44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2022 10:00AM
- May/31/22 1:01:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a wonderful opportunity to say hello to my constituents in Beloeil—Chambly and to inform you that I will be pleased to split my time with the very distinguished member for Drummond.
We are starting a debate. I am not only talking about here, today. I am talking more generally about society, after a number of years that have been quite turbulent in this regard. We are starting, we must start a crucial debate to question centuries of evolution in scientific knowledge. This knowledge is behind pretty much everything in our daily lives, from health to transportation, not to mention our capacity to adapt to the technological and demographic changes in our world.
I have questions about a number of related issues. Others will have answers to suggest. Mine are no more valid than anyone else's, but it is my duty to put them up for public judgment. Next weekend, the Bloc will be holding a conference on freedom of expression, which will focus on our topic, on academic freedom, freedom of education, and freedom of research. We have already been criticized for our choice of speakers for the conference. We are organizing a conference on freedom of expression that allows people to speak, and we are being told that we should not give a platform to this or that person.
It is rather fascinating, and it shows we have a long way to go.
Yesterday, we introduced anti-scab legislation. It is a bill that deals with collective rights. It is important to talk about collective rights. I am talking about collective representation and the need to ensure that our society is not so completely fragmented into individual rights conveyed outside of institutions, particularly institutions of the state, that this starts to impede rather than contribute to progress. For decades, progress was represented by collective rights. It was collective representation. It was an emergence.
We have seen this for several decades. Nations have been emerging in waves, of sorts, like with the collapse of the Soviet Union or the decolonization of Africa. As a result, communities, nations, groups, and people who identify themselves as groups and act as groups have been emerging. They emerged without denying individual rights, which must always be preserved. Fragmentation is not the best way to preserve individual rights. On the contrary, it is best to build bridges, bridges of solidarity between people who form groups because they have common interests.
Impatience can sometimes lead us to point the finger at institutions. In fact, we recently saw an elected member of another legislature talking up the work of people who had resorted to approaches unworthy of elected officials that even verged on aggressive. Regardless of what was at issue, institutions are being targeted and undermined, and that should worry us. This is an exclusionary approach. Researchers are being condemned. Research subjects are being condemned. Course content is being condemned. Supposed ideology is being condemned. Ideology is being judged as good or bad. What ends up happening is that the conclusions of very high level scientific research are being written before that very high level scientific research has even been done.
Knowledge is under threat. Science and the fundamentals of our societies are under threat. When the government gets involved, supports this kind of thing, gives this kind of thing its blessing, there is a significant risk, which is why we need to have this debate and, as a member said, make sure that it is the nature of the research itself that informs choices, not the nature of the researcher.
At the core of this debate is science. Science does not want to lie, but science is not perfect, of course. It can be mistaken. What was scientific truth 30, 130 or 230 years ago may be true no longer. Science evolves. Research challenges many ideas we took for granted.
The need to move forward comes, of course, with the recognition that, in the past, there will have been choices, decisions, goals, research, results and certainties that suddenly evaporated. However, science remains our best way forward. It has saved lives during the pandemic. It must not be perverted.
This is also true in the social sciences. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, our societies must adapt to the speed of phenomenal technological change, as well as the speed of demographic change, with its multiplication of contacts of all kinds, all of them beneficial. This means intervention or attention is also needed in the social sciences, whether it is the very real phenomenon of racism or any form of discrimination. The very notion of systemic racism must be entrusted to science before it is entrusted to ideology and politics. The real fear of difference or the desire to silence others would in itself be a potential research topic. Information in isolation, where we simply reinforce our convictions by not exposing ourselves to different ideas, and the desire for the survival of a language and a culture could also be interesting and legitimate research topics. They all depend on science, which should not be asked to lie by writing conclusions before the research is completed and the science is ready. However, this is the subject of what I believe to be very serious censorship.
History is no longer taught according to the scientific method because it is often written by the dominant culture or the victor. Quebec's most nationalistic or sovereignist moments and periods have been gradually expunged from its history books. However, history must continue to contribute its share of knowledge, wisdom and collective experience.
It is never a good thing to lie. Lying to oneself is obviously dangerous. Believing one's lies is even more dangerous. We must not make science lie. We must provide science with every opportunity to include everyone, based on the quality of the research project and the researcher's focus. We must let science express itself and continue to contribute to progress.
Ottawa's current policies, or its complacency in some cases, discriminate against potential talent by dictating conclusions and not protecting researchers and teachers. This jeopardizes the very essence of what science should be. In doing so, it jeopardizes the well-being of society.
In the name of democracy, knowledge, science and diversity itself, which must be enhanced by sound science, we ask Parliament to come to its senses.
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- May/31/22 1:10:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I fully support the notion that institutions of all kinds should be representative of and reflect the extraordinary diversity of the societies in which we live.
Today's debate is not about inclusion. It is about the need to resist the temptation to exclude people, the need to avoid discriminating, even with the best possible intentions, against people who can make a significant contribution to knowledge, science and the betterment of society.
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- May/31/22 1:12:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would respectfully submit that ideology does not compete with research and science, but rather it comes from research and science. An opinion must be based on some minimal knowledge. Science, research, education and the sharing of these ideas and these possibilities all contribute to the shaping of minds and forming of opinions. As those opinions expand, deepen and develop, they often become an ideology. We are simply saying that ideology derives from knowledge.
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- May/31/22 1:13:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am being told that I refuse to address the root causes of injustice, whereas I am suggesting that we take a positive approach, not a negative one. I am suggesting that we take an approach that will rally people around this diversity. I am suggesting that there be a set of incentives, including financial ones, to help ensure this extraordinary diversity is better represented.
Discrimination and intimidation is out there now, with stickers on doors, calls, attempts to exclude people from faculties, research projects being impeded. I do not think this contributes to anything positive.
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- May/31/22 2:16:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the past few days, I had the privilege of meeting Catalonia's minister of foreign action, who came to meet with a significant number of Quebec institutions, including the Government of Quebec. We discussed the extraordinary economic advantages of developing partnerships between such prosperous and innovative territories as Catalonia and Quebec, which share some comparable characteristics.
Of course, we had the chance to talk about a people's right to self-determination, Catalonia's desire for independence, or at least the desire of a large number of Catalan citizens, and the Spanish government's shameful repression of the will of the Catalan people.
We also touched on Canada's support for Spain in this repression, and on the fact that this is hardly flattering. I promised to raise this issue in the House of Commons of Canada so that, together, we could regain a position of dignity before the Catalan people.
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- May/31/22 2:32:22 p.m.
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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 that?
Ultimately, the question for the Prime Minister is the following: Is English threatened in Quebec?
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- May/31/22 2:33:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, his idea of contributing to the debate is giving money and perpetuating a blatant lie. Enough with this business about not practising or not being able to practise a profession. It reeks of partisanship. Quebec has been so often maligned across Canada that attacks on language and secularism in Quebec are gaining traction among Conservative Party leadership candidates.
That was the very premise of my question, which the Prime Minister did not answer. Is English at risk in Quebec?
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