Government Orders
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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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 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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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…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
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…
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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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