Parliamentary Speeches
817 speeches by Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay — Page 12 of 17
Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, Léandre Dion, a proud Quebecker and proud Maskoutan, passed away on October 29. He served as the PQ MNA for Saint‑Hyacinthe in the Quebec National Assembly from 1994 to 2007. He worked with important people in Quebec's political history during the 1995 referendum, a very pivotal time. Léandre was definitely what one would call a man of the people who made an extraordinary contribution…
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Mr. Speaker, that is unacceptable. When the government implements a measure, it has to be able to justify it, cost it, support it with data and findings. It has to be able to say which aspects worked well and which ones did not; to state that the pros outweigh the cons, or in the opposite case, that adjustments will have to be made. When we are not privy to that information, we no longer have a re…
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Mr. Speaker, I realize that our hon. colleague often uses the strategy of opening up a bunch of topics of discussion and then asking an unrelated question, making it hard for us to respond to all the arguments he was putting forward. I will respond to the first point. When it comes to transparency, my colleague from Winnipeg North said that opposition members claim that the Liberals do not seem to…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to the motion moved by our official opposition colleagues requiring that the Auditor General audit the payments, contracts and subcontracts for the ArriveCAN app. I will reiterate what my Bloc Québécois colleagues said earlier. It is quite rich to make a link between, according to the wording of the Conservative motion, the money funnelled into Arri…
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Mr. Speaker, I am also more than willing for us to look more closely at how contracts are awarded. Some rather serious mistakes were made. We are members of the Bloc Québécois. For awhile, in Quebec, we had what were called public-private partnerships under a Liberal government, and the results were rather scandalous in many respects. Of course, we can look at that and debate it. I have no problem…
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Mr. Speaker, I thought it was a shame that so much chatter was going on in the corner while my colleagues from Mirabel and Joliette were giving their brilliant speeches. Members will still go ahead and ask my two colleagues questions on issues that were covered in great detail in their speeches. Then members will ask how my colleagues can say this or that. My first point is that members should hav…
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Madam Speaker, the great journalist and pamphleteer Arthur Buies made the following forceful statement in 1869: “A republic is the government for men; a monarchy is the government for children”. A government for children indeed, or a system of governance that fully acknowledges it has never reached maturity in the democratic sense. It is a system of government that states loudly, clearly and shame…
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Madam Speaker, it is because that is not what the motion says. The motion calls on the House to mandate the government to initiate the process. It is as simple as that. Deciding what form this will take will come later. I know that the very idea of a republic is a bit foreign to a Canadian government that is proud of its monarchy, that it is a rather alien concept that may be hard to understand. T…
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Madam Speaker, there are some things that my colleague said in his speech that I want to understand. That is the message that we have been hearing since this morning, that this is not a real issue and that there are so many more important issues. Let us say that I understood that criticism earlier this morning, but at this point in the day, I see it as a sign that nobody really has any real argume…
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Madam Speaker, it is very simple. Honestly, I think that most veterans did not go to war ready to die for royalty. I do not think that was the main motivation. That being said, I personally know some veterans who are proud of their past service but who do not think that this institution is still relevant in 2022. I am not trying to tell them that they need to renounce their past oaths or military …
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Madam Speaker, I think what the member for Rivière-du-Nord said and what all the Bloc Québécois members would say is that an elected president is better than a king. That is undeniable. That part is settled, everyone agrees on that. The Canadian members of Parliament are pretty much the only ones who disagree. That said, as my colleague was saying, she was picking up on the question from the Parli…
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Madam Speaker, I thank our colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent for his speech. I know that he is also the environment critic, so I would like to ask him a rather simple question. If there is one price that keeps going up and down, it is the price of fossil fuels. If there is one thing that is always changing, that is chronically unstable, it is the price of fossil fuels. Does my colleague agree tha…
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Mr. Speaker, since the first half of the 1990s, provincial health care systems have been sabotaged, particularly in Quebec. They were sabotaged from the moment the transfers stopped. Since then, while the provinces have to hire staff, doctors, nurses and orderlies, the money stays in Ottawa. Is that acceptable? Is it acceptable that, after having sucked the lifeblood out of provincial health care …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment through you. I know that the parties are usually in caucus on Wednesday morning, tomorrow. I have a bit of a special request for the Conservative Party. Since we are talking about economic issues, for the mental health and well-being of the rest of the House, I would ask that the Conservatives stop saying “triple, triple, triple the tax”. It may have bee…
