity on when regular economic and social life will be able to resume... Does my esteemed colleague know that as of March 23, the United Kingdom has v…
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Mr. Speaker, one of the indisputable lessons of the pandemic is that our health care systems have been weakened because of chronic underfunding, and that occurred even before the pandemic struck. They will be further weakened during the pandemic and afterward. If health is a priority for the government, why does it not immediately provide a substantial and sustainable increase in health transfers …
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Mr. Speaker, as of today, 9% of Canadians and 11% of Quebeckers have been vaccinated. With the threat of variants, every country with a vaccination rate of around 8% to 9% is locking down again. That is the case for France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands, and Belgium is seriously considering it. Joanne Liu, who has a lot of experience in the field with pandemic management, told …
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Madam Speaker, what more can I say, after my colleague's magnificent speech? She really is an excellent critic for seniors. She went over all the aspects of the NDP motion that are problematic. This motion presupposes that national standards are needed. I see that assumption as a contemptuous premise, not contemptuous of seniors but of those who provide care for them. By moving this motion, which …
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I will continue by answering questions, then. In closing, this motion says that health transfers must be increased to 35%. Quebec and the provinces are united. Thinking that this debate can wait until after the pandemic is a fundamental mistake that must be avoided.
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Madam Speaker, as we all know, the Liberal federal government and the NDP have a centralist agenda, and they often try to leverage the crisis in long-term care homes to further impose their will on Quebec and the provinces. It is deplorable. I cannot figure out why they do not understand that health transfers have to go up now to give the people in charge of care some room to manoeuvre so they can…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. As recently as March 1, 2021, the FTQ, the CSN, the CSQ an the CSD all stressed the importance of increasing health transfers to deal with the public service crisis brought on by the pandemic. Long-term care homes have certainly been affected by the crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I am surprised that the member for New Westminster—Burnaby is saying the motion passed unanimously by Quebec's National Assembly is in conflict with what Quebeckers as a whole think. That is out of line. Not only is the member dismissing Quebec's jurisdiction and its ability to manage its own affairs, but he is also accusing the Government of Quebec of being out of touch with Quebec…
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Madam Speaker, I just want to let you know that the interpretation has not come through a few times now, so I do not hear you when you call on me. I am sorry. My colleague wants us to keep studying this issue. I agree with him, but the motion before us would enable us to bring in the people he is talking about and engage in a multi-party thought process about the best solutions. What does he have …
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Madam Speaker, several times, I have been touched by the speeches and have been able to understand where my Conservative colleagues are coming from. I am in favour of any speech urging more social measures to help the most vulnerable and marginalized people. When we consider the position of the Conservatives, who voted against Bill C-14 and Bill C-7, we get the impression that the only solution fo…
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Madam Speaker, at this current juncture, the Bloc Québécois is far from convinced that MAID should be broadened to include individuals whose sole medical condition causing suffering is mental illness. Why? Because suicidal ideation is often a manifestation, a symptom of mental illness, and suicidal ideation is reversible. I do not understand how my colleague can confuse these two things and how th…
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Madam Speaker, I hate to say it, but listening to the Conservatives, I am left with the impression that they are exploiting the realities of persons with disabilities. Who is more vulnerable than someone living with an irreversible medical condition, who is suffering intolerably and has reached their tolerance threshold? Ms. Gladu lived her life, but she had a degenerative disease that affected he…
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Madam Speaker, our Conservative colleagues do not seem to share our view that the role of the state in an issue as personal as someone's death is not to decide for Canadians what is best for them, but to preserve those conditions which allow them to exercise their freedom of choice and make a free and informed decision. The Conservatives are very concerned about the protection of people with disab…
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