Parliamentary Speeches
523 speeches by Xavier Barsalou-Duval — Page 5 of 11
Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the 50th anniversary of the convenience store La Ressource. Founded in 1974 by André Desroches, who also founded the Association des gens d’affaires de Boucherville, this family business has become a true institution in Boucherville. La Ressource is much more than a simple corner store where people go to buy a quart of milk, a bag of chips or a case of beer…
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Mr. Speaker, without whistle-blowers, we never would have known that the CRA had been robbed of $100 million. We never would have known that 62,000 taxpayers had had their personal information stolen or that the CRA has been aware of flaws in its security system for a year now. It was only when journalists began taking an interest in the problem that the minister took an interest in it too. Instea…
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Mr. Speaker, taxpayers have been robbed of over $100 million this year because of an epidemic of fraud at the Canada Revenue Agency, or CRA, but the last thing the Liberals want is for people to talk about it. On Wednesday, in committee, the Minister of National Revenue even threatened her own public servants with jail time if they continue to tell the media about the problems at the CRA. Her prio…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague. Earlier, I heard him say how important it is to move away from coal and toward other types of energy. I found that very interesting. Not so long ago, when we were examining Bill C-33 in committee, I moved an amendment to the bill. This amendment sought to ban the export of thermal coal in order to help fight climate change. However, the member's Con…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my Conservative colleague a question about the Liberal government's latest announcement. It has announced a temporary, two-month tax holiday on certain products, and it is proposing to send out $250 cheques to people earning $150,000 or less. I view this as sheer opportunism or cynicism. The government is handing out gifts to buy votes. There are well-worn tactics …
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech that was full of passion and rhetoric. However, I would like to bring him back to the topic at hand. My colleague is upset about the fact that we are just now debating the committee report from two years ago, but I am not sure whether he listened to the speech by my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia. In her speech, my colleague …
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Madam Speaker, I just want to know if there is quorum in the House.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to ask if there is quorum in the House.
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Madam Speaker, they are so independent that it was this Prime Minister who appointed them and, apparently, they are all good buddies. These two unelected individuals, Peter Boehm and Peter Harder, are working against the interests of our farmers. They are working against the will of elected officials from all parties who supported Bill C-282. They are working against our constituents. They are wor…
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Madam Speaker, senators Peter Boehm and Peter Harder just stabbed our farmers in the back. They just amended Bill C‑282 to prevent it from protecting supply management in trade renegotiations. At the very moment that Donald Trump is saying that he wants to renegotiate CUSMA, these two senators are guaranteeing that supply management will be back on the table. The Prime Minister appointed these two…
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Mr. Speaker, although my colleague's speech was definitely interesting, it had nothing to do with what we are debating. I will therefore ask him a question about the positions taken by his colleagues who actually talked about the subject we are debating. I am concerned to hear members of the government say that it is ridiculous, that there is filibustering in the House and that it prevents them fr…
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois would also like to have the opportunity to carefully review the member's concerns before speaking to the matter.
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Madam Speaker, I have trouble understanding why my colleague opposite is so indignant. I have witnessed him expressing his indignation again and again, day after day, for nearly a month now. The Bloc Québécois offered the government a way out so that we could move forward and end the standoff. We sent it a proposal that would benefit Quebeckers and maybe even Canadians. We asked it to boost retire…
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Mr. Speaker, tomorrow will mark 500 days since the House adopted Bill C‑282, which seeks to protect supply management in trade agreements. People are wondering why two Liberal-appointed senators, Peter Boehm and Peter Harder, are filibustering so hard. We may have gotten a clue yesterday, when former Liberal minister John Manley, a prominent member of Jean Chrétien's government, compared our farme…
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Mr. Speaker, after 500 days of filibustering, we have to wonder whether Peter Boehm and Peter Harder are part of a Liberal anti-supply-management movement, along with John Manley. Comparing our farmers to the deadliest lobby in the United States is insulting. Comparing the protection of our human-scale agriculture sector to totalitarianism is outrageous beyond words. All of this comes from a key f…
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Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on her speech in support of transparency and information sharing. I think it is important and commendable and something we should see from every government. That got me thinking. If the Conservative Party comes to power, can we assume that it will be committed to greater transparency and better government accountability? We know that during the Harper years…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations among the parties, and I think that, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent to allow me to present a petition that I was planning to table today in the presence of certain elected officials from my riding who are here on Parliament Hill.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to officially table petition e‑4845, which was certified pursuant to Standing Order 36. The petition has been signed by 1,315 people and was initiated by Alexandre Bélisle, the mayor of Verchères, as well as all the municipal councillors, who are here today on Parliament Hill. The petition calls on the House of Commons to bring this matter to the attention of the G…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay tribute to a distinguished member of the House who was first elected in Verchères in 1993 at the age of 28, in his very first election under the Bloc Québécois banner. He was re-elected without interruption until he made the leap to the National Assembly in 2005, where he notably served as public safety minister from 2012 to 2014. After taking a short break from po…
