Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, conversations about the auto industry are a bit triggering in Quebec. I would like to remind my colleague about what happened during the 2008 financial crisis. The federal government paid out $10 billion, and we know that about $6 billion of that became a direct subsidy to the auto industry. I would like my colleague to comment further on that. Earlier, I talked about the double stand…
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Mr. Speaker, the only benefit Quebec can derive from the automotive industry is if there are more electric vehicles on our roads and if people use more electricity. That way, Quebeckers get something out of it. The Leader of the Opposition's indifference toward Quebec is well known. Just think of Don Cherry and the Order of Canada. The leader of the official opposition supported his nomination, de…
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Mr. Speaker, the motion before us today effectively represents federalism as we know it. The Conservatives are showing us their concern for the auto sector and for the oil and gas sector. However, apart from the Bloc Québécois, no one in the House ever takes advantage of an opposition day to talk about economic sectors that Quebec has a stake in. The economic sectors most affected by tariffs right…
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Mr. Speaker, we are in a situation right now where the price of gas is skyrocketing because of conflicts. We are also in a situation that calls for a certain degree of environmental responsibility. Everything points toward facilitating, or even accelerating, the electrification of transportation. The federal EV purchase subsidy is a perfect example. When the government decided to eliminate this su…
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Mr. Speaker, I recall very well the Prime Minister's rhetoric during the election campaign when he introduced this initiative, Build Canada Homes, as part of a strategy that would allow the federal government to support the forestry industry. I have to say that we are disappointed. I will come back to that. It is very commendable for the government to want to respond to the housing crisis, but is …
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Mr. Speaker, housing construction generally falls under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. My concern is that the federal government is again creating a structure that will increase the amount of time it takes to build housing. Does my colleague agree with me that it would be much simpler to transfer the money to the provinces and ensure that the homes are built, as they are the ones in…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, while the Liberals continue to bury their heads in the sand, there are still 69,000 pensioners who are having problems with their OAS pension because of Cúram. After 10 years of problems with Phoenix, the public service union said two weeks ago that there are still 233,000 files to be settled. These are not statistics. These are people who deserve these fiascos to end once and for all…
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec National Assembly was unanimous and now so is the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. All of the parties, including the Liberals, are asking the government to hold an inquiry into the following federal IT fiascos: Cúram, Phoenix and ArriveCan. Every time Ottawa gets involved in an IT project, it results in serious problems for citizens and staggering cost overruns. The H…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague on the bureaucracy issue. I do not believe that creating a Crown corporation is the way to solve the housing crisis. The simplest solution would have been to take the money associated with this program and transfer it directly to Quebec and the provinces, which have the capacity to build these housing units. However, the federal government likes to slap a lit…
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Mr. Speaker, I share my colleague's concern that we may simply be adding another layer of bureaucracy. Will setting up a Crown corporation give the government the flexibility needed to respond to the housing crisis? That is also my concern. Could the government not have addressed these concerns by simply transferring Build Canada Homes funding to Quebec and the provinces, who have jurisdiction ove…
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot be the only person who heard the Prime Minister say during the election campaign that he was going to implement an ambitious construction program to help our forestry sector, one of the economic sectors paying the highest countervailing duties and the most tariffs in Canada. Although nothing in the bill necessarily promotes the use of lumber, that is not what concerns me. By …
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are deeply ignorant about Quebeckers and francophones, but now they have outdone themselves. They have nominated Don Cherry for the Order of Canada. If they had nominated his suits, that would have been one thing, but the man himself has been known for making francophobic comments his entire life. He has looked down on Quebec athletes and French-speaking athletes in …
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech and noticed a potential blind spot. If the government wants to build more housing, it will have to support the forestry industry, which is going through one of the worst crises in its history. Right now, what we are seeing is consolidation within the forestry sector. This means that if a major construction initiative started tomorrow, a lo…
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Mr. Speaker, I get the feeling that the government is going about things the wrong way. There is a major housing crisis. They are going to set up a Crown corporation to address this crisis, but they are not securing the materials we will need to build these homes. Right now, the forestry sector is facing the worst crisis in its history, and we are losing forestry sector players month after month, …
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Mr. Speaker, I said that the agreement with Quebec and its $1-billion infrastructure funding was a good thing. I certainly will not stand in the way of housing construction. It is the government's ineptitude that is killing one of the economic sectors that is essential to housing construction: softwood lumber. The federal government is literally allowing this sector in Quebec to die. There has bee…
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Mr. Speaker, what my colleague so eloquently highlighted is the injustice that Quebec has become accustomed to. Specific sectors of the Quebec economy are overlooked when it comes to government policy. Which two sectors are currently subject to the highest tariffs? They are the aluminum sector, which is predominantly based in Quebec, and the softwood lumber sector. Is anyone in government expressi…
