Parliamentary Speeches
722 speeches by Yves-François Blanchet — Page 2 of 15
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister did not read his notes, nor did he read his budget. I will give him a second chance. Building houses is great. However, young families have to be able to afford them. We have asked the government to create a system that gives young families buying their first house privileged access to credit so that somebody can buy those starter homes. The government refused. Will…
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Mr. Speaker, health is another priority for Quebeckers and Canadians. We have offered to work with the government on increasing health transfers to keep pace with higher health care system spending in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. The government said that the taxpayers of Quebec and Canada would pay more and more income tax or else the governments of Quebec and Canada would have less and less mo…
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Mr. Speaker, for a Quebecker, standing up increasingly means wanting Quebec to become independent. We gave this government, which is in the midst of a recruitment campaign, a chance. We called on the government to eliminate the discrimination in the old age security benefit paid to people aged 65 to 75, who get 10% less than people aged 75 and over. All it had to do was agree that this is indeed a…
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Madam Speaker, I could almost hear music in the background. It was so beautiful and uplifting. If the member had liked my speech and was not disappointed, I would have been worried, because we certainly cannot agree on that. On the other hand, it seems to me that everyone knows that it is a tired old process that makes no sense. I think even Abraham used it. The government is saying that it is goi…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to repeat a word I used yesterday that surprised a few people. It is important to consider what words really mean. In my view, the budget is a sham because it makes claims that are not based on facts, accounting rules or even the content of the budget speech itself. There are some gaps, without any explanations. Some things are added on one page, only to be subtracted o…
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Madam Speaker, the government wants to promote major projects to us. I believe that Quebeckers should be promoting their own major project. That project is, of course, an independent Quebec. That is the project that deserves our vote. It will be called the country of Quebec. That will be our sole identity. However, I would like to table the following amendment: That the motion be amended by deleti…
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Mr. Speaker, you are known for your expertise in financial matters and, in theory, the Prime Minister is as well, so let us be serious and not take people for fools. I would like the Prime Minister to explain how tax credits for oil companies, the organization of FIFA events and health transfers can be considered government assets.
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Mr. Speaker, that reeks of embarrassment. If money is going to worthwhile projects then that is just great, but we do not yet know who will decide which projects are worthwhile. In any case, it is still an expense. The Prime Minister would fail a third-year math exam with his answers. Will the Prime Minister admit that he is implementing an austerity budget in order to finance oil companies at Que…
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Madam Speaker, defending Quebec's jurisdiction over the fight against climate change is very important to the Bloc Québécois, to Quebec and to me personally. The purpose of carbon pricing is not to raise money; it is to encourage companies to improve their practices and develop their technologies, and many are doing just that. I was the one who negotiated the cap-and-trade system for carbon emissi…
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Madam Speaker, I almost want to wait and answer tomorrow so that I can search for an intelligent answer tonight on Instagram, but I will answer now by saying that when the bad outweighs the good, we vote against it. When a party has 22 members in a Parliament with 343 members, the vast majority of whom hate the idea of independence, having at least one person with an ego is a good thing.
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Madam Speaker, I think the narrative about how we might end up in an election is not particularly credible right now, because the government did not try to reach an agreement with any of the opposition parties on budget measures that would achieve consensus in order to ensure that its budget would pass. Contrary to what the Minister of Finance said, the Liberals did not get a strong mandate. They …
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Madam Speaker, I understand where my esteemed colleague is coming from. In Quebec, we are doing our part, but if more members in the House from western Canada shared her point of view, perhaps the government would not get the free pass it hopes to get. I can only commend my colleague's commitment, which will complicate the numbers and ramp up the suspense in the government lobby. I do not see how …
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Mr. Speaker, I did not expect the Prime Minister to want to answer the question. A tax credit involves paying money to someone who benefits from the tax credit. It comes out of the government coffers. The Liberals cannot claim that it is an investment whose value is kept on their balance sheet. The Prime Minister is claiming that expenditures are assets. Does he think that accountants are stupid?
