Parliamentary Speeches

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, in 2015, the Prime Minister said it would be the last time Canadians voted in that kind of election, but once he got comfortable on that branch, he realized that chopping it off would bring about his own downfall. As a result, the system has not changed since then, and I fully agree that we should consider some form of proportional representation. Unlike a New Democrat, however, I m…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, we would gladly take part in a discussion of this nature at any time. I would immediately rule out giving any more powers to the current Prime Minister. A little trouble is fine, but to ask for more would be madness. Furthermore, some degree of independence is needed, and I think that is feasible. As members know, one nation, or better still, two nations, that have the technological…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, given my colleague's question, it is very tempting to respond that basically they are not capable and they are not competent. I do not think so. They are probably quite capable, but they do not want to. They say this is not important and they have other priorities. However, the reason is that they do not want to. They do not want to because Alberta will want to have its jurisdiction…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, for the Prime Minister, submission to the monarchy is not important. However, as an intelligent man, the Prime Minister can think about more than one subject in a day. As an intelligent politician and, of course, a man of the theatre, he can pretend that he does not. It is a shame, but he is going to have to vote tomorrow. Does he support Canada's status as a lackey state of the Briti…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, we will give him the benefit of the doubt. We will assume he is sincere when he takes his oath to the King because who would want an MP, let alone a Prime Minister, who is insincere? What good would that do? As such, we assume the Prime Minister, all MPs, the Conservatives, everyone, are all sincere when they take an oath of allegiance—allegiance, mind you—to the British Crown. Torn b…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I want to set the record straight. My oath of allegiance to the British Crown was insincere. An oath made under duress—

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, an oath made under duress when one's heart is not in it is meaningless. My only allegiance is to the people of Quebec and the Quebec nation, not to the foreign king. People can tell that to the Prime Minister and the King.

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Quebec is currently having a debate on the oath to the King of England. It is also a debate on the general principle of the monarchy. We are told it is not a priority. What is likely a priority is challenging Quebec's secularism law. What is surely a priority is challenging a stronger Charter of the French Language. This raises a fundamental question and I would like a clear response.…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, what I heard the member say is that swearing an oath to the King of England is like swearing an oath to a symbol and a democratic institution, even though the king is in fact an actual person. Now I have heard it all. This is not a trivial thing. We are in a country where no one can tell me who the head of state is. That is quite something, yet they are saying that it is normal. A dem…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the minister gives the Governor General a pension. I do not know one Bloc member who would not give up their pension. Tomorrow, we will bring about independence. Now that the minister is here in the House, he could also act accordingly. I will remind him that he swore an oath to the British Crown. To whom is he loyal? To Charles III or to the public?

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure Canadians see it that way. I think that, instead of swearing an oath to the King, we should get with the times and swear an oath to the truth. If people here told the truth a little more often, that would completely change the work we do in the House. In the space of a few days, the government granted 28 million dollars' worth of contracts to a friend. The government eng…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, in January, the Prime Minister decided to invoke emergency measures during the trucker protests without any attempt at dialogue and, as we have learned, without anyone asking him to. In so doing, he exacerbated the crisis rather than resolving it. Would he admit, at his convenience, that his actions were either very heavy-handed or politically motivated? If he did it for political rea…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, not so long ago, the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister would consult one another before announcing a position. At one point, there was talk of bringing workers in via Roxham Road, cheap labour, essentially. If the government is worried about the workforce, there are people out there who are on their way to becoming highly skilled workers and who want to come here. The peopl…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, a friend of the Liberal Party was handed $28 million in contracts supposedly because the land that was being leased is next to Roxham Road. However, we have found out that this is simply not true. Instead of giving taxpayers' money to friends of the Liberal Party, why does the Prime Minister not invest that money in qualified teams at the immigration department? That way, he can ensur…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, it is a well-known fact that Quebec has genius, but Quebec also has geniuses, real ones. I want to pay tribute to Gilles Brassard. Mr. Brassard was born in Montreal and is now a tenured professor in the Department of Computer Science and Operations Research at the University of Montreal. He is also the Canada research chair in quantum information science. Gilles Brassard has been desc…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I will continue to speak out against policies that promote what is known as “cheap labour”. Instead of investing half a billion dollars in hiring qualified public servants at the Department of Immigration, the government is spending it on buildings and contracts, including an undisclosed amount that went to big Liberal Party donors. Will the Prime Minister order the immediate tabling …

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, here is what the Prime Minister intends to do at Roxham Road: increase the number of immigrants to Quebec, without Quebec's consent; secure contracts for generous Liberal Party donors; and, now, address the labour shortage by bringing in highly vulnerable workers who do not speak French and who will not get work permits for over a year. Is it not obvious that there is absolutely nothi…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, under the circumstances, I would like to mention the presence of the member for Richmond—Arthabaska. I will now talk about trios. In Quebec, there are now three big political players. On immigration and the French language, the Prime Minister is in the minority there too. Is Roxham Road not a humanitarian issue that sometimes gives the government ideological comfort when, in reality, …