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that there are federal programs to support housing co-operatives. It is only natural for an MP to support projects in their constituency. That is simply part of an MP's job. What I wish the member for Winnipeg North would take away from my speech today is that the government is putting the cart before the horse. The government is creating a framework without first securin…
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Mr. Speaker, we have already had this debate. The members of the Bloc Québécois moved a motion during an opposition day to close Roxham Road and to call on the federal government to reimburse the health care costs of certain asylum seekers because Quebec was the place that was receiving the most asylum seekers. The Conservatives did not seem overly concerned about that at the time. I find it odd t…
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Mr. Speaker, the worst thing a legislator can do is to use their speeches to increase public cynicism and cause people to lose confidence in institutions, to lose confidence in the role of legislators and politicians. I have been here since 2019, and since the arrival of the new Conservative leader, I have seen more and more of this type of rhetoric. We were told some time ago that people are aski…
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Mr. Speaker, I am always amazed at the cynicism behind the Conservative Party's motions. They are using a real problem, namely food inflation, but ascribing it to a completely far-fetched cause. They say that food inflation exists today because there is a carbon tax. Only the Conservative Party would try to further the oil companies' agenda by raising an issue that is affecting the entire populati…
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Madam Speaker, I will take my colleague at his word. He said in his speech that we need to be honest with Canadians. The government's strategy to get us through the tariff crisis is to invest in more oil and gas infrastructure. That is what the Liberals said. They are ready. They invested $34 billion in a pipeline, and they are ready to help the industry develop new infrastructure. I do not know i…
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Madam Speaker, earlier, I asked a Liberal colleague who was looking for the best way to help the most vulnerable members of our society deal with food inflation whether he thought that increasing OAS benefits was a good idea. He said that he did not think the effects were significant enough. We will just leave his statements at that, but I will repeat my question for the parliamentary secretary. I…
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Madam Speaker, earlier I was telling a Conservative member that I was rather surprised by the connection being made between the carbon tax and food inflation. However, a connection can be made with the cost of energy. High energy costs can, in fact, cause inflation. A proper analysis of energy costs will show that, since 2021, oil companies have drastically increased their refining margins to the …
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Madam Speaker, my colleague had a lot to say about affordability. If we want to help the most vulnerable people, one pretty easy way to do that is to increase the old age security benefit. We have been calling for this for a long time. Many of the people with the lowest incomes are seniors. The government is dragging its feet on this issue. In fact, it never agreed to do it. Not only that, but now…
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Mr. Speaker, a great wordsmith has left us. Although his work may not appear in any collections, it echoes throughout our land. Henri Dorion was a geographer, toponymist, professor, diplomat and architect of the Quiet Revolution. As the first president of the Commission de toponymie du Québec, he recorded and standardized place names throughout Quebec. He chaired the Commission d'étude sur l'intég…
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Madam Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for my colleague with whom I serve on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. I want to benefit from his insights. I find it quite surprising that the Conservatives are trying to reaffirm Canada's sovereignty by proposing more oil and gas infrastructure. Why do I find this surprising? It is because the major players in Alberta's oil sector are mos…
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Madam Speaker, I find it quite surprising that the Conservatives are asking the government to get out of the way in order to ensure Canada's sovereignty. I would remind my colleague that the last oil and gas infrastructure project to be built was the Trans Mountain expansion. It collectively cost us $34 billion. No oil and gas company is willing to invest in oil and gas infrastructure because they…
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Madam Speaker, as the day draws to an end, I must say I am a little disappointed. I have repeatedly asked some of my Conservative and Liberal colleagues to explain the logic behind wanting to build more oil and gas infrastructure, especially since we know full well that 60% of oil-producing companies are owned by American investors. They have made record profits in recent years, and 60% of those r…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, today's debate has been extremely interesting. Bill C-228 is an opportunity for the Prime Minister to put words into action. Like many, I was captivated by the Prime Minister's speech in Davos for a number of reasons. First of all, among all the wonderful things I have read in my lifetime are the works of Jan Patočka, the person who inspired Václav Havel, a leading Czech philosopher…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois will support his bill. I just want to say that something jumped out at me when I was reading the bill. It is safe to say that there are various Arab identities. It is not only one community. An intermingling has taken place in the Canadian context that also implies a plurality of identities. In m…
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Madam Speaker, I found the last question very interesting because democracy was thwarted during the committee's review of Bill C‑12. Amendments were presented, duly voted on and supported by the majority. Unfortunately, the government used a sleight of hand to then overturn them here in the House. I would like to hear my colleague's comments on this and on whether she feels that what happened was …
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Madam Speaker, the exchange we just witnessed is somewhat symptomatic of what we frequently see in the House. Let us just say that some people are extremely sensitive when it comes to immigration. The Bloc Québécois has spoken many times about the Roxham Road issue and the influx of asylum seekers, which was putting enormous pressure on Quebec without the federal government agreeing to pay its sha…
