Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague. I may not have focused on that aspect in my speech, but it is unacceptable to allow a company like Canadian Pacific, which according to my research makes $2.8 billion in profit a year, to not pay taxes. That is unacceptable. That is something that I think can be fixed quickly. With the goodwill of the Liberal Party, I am sure that we can quickly…
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Madam Speaker, to be honest, I have to tell my colleague from Winnipeg North that I am not a constitutional expert. However, I very much appreciate the idea that an opposition member can propose amendments to the Constitution by means of a motion. As I said earlier, when I was a bit younger, I was interested in what James Tully had to say about flexible constitutions. Personally, I tend to think t…
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from the NDP. The government is plainly complacent about tax havens and tax loopholes. There is talk of the need for major initiatives once we are out of this crisis, including with regard to health care funding. That money will have to come from somewhere. There needs to be major tax reform. We also need to put an end to tax havens and all the t…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague has clearly shown that it was absurd for Canadian Pacific not to pay its taxes. What I am having difficulty understanding is the ambivalence of our Liberal colleagues. They have seemed very hesitant to support the Conservative motion right from the start of the day. Can my colleague explain why he thinks our Liberal colleagues are being so reserved?
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the passionate speech given by my colleague from Winnipeg North. There were some real gems in it. For example, he said that he was proud of the fact that Mr. Trudeau had united Canadians and made them proud. I am not too sure about that, since the average Quebecker remembers 1982 as the year the federal government betrayed them. The same is true for the Meech Lake and …
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate, but the investments the minister just mentioned are not sustainable investments. They are pandemic-related investments. I issued a challenge to the minister. If he believes that funding 22% of health care costs is enough, he should follow our leader's suggestion and call a summit on health care funding. If everyone agrees that 22% is enough, I swear I will never tal…
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Mr. Speaker, on Friday, all the provincial premiers once again asked the federal government to pay its fair share for health care. They unanimously reiterated that the federal government must increase transfers to cover 35% of health care costs. They are once again reaching out to the Prime Minister in the hopes of coming to an agreement in the next few weeks. My question is a very simple one. Wil…
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government's decision to underfund health care comes at a cost. There is a price to be paid for pushing health care networks to the limit and hoping that nothing unexpected brings it all crashing down. Quebeckers feel as though they are the ones paying the price, what with the offloading of responsibilities and the lockdown measures. We need to rebuild the health care syst…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-8, even though it is not exactly my favourite subject. I would like to talk about health transfers, and I hope this subject does not get overlooked. To begin my speech, I want to come back to the subject of the emergency funds and programs the government put in place. The wage subsidy and the rent subsidy in particular come to mind, becaus…
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That is true, Mr. Speaker, as my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean just said. It has nothing for health up to 2027, and that is a disaster. I would like to look into the origins of the Canadian federation's biggest problem, health care funding. For that, we have to go back to a key concept, which is the fiscal imbalance. I know that federalists do not want to talk about the fiscal imbalance, but we ha…
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Mr. Speaker, I thought I was the one who was supposed to speak for 10 minutes. I am surprised. I would say to my colleague that the federal government does have a role to play, and that is to transfer money to repair a health care system that has been underfunded for the past 20 years. What I would have liked to hear from my colleague from Winnipeg North is his explanation as to why. Instead, he e…
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Mr. Speaker, to be honest with my colleague, I did not talk about inflation because I do not know a lot about it. I always find it funny when people rise in the House to talk about things they know nothing about. I know quite a bit about health transfers. I have done my research. The Conservatives are fixated on inflation, and I get it. It is a major concern when it comes to health transfers. Infl…
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague from Timmins—James Bay. That is what we call an assist. If we want to do something constructive, maybe we should stop sending financial support to the fossil fuel sector year after year and start thinking about those with the greatest needs who will suffer the most from inflation, in other words seniors and the most vulnerable. I agree with my coll…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague was urging people to get vaccinated and get the third dose. However, if we want to get people vaccinated, we need to hire nurses, and to hire nurses the government needs to provide health transfers. Does my colleague agree with her government's plan to wait until 2027 to provide financial support to the provinces?
