44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 16, 2022 02:00PM
- Feb/16/22 2:31:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's job is to serve Canadians, and he is not supposed to achieve that by doing Quebeckers a disservice.
Canada's current Prime Minister, of all people, should be aware that Quebeckers are particularly sensitive to any reference to this thinly disguised spawn of the War Measures Act.
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- Feb/16/22 2:32:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada has always been here for Canadians in need, and that includes Quebeckers.
When long-term care facilities were overwhelmed, the Government of Canada sent in the Canadian Armed Forces to help. We have now offered support to police services across the country. They can decide if they need to use these tools during this difficult time.
We have total respect for Quebeckers and all Canadians, but we will provide the necessary tools to maintain order and and keep all Canadians safe and free.
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- Feb/16/22 2:44:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government sent $63 billion in health care funding to the provinces and territories to help all Canadians through this pandemic.
The federal government has directly contributed eight dollars out of every $10 in support for Canadians. We have been there for people. I know it terrifies the Bloc Québécois to think that the federal government could be there for Quebeckers, but we have been there and we will continue to be there for as long as necessary.
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- Feb/16/22 2:59:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister referred to the investments made by the federal government during the pandemic.
I would remind him that these investments are being made with borrowed money, money that belongs to Quebeckers and Canadians. He is leaving a debt to Quebeckers and Canadians, and he should have incurred it without trying to impose conditions before making much larger health transfers and the mistakes of the past few days.
He showed no shame in also referring to some of the darkest moments in the recent history of his country.
Does the Prime Minister realize that we do not need him to go to the bank and that we do not need the Emergencies Act to contain the crisis in Quebec?
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- Feb/16/22 3:00:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians across the country have lived through two extremely difficult years, suffered tragic losses, made personal and collective sacrifices that we have all had to make.
At every step of the way, the government was there for them. It was there with free vaccines for everyone. It was there with investments to help small and large businesses, workers, families and seniors.
At every step of the way, the federal government was there for everyone, including Quebeckers, and that is why the Bloc Québécois is disappointed.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech and his willingness to quickly reintroduce this bill that is so important to Quebec's industry.
In Quebec, there is a high demand for French-language made-in-Quebec that is tailored to Quebeckers' tastes. However, industry players are deeply concerned about the intense pressure of the rising cost of local production and the ability to pay the production crew. They have to compete with big corporations like Netflix, which have extremely deep pockets.
By putting everyone on the same footing, we are forgetting the principles that were listed in the minister's speech, the principles of equity for smaller broadcasters that will not be able to keep spending the way they are now to support Quebec creators.
There are two messages here: the importance of local broadcasters in our system, but also the matter of taxing Netflix just like everybody else.
Did the minister think about excluding the second part from his bill? Why was that not done?
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Mr. Speaker, I am so pleased to speak to this issue.
Right now, I am an MP, a politician, but in a former life, I was an actor and an artist. I was involved in quite a few films and TV series. I had theatre companies. I am of course deeply concerned about the fate of culture and artists, and that is exactly what I want to talk about today: culture.
I do not want to get bogged down in the technical details, the algorithms, the streaming services. I am going to try to focus the debate on the substance of Bill C‑11. To me, what is at stake here is Quebec culture.
I apologize in advance to the interpreters. My speech is about Quebec culture, so I think they might have a very hard time interpreting some of the terms. My anglophone colleagues might not understand what I am talking about. However, the salient point is that ours is a minority culture within the greater North American context. We are in the middle of a technological revolution, and Quebec culture is in danger.
Let me begin by quoting one of my very good friends, filmmaker Pierre Falardeau, who had this to say about culture:
For me, that is what Quebec culture is all about. It's a direct, physical, deeply sensual connection with this land of the Americas. Culture is a landscape that grips your heart. It's a mountain, a lake, a valley that wells up from the depths of your youth. Quebec culture is a verse by Gaston Miron, [the images] of Pierre Perrault, the colour of the snow in a painting by Clarence Gagnon. Culture is also the smell of my mother's cooking. It's watching hockey on TV on Saturday nights, freshly bathed, hair perfectly combed, in your flannel PJs that smell of laundry soap and the wind. Quebec culture is also about my aunts being exploited by Imperial Tobacco in Saint-Henri. It's my uncle, a Lithuanian immigrant, who could walk on his hands. [It was wonderful.] Quebec culture is my father, who taught me about justice, solidarity and love for my people. Culture is the back alleys downtown. It is Reggie Chartrand's fists. It's a song from old France that takes you back 400 years, for no apparent reason. It is Champlain. It's the curve of the roof on our houses. Quebec culture is my girlfriend's “spaghatte” sauce, my couscous from “Faubourg à m'lasse” and my children rapping in French. That's what culture is all about. It's a thousand little things that give life its flavour.
