So V ote

May/10/22 11:10:08 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the member has been talking for five minutes about a petition he presented on seniors. At some point—

21 words

All Topics

May/10/22 11:16:12 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am always surprised when I listen to a speech by my colleague from Winnipeg North. I simply want to reiterate some points in response to everything he said. We spent an opposition day discussing health care funding, and it went nowhere because his government did absolutely nothing. We had another opposition day on seniors, and a vote was held in the House, but your government did not budge. As for the environment, give me a break. We ask questions every day, but then you go and approve Bay du Nord. You know, there is a strategy that is very—

104 words

May/10/22 11:16:54 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, thank you for the reminder. There is a very simple strategy: If someone wants to put down their dog, they say it has rabies. The government does not want to debate the Prime Minister's ethical issues because it says now is not the time to be debating them. My Conservative colleagues do not want to debate abortion because they say now is not the time to debate abortion. I have been involved in Quebec politics for the past 35 years, and one issue that has been omnipresent is the place of religion. The issue was examined by the Bouchard‑Taylor commission. Ultimately, Bill 21 was introduced in the Quebec National Assembly and passed. Someone who says that Quebeckers take no interest in the issue of secularism is someone who knows absolutely nothing about Quebec's reality. Even today, people say that secularism is a type of racist policy. What we are trying to do is to make our institutions neutral. If that cannot be done with this legislature, we have one hell of a problem.

180 words

May/10/22 11:33:32 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I would simply like to say that I think that the neutrality of institutions is likely one of the most determinative issues in politics. An institution must not speak on behalf of any one faith or ethnic minority. If we respect differences, then our institutions should be neutral. That is the first thing. With regard to the choice of topic, I would simply like to point out to my colleague that, during the first wave of the pandemic, his party moved a motion on one of its opposition days to say that oil is irreplaceable and that Canada should have a national day to celebrate oil. That happened in the midst of the first wave. If we were to ask Quebeckers whether they are interested in knowing that oil is irreplaceable, I am not sure they would say yes. If we were to ask them about secularism, a debate that has been going on in Quebec for the past 25 years, I think they would have something to say.

172 words

May/10/22 1:01:45 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, towards the end of his speech, my colleague suggested that talking about state neutrality and saying that the House of Commons, which represents the state, should not say a prayer before question period is a divisive issue. I do not know if that is what he meant, but that is what I understood. I would like him to explain to me how secularism or state neutrality is a divisive issue.