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Mr. Speaker, I think you are doing a great job. The one comment I would make in response to my colleague's speech also applies, in my opinion, to the speeches of other Conservative members who have made similar remarks about the motion under discussion today. First, I want to say that, yes, we want to see the documents. We would appreciate that. I do not think anyone could reasonably object to tra…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to highlight the 40th edition of the Salon des métiers d'art de Boucherville, an artisan market that will run from November 1 to 3, 2024. With the exception of a two-year hiatus during the pandemic, this market has been held annually since its inaugural year in 1982. It is successful. Every year, thousands of visitors flock to find unique and original creations for…
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Mr. Speaker, I am a little surprised to hear my colleague ask that question. Given all the time he spends in the House, he has had the opportunity to ask multiple people here that question multiple times. Furthermore, I pre-emptively answered his question at the beginning of my speech. I do not know if he was listening. In any case, the issue is not what the police want, what judges want or what a…
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Mr. Speaker, when I speak to my constituents, and I speak to them fairly often since I maintain a very active presence in my riding, not that many express the desire for an election. Most are fed up with the Trudeau government. Most have no desire to see Poilievre take his place. They basically have to choose between the lesser of... I apologize.
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Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with the member for Drummond. I hope his speech is good. It usually is. I will listen to it closely. On June 10, the House was clear when it gave the government the order to submit a series of documents to the law clerk of the House so that he could hand them over to the police. Why did it do that? That is the question. The Liberal…
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Mr. Speaker, most people are fed up with the Liberal government but most have no desire to see the Conservatives in power either. They have but one solution, and that is the Bloc Québécois. We will continue to do our job. It turns out that the Bloc Québécois could hold the balance of power at present. I think we could get some things done if there is co-operation on the other side of the House.
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Madam Speaker, I have the opportunity to sit on the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities with my colleague. In my experience, every time we say the word “document”, panic sets in on the other side of the House, that is, with the members of the governing party. It is as though they have gone mad all of a sudden and feel the need to stop everything, block everything. A kin…
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Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague's comment. I would add that the Liberals came to power in 2015. At the time, they formed a majority government, so they acted like a majority government. I think that a majority government should still collaborate with the other parties, but that was not the case with this government. It was completely arrogant. In 2019 the Liberals formed a mi…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question about checking for quorum. For members to be counted for quorum, should they not be in their seats? Can they be seated wherever they like in the House?
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Madam Speaker, we would like a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities presented to the House on Tuesday, April 25, 2023, be concurred in. I am rising in the House today because I want us to debate the report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities on the impact of commercial shipping on shoreline erosion. I am rising today to…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Liberal member mentioned this, because it will allow me to correct some misperceptions. I did have the opportunity to ask questions about this subject in the House in oral question period, and I am fairly certain that the Liberal member was there because he has been a member of Parliament for a few years now. With respect to the report, it is pretty simple. It wa…
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Mr. Speaker, I would have preferred that my colleague ask a question about the report, since I am sure that some of his constituents, and certainly some Conservative members, live in areas along the St. Lawrence River. Some of these citizens surely would have liked to learn more about the situation and hear their member fight for it. To get back to my colleague's more specific question, I think we…
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Mr. Speaker, I must admit that I have not seen my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie's bill. I have not read it, so it is hard for me to take a stand on it on the spur of the moment. Nevertheless, I will take advantage of my colleague's comment to make something perfectly clear. Our goal is not to prohibit shipping, but rather to mitigate the impact of ships' passage so that citizens do not …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his work at committee. I read the Conservatives' supplementary opinion. Obviously, I understand their point of view. They want to limit spending. They simply say that they have no problem with investing in this, but that the money needs to come from somewhere else, so spending in other areas will have to be reduced. I agree with the member that t…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked a very good question. I think that I can answer it by giving another example. When we said that Quebec's resources were at capacity and that the federal government needed to find solutions for asylum seekers and temporary residents, such as fair distribution among the provinces, we were called every name in the book. However, when the other provinces started saying …