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister himself is saying that giving Quebec more immigration powers is out of the question. The only thing this government wants to see Quebec get more of is immigrants. I agree, but only as long as we can successfully integrate them in French. Has he thought about discussing this with a premier who holds about three-quarters of the seats in Quebec rather than pretending t…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, what is happening at Roxham Road is, first and foremost, a humanitarian issue. The humanitarian thing to do would be to have migrants come in through regular border crossings, not put them in handcuffs and expose them to human smugglers and criminals. Would it not be better to invest half a billion dollars or more to hire qualified staff at the Department of Immigration rather than sp…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers voted for a majority government on Monday, a majority the Prime Minister twice fantasized about but failed to even come close to winning. The Quebec government wants more power in matters of immigration, while some want all immigration powers and others, like us, want to have absolutely all the power, period. Let us look at the first scenario, more powers in immigration. Th…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I am certain that all members of the House agree that Roxham is not a labour issue, but a humanitarian one. Let us then start over: Will the Deputy Prime Minister make sure that, as requested by the ethics committee, all the unredacted contracts awarded privately, in particular to generous Liberal donors—which brings back memories—are tabled, analyzed and, if necessary, denounced?

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Roxham Road is a many-headed beast of a challenge because of the sheer numbers, the Liberals' failure on the humanitarian front, finding jobs for people, cultural integration, health care and education, but tens of millions of dollars' worth of contracts have been awarded privately without a bidding process, especially to generous Liberal donors. Therefore, I would echo the ethics com…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I borrowed some lemons from the Governor General and have $150 worth of lemons in my glass. More seriously, what is more humane: Welcoming tens of thousands of desperate asylum seekers knowing that most risk being deported after they have had time to make a life for themselves in Quebec, or investing an astronomical half a billion dollars in competent staff at the immigration departme…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, in the hope of receiving a more substantive answer, I will ask the minister a more direct question. What is cheaper: Using existing infrastructure that is adequate for processing refugee claimants or spending between $500 million and $1 billion and hiding how much of this money is going to Liberal Party donors? Once a Liberal, always a Liberal.

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I first want to say how happy I am to see that the Prime Minister is with us once again. I missed him. We will no longer need the NDP to tell us what the Liberals think. We can continue with our work now that the House has sung the praises of the monarchy. Speaking of singing, I would like to tell the Prime Minister about francophone singers, because as French-language creators they h…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, that is the answer we hear to every question, no matter what the topic. Nothing but empty words. The Copyright Board of Canada has the ability to step in and make sure that the payments are done properly. If the government does not know how to do it, we can tell them. Two things need to be done. First, we need to ensure that artists get their fair share, one way or another, even if me…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I can proudly say that I am the only party leader in the House to have donned skates prior to 1972. That said, I was not particularly good. I clearly took a wrong turn somewhere. As we know, the Bloc Québécois has always defended Quebec's identity. Quebec and Canada are two different nations, with different values and, often, different ways of doing things. We defend the right to live…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, first, now that he has sat down, I want to congratulate the new leader of the official opposition. I also want to congratulate the member for Richmond—Arthabaska. I jotted down the address for the House of Commons on a piece of paper and I was thinking that maybe someone could give it to the Prime Minister. If the Prime Minister wants to join us in the House, I suggest that he return …

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, maybe we could get the Prime Minister's attention by suggesting that he sing his answers. He could sing us a tune about why his government is allowing human smuggling into Quebec and Canada. Is the Prime Minister intentionally letting tens of thousands of people cross at Roxham Road because he knows that Quebec cannot sustain efforts to integrate them in French? Is the Prime Minister …

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, its elected officials, members and staff, I would simply like to express my condolences to anyone who is grieving the death of Queen Elizabeth II. We, as nationalists and sovereignists, do this only after much deliberation amongst ourselves. Everyone's feelings should be considered through a historical lens. The history between the British Crown and th…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the minister keeps saying that she issued directives and that no one is following them. Yesterday, all government ministers said that it was unacceptable. No one has brought forward a solution that works. Are we to understand that this will continue until the end of 2022, and that nothing else or nothing better will be done? If government ministers criticize instead of governing, who …

