SoVote

Mar/31/22 10:28:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague began his speech by misinforming the public, when he implied that the vaccine is not effective because booster doses are required. I would suspect that my colleague has been vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio, influenza, hepatitis B, pneumococcus, meningitis, measles, rubella and mumps. All of these vaccines require booster doses. Does my colleague understand what a booster dose is, and does he intend to stop pushing misinformation to Quebeckers and Canadians?

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Context: House Hansard - 50 - Mar/31/22

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

Mar/31/22 11:12:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today's motion is so incoherent that I do not know where to start. I will begin, however, by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I must admit that I had to check my calendar when I read the motion. The motion contained so many contradictions that I was sure it was April 1. Let us start with point 1, concerning excessive government spending during the pandemic. Here is what I remember about the past two years. When the pandemic started and we needed to help our businesses, implement rent assistance policies for our SMEs, and create the CERB, there were discussions among the parties. Everyone around the table thought it was a good idea to take action. Everyone saw that there was a crisis and that it was urgent. It seems that the Conservatives forget things as often as they change leaders. Now, all of a sudden, they are talking about excessive spending. All of a sudden, there is absolutely no call for it. The motion mentions inflation and the carbon tax. Last week, I went to gas up in Mirabel, in my riding. I paid about $2 a litre, even though Canada is a net exporter and almost all of the oil refined in Quebec is from North America. Moreover, the “Alberta rebate” was not even displayed. Alberta benefits from increases in the price of a barrel of oil. I invite my colleagues to look at Alberta's budget, which went from a deficit to a surplus. Let us see who is benefitting. The motion contains nothing about supply chains, either. It only mentions excessive spending. It also talks about premium hikes and tax increases. The Conservative amnesia is now affecting memories from 24 hours ago. I was in the House at 6 p.m. yesterday when the hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière proposed extending EI benefits to 52 weeks for people with a serious illness, which the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservatives are saying they will do that, but at the same time, they are saying that we should not increase payroll taxes or employee and employer premiums. That is okay, they can be right wing. However, it bothers me as an economist when the numbers do not add up. This is absolutely incoherent. The Conservatives say one thing in English and another in French. In question period yesterday, they said in English that the carbon tax should be axed. In French, they talked about scaling back the carbon tax increase in western Canadian provinces. That is crazy. It is almost enough to make me want to be a translator. They are totally inconsistent. When I got to the motion's third point, I thought things might be looking up. The Conservatives were talking about giving Canadians breathing room, and I was glad about that because for once they were not talking about CO₂. However, there was nothing in there about the energy transition, nothing about reducing our dependence on oil even as they complain about rising prices. I personally like consistency, but the Conservatives are just as likely to say black as they are to say white. Actually, I would like to make an announcement. Liberals, New Democratic Liberals and Conservatives are all about Paul Martin and his fiscal responsibility. They talked about Paul Martin during question period yesterday and again today in my colleague's speech. Do members know what Paul Martin did? He merged the Canada health transfer with the Canada social transfer and then made cuts. He forced the provinces to deal with their deficits on their own. Do members know what that cost Quebec? It cost us ambulatory care and home care, and we are still suffering as a result. That is what Paul Martin did. It is all well and good for the Conservatives to say that they respect provincial jurisdictions, but they do not respect the underlying principle. To them, respecting provincial jurisdictions means that the money stays in Ottawa while the provinces shoulder all the responsibilities; it means starving the beast. The provinces can have their jurisdictions and starve, because they are not going to be given any transfers. I congratulate the Conservatives. I congratulate them for liking Paul Martin. Personally, I find this disturbing. We are familiar with Paul Martin's approach. We are familiar with the approach to fiscal responsibility. It is the typical federal approach. We know that the important responsibilities fall to the provinces and that when citizens like me need services, they never turn to the federal government, unless they need a passport. They seek help from the health care system, the education system or the child care system. All of those areas fall under provincial jurisdiction. Like the Liberals, the Conservatives tell themselves that, in order to be popular and win elections, they need to get involved in a certain issue because it is important, even though they have no jurisdiction in that area. Once in power, the Liberals got involved in mental health. They appointed a Minister of Mental Health. They have never run a hospital, but they appointed a minister. In Quebec, we are in favour of the child care system; we have had one for more than 20 years. However, if the Bloc had not been there and there had not been an election, the federal government would have imposed its conditions on us and told us what to do in an area in which we have more than 20 years of expertise. That would be like taking driving lessons from someone who does not have a driver's licence. What could go wrong? We are in favour of dental insurance, of course, but it is not in their jurisdiction. As far as the property tax is concerned, the Liberals say it will generate $700 million. In reality, it will generate just $600 million, but that amount does not include the cost of implementing the new tax. Universal medicare is an intrusion by the NDP into provincial jurisdictions. It does not bother the NDP one bit to meddle in our territory. There are all kinds of offices and commissioners for this and that, but in the end, there are always conditions that are imposed. The Liberals are so unfamiliar with provincial affairs that they need to create offices to fine out how to impose conditions. Let us talk about microtransfers and programs for small conditional transfers. Quebec has come to realize that being accountable to a federal government that knows nothing about the issue is so costly that it is almost better to turn down the money. The federal government is interfering more and more in provincial jurisdictions. Now our Conservative friends are talking about fiscal responsibility and the need to reduce taxes because there are too many. I cannot wait to see a Conservative finance minister. The Conservatives can balance a budget without decreasing spending or increasing revenues. I do not know if any of them have ever taken any accounting courses, but I would be curious to see their résumés. Let me get back to the cuts. What are they doing? They are taking the path of least resistance and cutting transfers, like Mr. Harper did. The Liberal government is more subtle. It is not indexing the transfers; it is letting the population age and the system costs increase by 4%, 5%, 6% or 7%, with no indexation. They are letting the water get up to our chins, and they think we will not notice. That is exactly what they are doing. This is not fiscal responsibility, it is poor federalism. It is populism, and it shows a lack of respect for the provinces. We are still waiting for the Conservatives to support our request to increase health transfers to 35% of system costs. What we are saying is that we need to offer solutions to the crisis and to inflation. Let us start with seniors' purchasing power. We need to help our seniors, who are waiting for a cheque. What did we do this week? We debated a motion to undertake a study on seniors' finances, among other things. When I am at my riding office, I never get calls from seniors telling me that prices are going up, that they cannot afford groceries and that we should conduct a study. No one has ever said that to me, but the House decided to conduct a study anyway. What the government is doing is putting seniors' concerns on the back burner. It never puts forward any suggestions. Farmers and truckers are facing increases in the price of gas. Alberta is not going to do them any favours. We need a program to help them, but there is nothing there. People buying groceries need direct financial support. It could come in the form of better indexation of the GST credit or more frequent cheques. That would cost the government peanuts, but there is absolutely nothing about that. We need to strengthen the weak links in the supply chain, but there is nothing about that, either. There is absolutely nothing about the housing crisis. As my colleague said earlier, there is a problem with the supply of housing, but there is nothing about that. Now the Conservatives are talking about fiscal responsibility. They are saying that the spending is not their fault, because they were not in power during the pandemic, they were not at the table and they had nothing to do with it. I have news for them: We are in the sixth wave of the pandemic, and we are not out of the woods yet. What they call fiscal responsibility, I call magical thinking. Personally, I will listen to what the Conservatives have to say once the budget is balanced.