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Madam Speaker, the Centre d'histoire de Saint-Hyacinthe is a private archival service accredited by the Bibliothèque et archives nationales du Québec, as are 38 other accredited archives. The centre has been in operation since 1992. With 1,500 metres of archives, the Centre d'histoire de Saint-Hyacinthe is truly ranked among the greats, alongside the Museum of Civilization, the Augustinian Monaste…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I must say that the Bloc Québécois is very much in favour of Bill C‑294. One of the reasons we support it is that it also addresses the problem of planned obsolescence, which means that devices must constantly be updated and upgraded. We can finally break the “buy-use-toss” cycle, where scientists are asked to put all their efforts into innovating products designed to become obsolet…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by telling my colleague that we are also very proud of the success of our early childhood centres, a big success of a competent and pro-independence Quebec government. However, in her speech, there is one thing that I did not understand. She spoke of the need for dental care for seniors. However, her government's proposal is for children aged 11 and under. Coul…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the NDP House leader for his speech. The cost of groceries is going up, but some members of society are having a much easier time of it. We know that the highly subsidized oil industry is raking in the profits. The banks are, as well. The government is doing nothing for those who are struggling the most, nothing to deal with the housing crisis, nothing for seniors and nothin…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his colourful speech. I personally confess to being a great admirer of our colleague, and I do not think I am the only one in our party to feel that way. There is a problem that is even bigger than consumer prices, and that is housing prices. There is truly a lack of available housing. Home ownership is really problematic. I would like to know the position o…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention and for his speech. Since he taught economics at two CEGEPs, I would like to ask him something. We are familiar with the incendiary declarations that the Leader of the Opposition made regarding the central bank, before he became leader of his party. We know that the central bank is often a target. In the 20th century, however, John Maynard K…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I want to make sure I understood something. The motivation behind this debate—
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Madam Speaker, there is something I want to be sure I understand. The argument being bandied about is that the carbon tax is going to triple. The carbon tax will not be tripled right away. It will take around a decade for that to happen. My crystal ball is not showing me with any certainty what the inflation rate will be at that time. I want to understand. What is the urgency in all this?
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Madam Speaker, I still think there are better solutions. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about this. Right now, we know that rising prices are often driven by a lack of competition. We also know that the Competition Act encourages company mergers, which means more monopolies. Does my colleague agree that the act should be amended? Should the Investment Canada Act also be amended to c…
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Mr. Speaker, at the same time, wages are catching up with inflation. The labour shortage is forcing employers to increase wages in order to remain competitive and continue to attract employees. Wages are therefore catching up a bit in some respect. However, the Government of Canada only started talking about it last month. There was nothing about it in last spring's budget, nor was there anything …
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Mr. Speaker, I will begin by stating the obvious: Inflation is a real, serious problem. That is the first thing. Some people are even talking about a recession. The Premier of Quebec, Mr. Legault, estimates that we have a fifty-fifty chance of ending up in a recession. Back when he was a separatist, that very same François Legault said that if a slowdown or a recession were to happen, Quebec would…
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Mr. Speaker, I am sorry, I have some terrible colleagues who have no sense of solidarity. For consumers, this new increase in the key rate will lead to higher interest and mortgage rates—
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Mr. Speaker, I am somewhat surprised to hear my colleague speak of rare disagreements between members of the Bloc Québécois and members of the Conservative Party. It seems to me that we do indeed have disagreements and that they are numerous. That, by the way, is part of democracy. As to the worship of oil in Canada, there seems to be a non-Quebec cross-party consensus in the House. That said, we …
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Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening to talk about this motion to recognize, create, rename and symbolically designate a Hindu heritage month. I have to say that it is the word “heritage” that makes me receptive to this motion because, of course, all of us here support secularism. I personally am a great supporter of secularism and freedom of conscience. Unfortunately, the concept of secularism i…
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Mr. Speaker, today I am speaking on behalf of the Bloc Québécois about Bill C‑29, which provides for the establishment of a national council for reconciliation. I am especially grateful for the opportunity to participate in this debate because I am a member of the Huron-Wendat nation, the first Huron-Wendat to be elected to the House of Commons. Like the minister, I too was present when the surviv…
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Mr. Speaker, I am certainly in favour of collaboration. As I said, we are taking part in a democratic debate. I have expressed reservations, but we agree on the fundamentals. We will look at ways to improve the bill and see what kind of answers we get to our questions. Then we will make up our minds. Clearly we need a collaborative approach to the duty to remember. That goes without saying. One th…
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, I am concerned about that. I talked about it specifically and at length. Quebec did an amazing job creating oversight committees. Now it is observing the potential creation of another federal committee that may encroach on its jurisdiction. Of course that worries us, and that is why I talked about it.
