Parliamentary Speeches

Madam Speaker, during question period in recent weeks, the Bloc Québécois has been asking the government about the awarding of a contract to replace the Aurora aircraft without a call for tenders. On November 24, I myself was told by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence that a decision had not yet been made. In answer to the first question that I asked on November 24, th…

Private Members' Business

Madam Speaker, today we are discussing Bill C-353. This is a vitally important measure for protecting the rights of our fellow citizens, but the text of the bill raises some crucial questions and legitimate concerns. When the member for Thornhill introduced her bill, she said it would “strengthen Canada's ability to deter, minimize and resolve instances of hostage-taking by increasing governmental…

Private Members' Business

Madam Speaker, during my speech, I will come back to the Bloc Québécois's position on the bill. For now, I would like to ask the member a question. Does she not get the impression that perhaps a bit too much discretionary power is being given to the minister and that, conversely, there may not be enough checks and balances?

Oral Questions

I have a riddle for you, Madam Speaker. Do you know what a lack of vision is? It is awarding a $10‑billion aircraft contract to Boeing when a Quebec company has the expertise to fulfill that contract. It is giving Quebeckers' money to Quebec's biggest aerospace rival without a call for tenders. It is belittling our industry in front of all of its partners by not even deigning to look at its offer.…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, it is unanimous. This morning, with one voice, the Quebec National Assembly spoke out against Ottawa's decision to give Boeing the contract for surveillance aircraft without a call for tenders. All of the elected officials in Quebec have spoken out against this deliberate choice to discount our aerospace industry. Ottawa's contempt is not just depriving our industry of a $9-billion co…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, we know that buying local is crucial. However, to benefit from local goods and services, we need entrepreneurs with solid regional and national roots. The Acton region understands this extremely well. The Acton business community owes a great deal to Johanne Joannette, who headed the local chamber of commerce for 22 years. Under Johanne's leadership, the chamber thrived. It moved into…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, who is also chair of the Standing Committee on International Trade, of which I am a member. Last spring, she and I saw Conservative members filibuster the committee over the supply management bill. This bill is still being studied by the Senate, and they seem to be taking their precious time. It is taking a long time, and does not appear to be a p…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it is true that the holdups in the Senate are frustrating. That is why I think the simplest solution would be to abolish it. We know the Conservatives promised Senate reform when they had a majority government, but that did not happen. Anyway, our colleague says that his party stands up for farmers. I remember the obstructionism our bill to protect supply management faced. I know th…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, today, Unifor and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, which represent tens of thousands of aerospace workers in Quebec, are on the Hill. We welcome them. They are here to say that Ottawa has no business giving Boeing more than $8 billion of our money, untendered, to replace the Aurora aircraft. It is a farce. Those are not my words. It is Michael Hood, f…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals cannot give $9 billion to an American giant without even giving Quebec expertise a chance. They cannot give $9 billion to Boeing, knowing that it tried to crush Quebec's aerospace industry in 2016 with illegal punitive duties. The Liberals even had to make up a “Boeing clause” to be included in other calls for tenders so our money would not go to companies that try to har…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, we are delighted over the introduction of this bill. As my colleague from Repentigny said earlier, the Bloc Québécois member for Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel introduced the first such bill back in 1990. I know that this has been a long fight for the Bloc Québécois and for the NDP. I would also like to commend the NDP for keeping this issue front and centre over the years. When it comes to…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, aerospace workers are urging the Liberals to put out a call for tenders to replace the CP-140 Aurora aircraft. The machinists' union published an open letter this morning. It denounces Ottawa's plan to offer a $9‑billion sole-source contract to Boeing, completely sidelining Quebec's expertise. The letter says: “Canada is missing an opportunity to generate significant local economic be…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the Bloc and the NDP agree on a number of points, including that the bill does not go far enough, but there are some good things in it. I will still come back to my question. Why is the government using a closure motion, never mind a super closure motion? I am well aware that there is filibustering. Filibustering harms everything. It is detrimental to our work, to what we want to ac…