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Context: House Hansard - 50 - Mar/31/22

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Mar/31/22 11:22:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his intervention. Yes, certainly, there has been a failure in that regard. The reality is that CPP premiums are a payroll tax shared between employers and employees. However, they also represent a kind of forced savings plan, which people need. For instance, the plan makes seniors less reliant on the guaranteed income supplement and other assistance measures once they retire. I want to take this opportunity to highlight the excellence of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the Quebec pension plan, as well as my great pride in the fact that we do not have to depend on the federal fund.

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Context: House Hansard - 50 - Mar/31/22

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Mar/31/22 11:24:31 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. First, we also proposed getting revenues from the excess profits earned by the big banks during the pandemic. I addressed that several times here in the House, and we think it is a good idea. Then there are expenditures, of course, revenues, but also growth. In addition, we need to start the energy transition. There is a new industrial revolution going on, and we are missing the boat because our Conservative friends keep talking about oil. They should be talking about growth and innovation instead. The Conservatives only talk about innovation when they are talking about carbon capture, and then they tell us that oil is green. We will need to talk more about the growth of the future, because we are totally missing the boat.

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Context: House Hansard - 50 - Mar/31/22

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Mar/31/22 11:25:54 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, how astonishing. A Liberal who does not agree with the idea that the federal government should mind its own business? That is no surprise to me. The federal government has no jurisdiction in the matter. It does not manage hospitals or health care systems. It is not good at it. Just the idea that the same government that runs the department of education could get involved in health care is enough to keep me up at night.

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