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Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not against the idea, but we have to be careful not to expand the council's role too much. As I was saying earlier, its mandate is quite broad. Perhaps it should focus more on the government itself, on the public organizations or agencies that are the responsibility of the Government of Canada. That being said, when it comes to promoting indigenous languages, I was fort…
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Mr. Speaker, let me give a broad answer. The Indian Act, which is a completely racist piece of legislation, must be replaced through real dialogue with first nations, with indigenous peoples. Any model we identify must be based solely on dialogue with the first nations and on their will. That is the first thing that must be made clear. It is appalling that an act with such a name is still in force…
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Madam Speaker, I think that we all agree that this is a statement of good intentions and sound principles. This is not the first time such a bill has been introduced. There is no problem there. I also agree that, sometimes, it is important to support the principle and then give the bill some substance or correct certain grey areas during study in committee. The Bloc Québécois agrees, and that is w…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, there are currently companies in the world that are based in Canada. I say “based” because Canada is a veritable flag of convenience. In reality, there is often nothing Canadian about these companies. They are committing serious human, social, and environmental rights abuses around the world. I myself have participated in human rights observation missions, and I have seen that these c…
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Madam Speaker, we are currently discussing a bill that would strengthen gun control. We are prepared to study it and analyze it in committee. However, as the Montreal police have fully shown and documented, most gun violence is committed with illegal weapons, contraband weapons. Why is it that the government is not taking steps to stop this smuggling, despite all the pressure we have been exerting…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, in the 2015-19 Parliament, my predecessor attempted, by similar means, to change the name of my riding, Saint‑Hyacinthe—Bagot, to Saint‑Hyacinthe—Acton, so that all constituents would feel represented. Unfortunately, the bill died in the luxurious sleepy hollow known as the Senate. I do not want my colleague's bill to meet the same fate. I am going to try to take advantage of the curr…
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Madam Speaker, personally, I know of very few criminals who are aware that mandatory minimums exist and I know of even fewer actual empirical studies that show any kind of connection between mandatory minimums and a decrease in crime. Unfortunately, there are still some people in the House who are advocating a demagogic, cavalier and repressive “get tough” approach, when what we really need is pre…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague, the chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade, and thank her for her speech. We agree on a number of points, including the fact that minimum sentences are utterly ineffective. They do not work, and all of the studies have shown that. However, we are questioning the timing of abolishing such sentences for gun crime, given the problems on the…
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Mr. Speaker, a few minutes ago, there was a discussion about the hour of adjournment for tomorrow's sitting. The official opposition asked which leader had agreed to that. I want to make it clear that it was not the leader of the Bloc Québécois, and we would also like to know who it was.
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Mr. Speaker, Liberal and Conservative members from Quebec showed their true colours yesterday. They voted against protecting Quebec's political weight in the House of Commons. They voted against maintaining the proportion of seats in Ottawa for the Quebec nation at 25%. Because of them, Quebec is doomed to slowly disappear. Maintaining Quebec's political weight at 25% is not a new concept. It was …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Joliette, who is our excellent finance critic. One file overlaps both of our critic roles: the luxury tax. One of my parliamentary files is aerospace. For over a year now, I have been hearing about this tax, which we agree with in principle. In the Bloc Québécois, we are big fans of better distribution of wealth. We gladly support that goal, since the ultra…
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Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the excellent speech by my colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville. I have to say that this has really affected me. When I was young, I remember seeing the signs at election time asking who had stolen money from the unemployed. Movements like the Sans-Chemise coalition spoke out election after election, reminding us that workers were always worse off a…
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Madam Speaker, our colleague is talking about child care. We do actually get a sense that he really cares, that he is truly concerned about people in need. One of the things that really bothers us about this budget and its implementation act is, first, that health care is being completely ignored. When I say that, I am not talking about an intrusion. We are not talking about dictating standards to…
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Madam Speaker, to pick up on what my colleague from Joliette was saying, there was indeed not much of a connection between our colleague's statement and the subject at hand, which has me wondering if he is tacitly acknowledging that there is nothing in the budget.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue. We are heading into the final hour of Wednesday, June 8. I am pleased to be spending the final moments of this day with my colleagues. I want to thank them in advance for their rapt attention. We are here tonight to discuss Bill C-19, an act to implement certain provisions of th…
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Madam Speaker, as I said several times, we support the principle. We support the underlying idea. Even industry stakeholders tell us that they agree with the idea, but they are asking us to do things properly. It has nothing to do with momentum and everything to do with how this is deployed and how the targets are set. It would have been a good idea to do an impact study for something this big.
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Madam Speaker, we believe in the idea of having more green vehicles. I understand that this is a general question on green vehicles. Canada has long presented itself as a leader, but it was not one. In 2019, Canada was the last western country to bring in rebates on the sale of individual electric vehicles. That is bad, if we think about it. The delay is unfathomable, considering how many things n…
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased that someone has finally found a riding where that technology works, because we have been searching for one from the start. In any case, we do not believe in that. The best carbon capture facility is a tree. There was a strategy for that. The government was supposed to plant billions of trees, but it has yet to plant a single one. I myself have planted more than th…
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Madam Speaker, the amount that the member is referring to had already been announced. It was then put into the bill, so it is nothing new. It was not specific to this bill. It also falls well short of expectations, given inflation and skyrocketing costs. I remind members that this amount is far from what was promised in the Canada Health Act. We could ask the provinces what they think about workin…
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