Private Members' Business

Madam Speaker, I was just wondering how we can ensure adequate control, because for anything Internet-related, the servers can be located anywhere.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, correct me if I am wrong, but it seems to me that the closure motion came after the anti-scab bill issue. That being said, generally speaking, I too was stonewalled by the Conservatives on a bill I defended at the Standing Committee on International Trade. Those staunch advocates of farmers, the Conservatives, filibustered the defence of supply management. We can clearly see how con…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I will no doubt pick up roughly where my colleague from Mirabel left off. He painted a good picture of the political context. He concluded by speaking to the bill. I will go a bit deeper into the bill. The government proposal grants the Standing Committee on Finance the power to expand the scope of the bill by incorporating three substantial changes. First, there is the amendment se…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I want to reiterate some of the things I said. I do not see why a landlord would say that, since he did not pay GST on the purchase of a new building, his rental prices will go down. I do not see how this measure could lead to that. I do not see any automatic or obvious correlation. Having said that, I believe that if GST were to be imposed, it should be on the buyers if homes were …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, the member opposite did not listen to what I said. I said that there was no correlation with rental prices. He can listen to that again and we will talk about it again.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I think he put his finger on the problem with these super closure motions. My colleague began his question by summarizing our position, which is, of course, to oppose the super closure motion, but support the bill as amended at this stage. Entrepreneurs are asking us questions and they want to know if they have the right to do certain things. We need to do our job properly on that. …

Private Members' Business

Madam Speaker, I think our colleague knows that we support Bill S‑210. That being said, I have two questions. First of all, control seems harder today because servers can be installed almost anywhere. That seems to be making it more challenging to impose laws within a set of borders on anything Internet-related. I would like to ask my colleague to say a few words on that topic. My other question i…

Private Members' Business

Madam Speaker, before getting to the heart of the matter, I too want to join my colleagues in expressing my full solidarity with the artisans from TVA who were laid off as part of this restructuring. People are now unemployed, the national news media is in crisis, and a culture is under threat. We must take action and be proactive by translating solidarity and compassion into meaningful action. I …

Orders of the Day

Madam Speaker, as I said earlier, just because we disagree with the amendment does not mean we disagree with the report and do not think this issue warrants further investigation. More broadly, what does my colleague think of the fact that Canada has one of the worst records when it comes to protecting travellers? ArriveCAN is a scandal for travellers whose trips were cancelled and who had no righ…

Orders of the Day

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague and fellow member of the Standing Committee on International Trade. We did that study together, in fact. I think we can both attest to the fact that we were able to do what had to get done, although any new important facts could well deserve further study. Can my colleague tell us more about why the Standing Committee on International Trade is perhaps not the be…

Orders of the Day

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague. We work well together on the Standing Committee on International Trade. As the member knows, we have our work cut out for us. We are currently studying a Health Canada regulation that hurts Canadian and Quebec products and gives a leg up to our American competitors. After that, we will be studying the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. We will then study the …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it is funny to hear Gérald Godin being quoted. Did the member know that Godin also said, “The federal policy on French in Canada can generally be summarized as follows: strengthen French where it is on its last legs; remain passive where there are real chances for it to assert itself and weaken it where it is strong”? It can be fun to quote Gérald Godin, just like the parish priests…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I just want to ask my colleague why the debate on numbers is so taboo. The ministries are responsible for determining integration capacity. I think the operative word here is “capacity”. A Quebec government minister in a previous legislature talked about taking in fewer immigrants but taking better care of them. This idea would be a reasonable topic for debate. Why is everyone so qu…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, my colleague is a Quebec MP. I suspect he is sensitive to the interests of Quebec. Some of the Conservative amendments proposed during the review of Bill C‑34 may have cast suspicion on certain foreign state-owned companies outside the Five Eyes group. What impact would that have had on the A220 aircraft currently being assembled in Mirabel in partnership with the government of Queb…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, you picked the wrong member for a short 15‑second question. You know me. The time is already almost up. We welcome the progress and the improvements that the bill makes to the current act, but why are the rules still so slack, and why is there so little scrutiny?

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, my colleague was criticizing the Bloc Québécois for voting against the Conservative amendments. I just want to make it clear that the Conservative amendments were intended to label just about every state-owned enterprise not run by our Five Eyes partners as hostile. I do not know if he is aware that 40% of European investments made in Canada are made in Quebec. One example is Airbus, …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C‑34 as the Bloc Québécois critic for international trade. This bill seeks to improve the Canada Investment Act to add certain control mechanisms for foreign investments that might undermine national security. Is Canada, a laggard in so many sectors and industries that have an undeniable strategic value, breaking from its idyllic vision of …