72 words

May/10/22 1:19:56 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am a bit puzzled by everything that I have heard this morning. I am puzzled and perhaps angry as well. I have heard people question the appropriateness of having this debate today. There are great democrats in the Liberal and Conservative parties who are eager to tell us how we should be using our opposition day, not to talk about an issue that deals with secularism, but to talk about issues that relate to current events. I would remind my colleagues that we do this all the time and that it is rhetoric that I see in the House. I am thinking, for example, of the Minister of Canadian Heritage. If we bring up the French language, if we bring up Quebec's place, or if we bring up immigration, he tells us that the Bloc Québécois is trying to pick a fight. Talking about issues that affect Quebecers in this assembly is tantamount to picking a fight. I have heard that many times. Our colleague from Winnipeg North asked us why the Bloc members are not talking about health transfers or seniors. I would point out to him that we had two opposition days on these issues, which resulted in motions. However, I have yet to see any action by the government. I would also like to point out to my Conservative colleagues that, in the middle of the truckers' blockade in February, there was an opposition day about Canadian Pacific in Saskatchewan. That is not my issue, but I have no say in what the Conservatives choose. I participated in an NDP emergency debate on the pandemic in Alberta. The Alberta health care system is none of my business, and it is not the business of the House either. That is what they wanted to discuss, so good for them. The worst thing I heard today is that the prayer is a wedge issue. That is a convenient way to avoid taking a stand on something. Why would it be a wedge issue? I have a lot of trouble understanding my colleagues' logic when they say that prayer here is a wedge issue. Reciting a prayer before we meet for question period is complete nonsense. It is the opposite of what we see in the modern world, which is a neutral state. Yesterday, I was talking to a former French academic colleague who could not believe that we still do a prayer in the House of Commons before we begin our sittings. In his opinion, it is totally archaic and completely unthinkable. A number of people have come to us to ask why we have not considered this issue on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, or why we were even asking this question today. We put forward a motion about it in 2019. We never reached unanimous consent in the House. However, this is the kind of debate we need to have, and it has to be in the public eye. I want to hear what the Liberal Party has to say on how religious differences should be accommodated in this House. How our Parliament, the institution of institutions, can be neutral. I want to hear from the Liberal Party on that. I want to hear from the Conservatives. Their response is quite different. They say that this debate is a point of contention, perhaps because they want to charm certain religious communities in their ridings, for they feel that talking about this picks up on an obvious fact that no one wants to talk about. I am going to talk about the elephant in the room, namely the debate on secularism. There are people in the House who are having a very hard time with the debate on secularism. I would like to address it head-on. Earlier, the hon. member for Winnipeg North told us that no one in Quebec was interested in this topic. I have been observing Quebec politics for the past 30 years. Over the past 30 years, there has been a lot of talk in Quebec about the issue of religion in the public sphere. There was the Bouchard‑Taylor commission on accommodation. What was the cornerstone of that commission's mandate? The place of religion. How can ethnocultural minorities be accommodated in the Quebec context? What will be the place of the sacred in the Quebec context? These questions were examined by the Bouchard‑Taylor commission in 2008, as I recall. We spent more than 15 years going over this in Quebec. It led to Bill 21, which provides clear guidelines on the place of religion in the public sphere in Quebec. I suspect that the conflict between secularism and identity is what scares my Liberal, Conservative and NDP colleagues, who do not want to take a stand on this particular issue. However, there is a great deal to discuss. As I recall, one thing the Bouchard-Taylor commission explored is how to accommodate community identities in relation to their religion. To define secularism, the commission's report outlined four main principles. The first principle is the moral equality of persons. Whether one is a believer or thinks that Platonism, Neo-Platonism or Aristotelianism is what gives meaning to life, everyone is equal. The second principle is freedom of conscience and religion. This is actually an expression of the next principle, the separation of church and state. The third principle, as I just said, is the separation of church and state. The fourth principle is state neutrality towards religions and deep-seated secular convictions. I am trying to understand how saying a prayer at the beginning of one of our sittings meets the four principles outlined in the Bouchard-Taylor report. Now I would like to talk about something that seems essential to me but that has not yet been brought up. Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean was confronted with the issue of the prayer within its institutions for three years. I am not sure if my colleagues are familiar with the 2015 Supreme Court ruling entitled Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City). I want to focus on two key aspects of the ruling. First, the definition of neutrality, found at paragraph 74: By expressing no preference, the state ensures that it preserves a neutral public space that is free of discrimination and in which true freedom to believe or not to believe is enjoyed by everyone equally, given that everyone is valued equally. I note that a neutral public space does not mean the homogenization of private players in that space. Neutrality is required of institutions and the state, not individuals. On the contrary, a neutral public space free from coercion, pressure and judgment on the part of public authorities in matters of spirituality is intended to protect every person's freedom and dignity. Is that not what is at issue today, namely protecting every person's freedom and dignity? That is the Supreme Court's answer to what neutrality means. Another essential aspect is the Supreme Court's definition of discrimination. Paragraph 64 reads as follows: Sponsorship of one religious tradition by the state in breach of its duty of neutrality amounts to discrimination against all other such traditions. If the state favours one religion at the expense of others, it imports a disparate impact that is destructive of the religious freedom of the collectivity. The debate we are trying to have today is about whether our institutions are neutral with respect to religion, is it not? That should be the underlying principle. The easy answer, which everyone fell back on today, is that the prayer happens before the doors are opened and does not inconvenience anyone. This is not about inconveniencing people. It is about sending a clear message that our institutions are neutral. Personally, what I want to hear in my colleagues' questions over the next few minutes, what I want to know from them, is what secularism means to them. If they think this debate is old news and unimportant, I have only one thing to tell them. They are out of step with what the people of Quebec think. I look forward to hearing my Conservative colleagues from Quebec comment on this subject. The last thing I want to say is that when the Prime Minister's ethics are at issue, the Liberals tell us they do not have time to talk about it and this is not the right time to talk about the Prime Minister's ethical irregularities. Last week, when people talked to the Conservatives about abortion, they said the same thing: now is not the time to talk about abortion; they have other problems to deal with. I hope they do not play the same card here. That is an outdated argument in politics.

1485 words

All Topics

May/10/22 1:30:52 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, basically, what my colleague is saying is as crazy as asking why democracy and collective deliberation are important. It makes as much sense as that. The primary principle in modern democracies is the neutrality of the state. What message does it send when this House, an institution that is supposed to be above all other institutions, says a prayer before it begins its proceedings? That sends a very bad message. If my colleague is unable to chew gum and walk at the same time, he has a serious problem, and maybe he is in the wrong place.

99 words

May/10/22 1:32:36 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, there is a rather simple principle. Generally, the way our societies work is that they are divided into three parts: the state, which represents the public sphere; civil society, which represents the civic sphere; and the family, which represents the private sphere. Generally speaking, religion should be relegated to the civic and private spheres, not the public sphere. That is a key principle in the modern world. It is completely possible that our Constitution contains pious nonsense about how we put God first above anything else. In a polyethnic society, is it still acceptable for a religious statement to be made in the House that is completely inconsistent with the beliefs of the majority? Our beliefs must be relegated to the civic and private spheres, period. That is what the majority of the world's democracies do.

139 words