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Mr. Speaker, on October 30, 1995, Quebec's support for sovereignty grew from the 40% seen in 1980 to just under 50%. Quebec was just a hair's breadth away from becoming its own country. History tells the tale. The so-called Canadian raison d'état served as a cover for cheating, lies and secrets, for voters who appeared out of thin air, for a love-in that smacked of hypocrisy, and much more. Now, Q…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is waiting for the U.S. to be in a better mood. It has not done anything yet. It is setting us up for inflation, a recession and business closures. It is doing nothing to bring people together so that Canada and Quebec can speak with one voice. It can say whatever it wants, but it is not doing anything to help businesses, nor is it doing anything to help people who lose…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada, and thus Quebec, is in the midst of one of the worst trade crises we have ever experienced, and rather than improving, the situation is only getting worse. The Prime Minister gave everything away and got nothing in return. Now he is in a full-fledged quarrel with the President of the United States. What I want to know, and what people need to know, is what the government is go…
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Mr. Speaker, despite the Prime Minister's promises and occasionally boastful claims during the election campaign, things have not improved, they have grown worse: 25% tariffs on trucks and cars, 45% tariffs and countervailing duties on lumber and forestry products, and 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum. What has the government got to say to workers, to vulnerable consumers and to investors being t…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize the administrators at the Université du Québec network and its president, our friend Alexandre Cloutier. They inherited one of the most precious jewels bequeathed by the great builders of the Quiet Revolution, foremost among them the late great Guy Rocher: an institution of higher learning and research that literally elevated Quebeckers, in French, to the sta…
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Mr. Speaker, the word “fully” should be added in there as well. I want to talk about the forestry industry. We are no longer talking about protecting it; we are literally talking about rescuing it. The crisis hitting our forests and the forestry industries is worse than in 2008. Closures and layoffs are on the rise. Hundreds of jobs have just been lost in Saint-Michel-des-Saints. Can the Prime Min…
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Mr. Speaker, Paccar, a truck manufacturer in Sainte-Thérèse-De Blainville, just laid off 300 more workers after the White House imposed a 25% tariff. This comes six months after the election that brought in this Prime Minister, who was supposed to settle the tariffs and trade negotiations with a snap of his fingers. Can the Prime Minister assure the workers and the company that jobs and the busine…
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Mr. Speaker, if that is the best agreement, I would not want to see the worst. It raises a lot of concerns. People need a bit of certainty. Can the Prime Minister assure us, beyond any doubt, particularly after he scrapped the 3% tax on web giants, that the cultural exemption will be protected in the tariff negotiations? Can he assure us that supply management will be fully protected, including pr…
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Mr. Speaker, the Université du Québec à Montréal wisely banned a talk by Imam Uthman Ibn Farooq, but he will be wreaking havoc in Brossard anyway. Yes, this preacher will be able to spread his message of hatred and incitement to violence in Canada absolutely legally. Why? It is because he has the right to do so. Will the Liberal government remove the religious exemption from the Criminal Code?