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, this year, for our national holiday, we are going to make our language and its myriad accents heard. We are going to make it heard loud and clear, and continue making it heard, together. We are going to make each and every one of our regional dialects and accents heard to show that our national language is also a great international language and an extraordinary way of being open to t…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I would wish the Prime Minister bon voyage, but I do not really feel like it. A nice plane has been reserved for him to travel to Rwanda, his passport is in order and his visas are most certainly in order. Here at home, thousands of people are waiting. They wait until nighttime at the risk of losing their spot to a petty cheater; they wait to pay the late fees charged by an irresponsi…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, it is time for a performance review. Faced with a high-risk demonstration by truckers, the government stalled and stalled before finally invoking the Emergencies Act at the request of the police, or so they said. However, that is not true. The police did not ask for it. Even government ministers, including the Deputy Prime Minister, have said it was a purely political choice. Is the m…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, next up in our performance review is the environment and the utterly nonsensical business of carbon sequestration, which experts say does not work, lies about whether the government's targets can be met, the acquisition of Trans Mountain at a loss, indirect subsidies for the oil industry and Bay du Nord. I am sure the minister was acting in good faith initially, but he ended up sellin…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, as we have said, it is chaos. There are people sleeping outside for three nights and paying the price for delays caused by the government. Journalists are even being removed from passport offices under police supervision. Can the Prime Minister show some courage, get a backbone, as they say, and tell the House that he is responsible for this fiasco?

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I would like to acknowledge the last speech by the member for Portage—Lisgar in her capacity as the interim leader of the Conservative Party. We know that being the interim leader of a political party in the midst of a leadership race is a challenging and sometimes thankless role. It is an exercise that definitely requires tact, balance, and the abilit…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, he was the only one who did not realize that there would be a surge of applications. When the Prime Minister travels, he has a chartered plane paid for by taxpayers, and someone takes care of his passport. He even has friends who invite him to the tropics, all expenses paid. When ordinary taxpayers travel, they save up to be able to go on vacation or to try to reunite with their famil…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow marks the end of an era. Tomorrow, Pierre Bruneau will host his last newscast, after 46 years as anchor at TVA. Since 1976, Pierre Bruneau has been the face of the news, delivering the information essential to public life with his trademark soothing tone and rigour. He has also been the embodiment of compassion for 32 years as a spokesperson for the Charles Bruneau Foundation…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: That the House: (a) salute the extraordinary work of Mr. Pierre Bruneau as anchor of the TVA network for 46 years, as he will host his last newscast this Thursday evening; (b) underline the remarkable contribution of Mr. Pierre Bruneau to information in Quebec thanks to his rigour, his dedication and his immense…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the joint committee that is required under the act received the Deputy Prime Minister and the former public safety minister, who is now the Minister of Emergency Preparedness. They testified that it was a purely political decision and was not made at the request of police. Who is not telling the truth? Which minister is not telling the truth? What is the Prime Minister sayin…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of the year, the Prime Minister invoked the Emergencies Act during the civil, yet obviously illegal, occupation of Parliament Hill. The Minister of Public Safety said he did that at the request of police forces, but there was no such request from law enforcement, the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police, or the Ottawa police. Does the minister acknowledge that for the …

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, the word “dignity” is central to René Lévesque's legacy. It is a dignity that is not always clear, but it takes on its full significance, even 35 years after his death and 100 years after his birth, when we take an inspiring look back at a time when Quebec values were solidified. Yesterday, in Montreal, the Fondation René-Lévesque launched its commemoration of the centenary of his bir…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, that is some climate humour right there. His very own experts, the ones he quotes when it suits him, say that the only way we just might be able to meet the targets is, one, forget about this sequestration nonsense and, two, cut production. Will the Prime Minister at the very least cut all oil industry subsidies?

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I read The Globe and Mail every day, and I learned from this morning's edition that the government's own experts told it that its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions targets were not feasible before they were unveiled. That means that the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Prime Minister knowingly made bogus announcements. Can the Prime Minister at least do what he often doe…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, seniors have been left to deal with the surging cost of living on their own. The Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed it yesterday. A total of 1.7 million seniors have seen their purchasing power slashed because the indexed increase in their old age security benefit is below the rate of inflation. If the federal government does not fix this, it will be keeping a third of Quebec seni…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, on May 23, the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec launched a big campaign to promote the French language and to emphasize that working in French is a right. With online, television and street furniture ads, this campaign uses funny translations of Quebec expressions as a reminder that people understand one another better when they speak our common language. The Fre…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the Deputy Prime Minister's response raises two questions. How big is that increase in relation to current inflation, which is having a devastating impact on seniors' purchasing power? Also, we want assurances, which would certainly be a welcome change, that there will not be any discrimination based on the age of the recipients, so that people 75 to 80 do not get more than people 65 …

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, you have clearly exhausted my colleague from Joliette, but I am still extremely happy that you have returned. Welcome back. The Minister of Justice and the Prime Minister have stated that they definitely intend to appeal Bill 21 and Bill 96, an extension of Bill 101, to the Supreme Court. In other words, they are taking the issue to friendly territory with predictable results. Why is …