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Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague's speech. She started it by saying that her government had procured vaccines. That is absolutely true. What I find strange, though, is how, in the economic update, the government used these vaccine procurements as an excuse for why it would not invest in health care until 2027. My colleague concluded her speech by emphasizing how important the thir…
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Mr. Speaker, I am impressed. No one is questioning the fact that Ottawa spent money during the pandemic. The problem is that the government made cuts to health care funding before the pandemic. The government is now saying that it will not make any investments until 2027. The federal government was not making investments before the pandemic and will not be making any after it. The Liberals confirm…
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Mr. Speaker, recent developments are a stark reminder that we are still in the midst of a health crisis and that our health care system remains overburdened. Nevertheless, this week, despite Quebec announcing new restrictions because of concerns about the variant, despite Ottawa recommending no travel, despite the Liberal Party recommending that people work from home, despite all of that, the gove…
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Mr. Speaker, I am quite fond of my colleague from Carleton, so I will tell him up front that I do not agree with my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert. I believe that the Conservatives are really good when it comes to oil. Just look at the previous session when they moved a motion that said that oil was irreplaceable and it was better than air and water. I will nevertheless remind my colleague …
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative motion reminds me of the relationship that I have with my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles on Twitter. Let us just say that my intentions are not always the best when we debate on Twitter, and I get the impression that what the Conservatives are trying to do is embarrass the government. I would ask my colleague whether he would agree with me that there …
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, in his speech, our colleague spoke about how important it is to reduce greenhouse gases and about what his government has done. I genuinely wonder if he has read the report from the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. This report was damning for his government, especially when it comes to the emissions reduction fund, which goes entirely to the oil and gas ind…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, my colleague once again demonstrated that she is a moderate parliamentarian, just as she did when she spoke about Quebec artists, but that is another matter. We often hear the same mantra from the Conservatives: “We have a plan. We need a plan.” We do not know what that plan is, but they are constantly telling us about it. I would like to see that plan. The amendment proposed by the L…
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Mr. Speaker, I wondered for a few seconds if my colleague was joking and being ironic when he said that the government had declared war on the energy sector. If it has, then it is certainly a gentle war, one that would no doubt leave the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development flabbergasted. In 2018, 2019 and 2020, the government invested $14 billion annually in the oil and gas…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I look forward to working with her on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. My colleague spoke a lot about the relationship with the United States. This relationship is a big part of the issue we are discussing tonight. However, we cannot ignore one of the major issues for the forestry industry, which is that there is no support for secondar…
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Mr. Speaker, I found it rather surprising that my colleague is patting himself on the back for the agreement reached in 2006. For the people in my region, the 2006 deal was a disaster. The Conservatives never brought in a liquidity program for people in the forestry sector, so they were struggling and were eventually forced to accept a sellout agreement. What my colleague failed to mention is that…
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Madam Chair, I will be frank. In the House, I often hear the phrase “team Canada” and the idea that we should be working as team Canada. I am not particularly interested in team Canada, and I will tell you why. Canada has two main economic sectors: the oil industry and the automotive industry. The federal government is totally absent when it comes to softwood lumber. Today we have heard about nego…
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Mr. Speaker, I can understand my colleague from Winnipeg North wanting to depoliticize the debate because what both the Conservatives and Liberals have done for the forestry industry is pathetic. Earlier, I was listening to my colleague say that it was powerful U.S. lobbyists who managed to get the tariffs imposed. He said that members of the House should not be pointing fingers at one another. He…
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Madam Chair, I always enjoy listening to my Green Party colleague. I would just like to ask her if she believes, as I do, that part of the solution for the forestry industry is to further develop what is known today as the bioeconomy, which significantly reduces the carbon footprint of many sectors of activity. I do not know what she thinks of that.
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Madam Chair, everyone knows that I am a fair-minded person, and I am not going to bug my colleague, with whom I shared a lot of good times at the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. However, he talked about the Conservatives' 2006 softwood lumber agreement and said that we need to be firm. I would simply tell him that the people in the forestry sector think that the 2006 agreement was a bad d…
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his speech. We will be working together on the Standing Committee on Natural Resources. He ended his speech by asking what we were going to do for workers in the industry. I would like to tell him that what we can do has a lot to do with secondary and tertiary processing. Unfortunately, industry stakeholders are telling us that the federal…
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Mr. Speaker, since I am absolutely right, I will go on. I hope I will be absolutely right again. What is going on in the United States is very worrisome. Ottawa was supposed to get rid of softwood lumber duties. Washington's response? Double those duties. Ottawa was supposed to lobby for exemptions to protectionism in the electric vehicle sector. Washington's response? Add another layer of protect…
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Mr. Speaker, it was bad enough that the United States was imposing duties on our softwood lumber, but now Washington is thumbing its nose at us by doubling its already unfair duties. Ottawa was supposed to get the United States to eliminate duties altogether. Amazingly, the opposite happened: Washington doubled them. This is utterly appalling, especially since Quebec's forestry industry has been a…
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Madam Speaker, there are two problems before us today. One is that the Liberals, as my colleague has clearly shown, want to limit debate and do not want to be held accountable for their actions. We saw plenty of that in the last parliament. For their part, the NDP members prefer to remain in their pyjamas in the basement. That is their choice. The other problem I want to raise is the issue of safe…
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Would you please be quiet? Madam Speaker, during the last parliamentary session, there was one single person on the other side. Science tells us that, if we are all properly vaccinated and we follow the guidelines by wearing our masks, being here in the House is perfectly fine. I do not want to be associated with what is going on in the Conservative Party, where people doubt vaccine efficacy and t…
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Madam Speaker, I would just like to reassure my NDP colleague that we do not agree with the Conservative Party's position. The Bloc Québécois listens to science. Our intention is to be present in the House. Democracy only works when it is out in the open.
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech. He is a sensible, rational man. I would therefore like to ask him a very simple question. This evening, I asked the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition one time whether they agreed that we cannot just put out fires and that we need to prevent them. What we are seeing today are the effects of the climate crisis. Can my colleague tel…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the speech from the Leader of the Opposition. He ended by saying that we must be united and help those who need it most. I totally agree with him. As I told the Prime Minister earlier, simply putting out fires is no longer good enough. What we are doing tonight is showing compassion and sympathy. We are trying to put out fires, but we have to start preventing them. Preventin…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to take just a few seconds to thank the good people of Jonquière who have placed their trust in me once again, as well as my wife, Line Vachon, who is affectionately known as Staline, the dictator of love. I would like to tell my colleague from Abbotsford that in 1996, the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region went through something similar. I want to reiterate my full support. As I r…
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Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, I heard the Prime Minister tell us that his government will continue to be there for British Columbians, and I wondered what “being there” means. If “being there” only means putting out fires, I think that is not enough. We also need to prevent fires. We need to show empathy and sympathy tonight, but what we will need in the future is courage. Courage m…
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