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Justice is dancing around the issue, but he is not addressing the root of the problem, which is the religious exemption that remains in effect in their law. Spreading hatred is a crime in Canada, except when done under the guise of religion. Assaulting a woman captured in a war zone, for example by Hamas on October 7, 2023, is therefore something a man can do if he wan…
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Mr. Speaker, there is an incredibly easy way to solve the problem and free the government from the shame it has brought upon itself. We will work to eliminate the religious exemption through the Liberals' bill. I challenge them, as much as they may support multiculturalism, to have the courage to vote in favour of our amendment to eliminate the religious exemption and thus ban hate, the spread of …
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Mr. Speaker, I will take the Prime Minister at his word regarding what he said during the election campaign. He said that soon after the election, there would be no more tariffs, and that tariffs should not be used to retaliate against friends, allies and partners. He said that the tariffs would be eliminated quickly and that in the week following the election, he would go there and sign the free …
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Mr. Speaker, we are well past the deadline the Prime Minister set for himself when he was campaigning. I guess the situation is understandable. Now he is telling us that negotiations are under way to lower tariffs. It has been six months. They keep going up. The United States is adding new tariffs. This can hardly be called a great success right now. Can he at least, in the meantime, roll out the …
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Mr. Speaker, we are making progress. I get a sense that, in a month or a month and a half, my colleague, the leader of the official opposition, will be ready to talk about Quebec's independence. We are making progress. Meanwhile, medium- and heavy-duty trucks will be subject to a 25% tariff starting November 1. Lumber is subject to various types of tariffs at a rate of 45%. Aluminum and steel are …
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Mr. Speaker, June 24 is Quebec's national holiday. This year, it was also a day of collective mourning for an entire nation. Serge Fiori, the great Serge Fiori, Fiori the wise, Fiori the madman, Fiori the gentle, affectionate soul, our friend Serge Fiori is now among the angels, singing the most beautiful melodies they have ever heard. Fiori of Harmonium, Fiori with Séguin, Fiori solo, Fiori the Q…
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Mr. Speaker, wow. The Prime Minister was not scolded. That was the bar—to avoid getting attacked by the U.S. President with the whole world watching. That was the bar, and he certainly cleared it. Better yet, he got told that he was good and strong. The Prime Minister was supposed to get more and speak less. We are getting the opposite of what we got with his predecessor. Does the Prime Minister t…
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Mr. Speaker, that is not what we were told during the election campaign. It was supposed to be so much better. The truth is that the Prime Minister has come back empty-handed. He got zip, nada, zilch, nothing at all. To make matters worse, there are new tariffs on trucks and higher tariffs on softwood lumber. The great negotiator keeps striking out. When is he going to hit a home run?
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Mr. Speaker, the “best deal in the world” does not seem to be working for the aluminum or forestry sectors. Spouting nice words seems to be enough for the Prime Minister. A gentleman named Jean de La Fontaine wrote The Fox and the Crow, which says, “Flatterers thrive on fools' credulity.” Does the Prime Minister think that Quebeckers will be satisfied with the sly fox's words for much longer?
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Mr. Speaker, the government has just interfered in the already complex negotiations going on at Canada Post to the point where its actions seem like nothing less than pure provocation in a dispute already fraught with complications. The uncertainty the government has sown is affecting not only workers, but many families as well. It is fomenting uncertainty in villages in the regions of Quebec and,…
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Mr. Speaker, if Quebeckers and Canadians had wanted Conservatives, they would have voted for more Conservatives. The Liberals are adopting a Conservative fiscal approach. The Liberals are adopting a Conservative approach to climate change and the oil sector. The Liberals are adopting policies that look very much like Conservative-style austerity, with direct borrowing. Will the Prime Minister scra…
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Mr. Speaker, I suspect that the deficit the government is running up is going to be a lot bigger than that. If this is an essential service, and if the goal is consistency, why does the government want to drastically reduce this service? Why was it done in such a way that the workers had to turn on their televisions to find out what was going on with this? Why did the government not consult people…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has, of course, read the factum filed on behalf of his government with the Supreme Court to attack secularism as it is understood in Quebec and the notwithstanding clause. He has, of course, approved it. This factum was, of course, ultimately signed by his Attorney General. This is the man who sought the solemn support of Quebeckers and who believed in their judgmen…
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Mr. Speaker, the Constitution we have was imposed on us. It contains a notwithstanding clause that we have the right to use, much to the government's consternation considering the crass insults that it has been hurling not only at Quebec, but at other Canadian provinces as well. Will the Prime Minister do the decent thing: withdraw this brief and apologize to Quebeckers?