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, we still do not understand why, following a health crisis and after having removed investor-state dispute settlement from NAFTA, Canada insists on including it in new agreements. It poses a constant threat to democracy and the right to legislate. In the case of Ukraine, for example, we would not be able to seize assets, as Ukraine has done with some of its citizens for collaborating w…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers are proud of their aerospace sector, and especially proud of Bombardier. Bombardier has developed outstanding expertise over the years, and has turned Joseph‑Armand's company into a key international player in aircraft construction. However, when the time comes for Ottawa to modernize its Aurora maritime patrol aircraft, it turns to Boeing, no tender process needed. With no…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, give me a break. Aeronautics industry leaders are on Parliament Hill today. The director of the International Aeronautics and Civil Aviation Observatory, people representing machinists and UNIFOR, and even the former commander of the RCAF are here. They have all the answers to any question the government might ask. They have all the information that proves that, when it comes to aeron…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's trenchant condemnation of the lack of transparency in most of these negotiations. What a shame the Liberals did not listen during his speech. Had they listened, they might understand when we ask them questions about investor-state dispute settlement. Maybe they would not get that mixed up with state-to-state dispute settlement, and then maybe they could avo…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure how to unpack everything I just heard. First, yes, in its agreements, Canada has some experience in undermining supply management three times, failing to protect aluminum in CUSMA, not pushing for our interests and fundamental values multiple times, and hiding several things from us. To the question from my colleague who says that we should allow the negotiators to do th…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in the House to speak to Bill C‑57, which seeks to modernize the 2017 Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, or CUFTA. I rise as the Bloc Québécois international trade critic, and I am pleased to speak on behalf of my political party today. I just want to remind the House that our party is continuing a tradition, because Quebec's independence movement has been advocating fo…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, our level of confidence in this government is as low as the official opposition's. We sometimes wonder whether the government truly deserves our trust. In this case, one of the irritants is transparency and, frankly, the Conservatives are no better in that regard when they are in power. There are models out there in the world. It is not necessary to present an agreement like this and …

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, we can rest easy about the supply management aspect, because the text excludes those sectors. There is nothing that resembles the order the government made on the sly, somewhat surreptitiously, in 2022. We can rest assured on that front. As for the power of multinationals, we will assess how much flexibility we have because, as I said, there is very little we can change. However, that…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, in response to my colleague's question, I can say that there is indeed some good. We support the principle and we have no interest in dragging out or disrupting the natural process. Indeed, sooner would be better. However, I want to reiterate what I was saying at the end: I do not want our reservations to be diminished. I am calling on the government to commit to us, whether through a…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I want to be sure that I understand the situation that my colleague just described to the House. His intervention was very interesting. Something that has always bothered me is the use of the term “indigenous people”. Of course, people use it to be brief and concise, but indigenous people are not a homogenous group. We refer to first nations because there is more than one nation. Each…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I only have a few seconds. A quick question lends itself to a quick answer. I apologize for not heeding your instructions. I do not want you to think, even though we were friends even before we sat together, that I do not respect your authority as Speaker. My very short answer to the question is no.

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, neighbour and friend for his question. Let me make one thing clear. The title of this bill, while perhaps a little better than the title it replaced, is in itself a sign that it must be abolished. I used the word “Indian” unwillingly, and it turned my stomach every time I used it throughout my speech. I was using it for the sole reason that it is the title of the…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I would like to start by congratulating our colleague on his excellent efforts to speak French. Allow me to applaud him. I understood his speech completely. First of all, I would like to say that, for my own sake, I have long given up trying to explain the Liberal's slow response to a host of issues. Some things are better left chalked up to the mysteries of life. Even on my deathbed,…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, of course, and as one might imagine, when I was asked to speak to this issue, I immediately contacted the grand chief of my nation, the Huron-Wendat Nation. I asked him what he thought of this. It goes without saying that this must be done. That being said, when it comes to leadership, it takes two to tango, as they say. It has to come from both sides. The desire for dialogue and lead…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C‑38, an act to amend the Indian Act, which corrects serious mistakes committed in the past regarding the status of many first nations members. Today, I speak on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, but also as a member of the Huron‑Wendat Nation. First, let me say one thing: The Indian Act is a colonial law that introduced a system of domination a…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, CORE, the Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, does not even have the authority to call witnesses. I went to Colombia in 2021 as part of a human rights mission. I can confirm that there are some disturbing accounts there. Ottawa has no idea what is happening with the mining companies abroad. Export Development Canada has no checks and balances or credible monitoring. Otta…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Amnesty International is calling on Export Development Canada, EDC, to stop funding Canadian mining companies in Colombia, where human rights violations are on the rise. Some 146 political dissidents were killed last year. That represents 46% of all political assassinations around the world. Environmental activists, farmers, indigenous people and anyone who has reservations about the …

Private Members' Business

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what I did to deserve such applause and support from my Conservative colleagues, but I appreciate it. Sometimes it is possible to be transpartisan when one has good ideas. I tip my hat to my dear friends. It is a great pleasure for me to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C‑280, which is extremely important for our farmers, particularly our fruit and vegetable grow…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question. Why are we talking about sustainable jobs and not a just transition?

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I cannot hear myself.