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Mr. Speaker, I am obviously prejudiced against the federal government, but I wanted to give it a fair chance. I initially blamed the lack of a response, and especially the lack of proactive measures, on the minister in place at the time, Marc Garneau. It was almost impossible to schedule a meeting or have a discussion with him. We felt like he was asleep at the switch. We could not believe how uni…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to give my colleague, who now sits on the committee with me, the opportunity to comment on certain remarks, particularly those made by the parliamentary secretary. Like my colleague, he also mentioned in his intervention that the seaway and shipping are part of Canada's way of life. The economic benefits are incredible. Yes, shipping supplies Quebec, Ontario, even part of…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to set the record straight on certain things that have been said by members of the governing party. The government pats itself on the back and keeps telling us that it has been working hard because it implemented voluntary speed limits for commercial shipping. When was that introduced? It was 20 years ago. For 20 years, the riverbanks have continued to erode. How is it …
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Madam Speaker, I will take this opportunity to elaborate on the thought I tried to express briefly earlier and to ask my colleague a question. Some government members said there was money to protect the shoreline, but the truth is, that money is often spent on a pilot project here or a research project there, or it is paid out on an ad hoc basis when a city applies for a program. The thing is, ind…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to respond to my colleague's remarks. The first thing that bears mentioning is that he said this might not be the most pressing issue of the day and that we could discuss something else. I hope that is not the government's actual response or position, because there are hundreds of people in my riding who have been fighting for this for years. They find the government's in…
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Madam Speaker, my question for my colleague is going to be simple. We have been debating this question of privilege that was raised here in the House for a long time, a week or two. This situation is a result of the government's stubborn refusal to hand over the documents. If the government had allowed the documents be tabled in the House, Parliament would not be paralyzed like this. I have been a…
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Madam Speaker, the House voted to end the two-tier approach to seniors by increasing the OAS pension for seniors aged 65 to 74 by 10%. Seventy-nine per cent of the population agrees with us. The Minister of Seniors will have to explain himself. According to the new electoral map, he is penalizing more than 12,000 seniors in the riding of Gatineau and 30,000 in the Gatineau census division he repre…
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Madam Speaker, soon there will be an opportunity to apologize to many seniors. What good are the Liberals to seniors? The Minister of Seniors is holding back 10% of the OAS pension from 12,000 seniors in Gatineau. The Liberals' Quebec lieutenant is doing that to 14,000 seniors in the riding of Québec. The Prime Minister is denying 8,000 seniors in the riding of Papineau their pension increase. We …
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Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his very interesting speech. We see that he is very interested in the issue and he takes it seriously. It is nice to see that even when people are not members of committees they can still be interested in certain files and get to the heart of the matter. I think that the comments he shared with the House are very constructive, very pragmatic and also v…
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Mr. Speaker, the order of the House to produce documents was made on June 10. If I am not mistaken, today is September 27. That is a rather long time, and yet the principle is clear, is it not? The House can request any document that it deems appropriate to request. I would like to know what my colleague thinks of a government that does not give the House the documents it should, when the governme…
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Madam Speaker, I do not know whether I want to congratulate my colleague on his speech. I often begin my remarks by congratulating a colleague on their speech, but instead I would like to address a few of the things my colleague said. Two things in particular stood out to me. He denounced the carbon tax and criticized the Bloc Québécois for supporting the government. Allow me to set the record str…
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis looks really mad right now. Based on what she is saying, one might think the Bloc Québécois is in power. Maybe she is mad because she can see that we have a bit of power and that we are trying to use that balance of power to do good things for Quebec. In her speech, she talked about housing. She also said that they would be less centraliz…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on my Liberal colleague's speech on today's motion. We could draw a similar parallel with the other Conservative motion that was moved earlier this week. I would like to know what my colleague opposite thinks about the Bloc's demands. The reason we have decided not to vote with the Conservatives is essentially because we think we can make gains, gains that we c…
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Mr. Speaker, since I did not have the opportunity to do so earlier during questions and comments, I want to begin by commenting on the speech that the member for Winnipeg North just gave. I was extremely surprised. Right now, we are talking about the homelessness crisis, which is closely related to the housing crisis, but to hear the member for Winnipeg North talk, it sounds like he does not think…
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Madam Speaker, I commend my Green Party colleague for her very interesting speech. It is clear that she knows a lot about this file, even though she is not a member of the committee. I tip my hat to her. I would like to ask her a quick question about the amendment she is defending, because that is why she rose to speak. Why is the amendment stipulating that we will stop exporting coal as of 2025 i…
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