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Mr. Speaker, I want all Quebeckers to see all the Liberals rise to insult them all as a whole. I want the Prime Minister to explain to me why, in his brief, he felt the need to mention the possible return of forced labour or slavery. I want him to explain to me why his members talk openly of racism. I want him to explain to me why he believes that Quebeckers, members of North America's most progre…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by asking “what is up with them?”, or, to put it more informally, “have they lost the plot?” The factums submitted by the government's lawyers include statements that would shock even the most radical people across the border. I will elaborate on that later. In more polite terms, the government has made a fool of itself, but in doing so, it has highlighted the …
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Mr. Speaker, has my esteemed colleague fallen into the multiculturalist trap that will kill Quebeckers' freedoms?
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Mr. Speaker, we must read up on the specific application of the notwithstanding clause, but I feel I should tell my esteemed friend and colleague that there are many free and democratic societies around the world that, even without being monitored and crushed by Canada's moral supremacy, do not have the death penalty, do not interfere with freedom of the press and do not use forced labour.
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government is wearing a black and white striped jersey. It is sort of playing the referee. It figures that it is the one that upholds the Constitution, funds opponents, participates in the exercise of having prosecutors present arguments and engages in political propaganda. In fact, I can provide an example of that. The factum does not talk about pre-emptive use, but a hec…
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Mr. Speaker, it is because they had not thought of it yet. Basically, for some years now, the government has been trying to pit two visions against each other on the assumption that its own would win. It is not as silly as it sounds, because political games can pay off in Canada if they involve attacking Quebec's unique values. However, that will not work. The next government of Quebec is very lik…
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Mr. Speaker, I know that is not the intention of my colleague, the perfect gentleman I know him to be. However, there is such a thing as collective rights. If, through a combination of initiatives, solidarity and co-operation, up to and including burning to death in a church, Quebeckers, or French Canadians, had not joined forces to assert the collective rights that unite us, without infringing on…
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Mr. Speaker, Liberal governments tend to have the attitude where they presume and claim to be irrevocably morally superior from the outset: “I am a Liberal Canadian, you are worth less, and I control the federal Parliament, obviously, because the provinces are ethically and morally inferior to a federal Liberal”. We have been living with that for such a long time and we are sick of it. We apply th…
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Mr. Speaker, I feel like telling them, with all due respect, to get a clue. It is the job of judges, or the government, which will pay to hire lawyers to draft a document, which they should be very ashamed of, given the statements it contains about summary execution, freedom of the press and so on. There are some crazy things in it. However, if various bodies in Quebec and Canadian society want to…
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Mr. Speaker, this is an opportunity for collaboration. In the last few hours, there has been much speculation that the government might table what will essentially be an attack on the notwithstanding clause in the Constitution, but we do not really know yet what it will contain. That said, a poll shows there is a very broad consensus in Quebec about the importance of state secularism. Is the Prime…
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Mr. Speaker, the notwithstanding clause is enshrined in the 1982 Canadian Constitution, which Quebec never signed. René Lévesque included the notwithstanding clause in every one of his bills after the Constitution was signed by all of the provinces except Quebec. The Prime Minister is attacking the legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Is he asking judges to come down harder on Quebec and do more dama…
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Mr. Speaker, in 43 years, no Quebec government has ever signed the Canadian Constitution. At this point in time, the Constitution does not allow the government to attack the French language and the Quebec value of secularism the way it wants to, so it appears to be trying to hide behind the court and a government by judges. It is asking the justices to change the Canadian Constitution on its behal…
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Mr. Speaker, what I heard in Washington was that people were disappointed that the Prime Minister did not show up, even though the minister was there. There are people who feel that the government's attitude is somewhat disrespectful, particularly since it said that the special relationship with the United States is over. I asked the Prime Minister to address that yesterday. Is the government not …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to put something into context. I went to Washington, not to speak against the government or Canada, but to help establish favourable conditions for what should be our real priority: trade and tariffs. However, yesterday, when I asked the Prime Minister a serious question, he told me that Canada's negotiations and relationship with Mr. Trump were going well. By way of evid…
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