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Mr. Speaker, it goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill S-227, which establishes Arab heritage month. Bill S-227 is a reincarnation of Bill C-232 from the 44th Parliament, which the Senate had not finished studying before dissolution in March 2025. Therefore, the House has already dealt with the bill's content at every stage of the legislative process between Feb…
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Madam Speaker, as my colleague pointed out, there was excellent collaboration at committee on Bill C-12. It is unfortunate that the government has decided to set aside certain amendments. What is interesting about this bill is that the government now explicitly recognizes that there was a problem with asylum seekers. For a long time, harm was being done to the reputation of the Bloc Québécois and …
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Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North just realized that we are a separatist party. Well done, it is about time. As for the rest of his question, we are not at all the kind of people who seek out conflict. All we are doing is defending Quebec's interests, which are very poorly served here. Forty-four Liberal Party members were elected in Quebec. I do not see any of them standing up for the …
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Mr. Speaker, aside from the fact that the government has obviously completely abandoned the fight against climate change, the big question that we will have to ask ourselves today is this: Is there really a proponent that is interested in building a pipeline? There do not seem to be very many people lining up to do that. The Liberals and the Conservatives are going back and forth about who has the…
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Madam Speaker, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie recently made a public statement on the television program Tout le monde en parle. He also published an open letter saying that the agreement was very bad—
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Mr. Speaker, the last pipeline infrastructure built in Canada was the Trans Mountain expansion. It cost taxpayers $34 billion. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said in numerous analyses that this infrastructure is not profitable. It would have to operate at full capacity over the next 40 years just to break even. My Conservative friends like to talk about the Liberals' pipe dream, but I think …
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Madam Speaker, I am having a very hard time understanding the following. It cost $34 billion to expand a pipeline infrastructure project. What is more, not a single private proponent wanted to get involved, and not a single private proponent wants to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline. We also know that it will take more than 40 years for Trans Mountain's infrastructure to be profitable. However, som…
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As I was saying, the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie has publicly stated many times that the agreement is a very bad one and that removing the emissions cap and stepping back from clean electricity were harming the environment. In all sincerity, I want to ask my colleague how he can support such a measure. Earlier, I asked the Minister of the Environment, Climate Change and Nature to explain to me…
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Madam Speaker, a number of first nations have indicated that they want the tanker moratorium to remain intact. Even if they are consulted, they can ultimately decide to maintain the tanker moratorium. Would my colleague support the government forcing them to set aside the moratorium? How do we resolve this situation?
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Madam Speaker, earlier, I asked the leader of the official opposition whether he was aware that no proponents are interested in this project right now. He referred many times to the government's imaginary pipeline. His answer was to tell me that if the government gets out of the way, then a proponent will come forward. We know that this project is not viable. In order to be viable, the pipeline wo…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would have liked to hear the amendment put forward by the leader of the official opposition, but I do not know what happened. There were some strange noises. I do not know if the leader of the official opposition had a digestive issue, but it was so disruptive that the interpretation stopped.
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Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the Minister of Environment. I know she is in a difficult position today, but I would just like to point out to her that some things are irreconcilable. Sometimes we take positions in politics, guided by our ideas and our intentions, and there comes a point when we reach a breaking point. I think that is what happened to the member for Laurier—Sainte-Mari…
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is shouting himself hoarse trying to pull the wool over our eyes. This might even be affecting his health. He needs to take a breath between his shrieks. I am really concerned about his personal health. He can try to pull the wool over our eyes, but what the government is doing right now is providing indecent levels of support to the greedy oil and gas sect…
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Repentigny. The agreement between Alberta and the federal government is a perfect example of what I believe is wrong with Canadian politics, and frankly, today's debate is only contributing to that. It is clear that our political processes are powerless before the almighty oil and gas industry, and that is the only lens through which t…
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Madam Speaker, I find it hard to believe that 60% of Quebeckers support a pipeline. The question should be asked again more clearly, with specifics on the number of waterways that the pipeline is going to cross. I should also point out that we are not just a corridor for moving western energy. Quebec needs structural investments. The forestry sector is in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. Eve…
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Absolutely, Madam Speaker. More co-operation and consultation are needed. That is why the first thing that the government should have done when negotiating its agreement was to go and see the people of British Columbia to tell them what it was doing. Unfortunately, the government did not do that. The government negotiated behind British Columbia's back regarding infrastructure that may pass throug…
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Madam Speaker, the leader of the official opposition repeatedly called it a pipe dream during question period. The federal government announced a fantasy pipeline. This rarely happens, but I agree with what the leader of the official opposition is saying. This pipeline is indeed a pipe dream, a fantasy, because most serious investors know full well that it has no long-term profitability unless it …
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