Obviously, a great many other things are associated with culture. Quebec culture has a vocabulary all its own. In fact, Quebeckers talk about each season in a way no one anywhere else does. I will start with winter, represented in our national song, “Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver”, or “my country is not a country, it's winter”. Quebec culture is understanding the difference between frais, frisquet, froid and frette—cool, chilly, cold and bloody freezing. Quebec culture is coming out of blowing snow into slush and freezing rain. Quebec culture is the myriad colourful expressions that describe how Quebeckers “attachent leur tuque avec de la broche”, or brace themselves, against the long, cold winter and hang in there, even if “ils en ont ras le pompon”—they are fed up—even if “ils ont peur de péter au frette, de ne pas passer l’hiver”, in other words, even if they fear they will not make it through to spring. “Pas passer l'hiver”, not making it through the winter. Where else in the world would anyone say that?
Quebeckers also have a thousand and one ways to celebrate spring, from marvelling at ice jams and fiddleheads to enjoying the maple sugar season. The word “sugar” evokes a series of images and smells that resonate with Quebeckers, capturing their world and their memories. That one word says so much.
Spring means breaking out the shorts and t-shirts at the first rays of warm sunshine as though dressing for warm weather will make it arrive sooner. However, a day that cool would have us reaching for a sweater in the fall.
Quebeckers also have a thousand and one ways to soak up the summer, from Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day to jam making and corn husking parties. We love getting back to nature and visiting outfitters in controlled harvesting zones, or ZECs. We have to take advantage while we can still have all the windows down.
Naturally, we also have a thousand and one ways to enjoy the fall, from picking cherries to admiring the fall colours. As the days start getting shorter, we quibble with our roommates over the best starting lineup for our beloved hockey team's upcoming season. Even after a miserable season, as soon as they pick up a few wins in a row, we already feel like the cup is within reach. As Quebeckers, we always feel the cup is within reach, even when it is far away, although right now it seems a long way off.
Santa Claus and the tooth fairy may be universal, but Quebec has its very own fictional characters, like Séraphin, Donalda, Ti-Coune, Lyne la pas fine, and Capitaine Bonhomme. Then there are some even more mythical characters, so mythical that they are known by all but have never been seen. There is Roger Bontemps, Madame Blancheville and the guy everyone loves, Joe Bleau, the most famous everyman in all of Quebec. No doubt he comes from Saint-Glinglin.
Saint-Glinglin, now that is interesting. Everyone knows it is far away, but nobody knows where it is. Quebec can be pretty disorienting to outsiders, what with our eastern border being on the north shore and our southern border being in the Eastern Townships. We also have square “arrondissements”, not circular ones, and quiet revolutions. Quebec is the only place where piggybacking on someone else's idea is called “faire le pouce”, and where sacred words can be used in decidedly profane ways, as long as one has the decency to blush.
Quebec culture is all kinds of things. It is images, the luminosity of a Jean-Paul Lemieux, the abandon of a Riopelle, the impetus captured in a Krieghoff, the human form captured in a Corno. It is an aesthetic that does not even define itself as such. It is touchstone tomes that span the gamut from Flore laurentienne to L'Almanach du peuple.
Quebec culture can feel like one big family. Some names speak volumes in a single word. In Quebec, everyone knows who Clémence is. Janette, Dédé, Boucar and Ginette? Sure, we know all about them, and of course we all know Céline.
Unfortunately, Quebec culture also means a lot of political and linguistic misunderstandings with English Canada. When we say “secularism”, the English-language media calls it “racism”. When we say “academic freedom”, it is translated in English Canada as “racism”. When we talk about the survival of the French language, that too is translated as “racism”.
Quebec culture is about expressing modern ideas using new French words: clavardage for chat, courriel for email, pourriel for spam, and balado for podcast, not to mention all the words that were invented at the same time as the object itself. The motoneige, or snowmobile, is a perfect example of a Quebec invention. The snow blower and car mats were invented in Quebec too. Let us not forget poutine, Quebec's national dish. This decadent dish has conquered the world. Quebec culture is about all of those things.
As they say, everything is interconnected, or “tôuttt est dans tôuttt”, as Raôul Duguay put it in his song Tôuttt etô bôuttt. As for Ariane Moffatt, she wants it all, as she says in her song, Je veux tout. That is what is at stake with Bill C-11.
If we allow our media to plunge into even more hardship, if we neglect to support our creators and our platforms, all these great Quebec sayings will gradually get erased, and all these cultural touchpoints that still bring us together today will become foreign to a whole new generation, including my children's generation. This will sever the bond that ties us to our history and to everything that makes us who we are today.
Such is the risk of a people becoming nothing more than one demographic among many. A culture, especially a minority culture like ours, is a precious and delicate garden that could be swept away and destroyed by the fierce winds of technological globalization. If that happens, the world would lose our unique and irreplaceable colour from its spectrum. That would be a tragedy for the entire world, because when a culture dies, it is a loss for all of humanity.
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