44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 15, 2022 02:00PM
- Jun/15/22 2:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the federal border fiasco is breaking records. Going abroad has become a real endurance test.
First, travellers have to wait in line for 24 hours to get a passport, thanks to the Minister of Families' lack of vision. Then, travellers have to wait for hours at the airport, mainly because border services are short 3,000 officers thanks to the Minister of Transport.
It is a perfect storm for travellers. When several ministers fail at the same time like that, it is because the problem comes from above.
When will the Prime Minister sort out his fiasco at the border?
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- Jun/15/22 2:44:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it does not end there. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is also in trouble because her staff attended a party at the Russian embassy. What a great idea that was.
The Minister of Public Safety is in trouble too because of his “alternative facts” on the Emergencies Act. What about the Minister of Immigration, who runs a department where permanent residence applications seemingly go to die, or the Minister of Environment, who has become an oil and gas developer?
Ultimately, when all the musicians are playing out of tune, the conductor is always to blame. In this case, the conductor is the Prime Minister.
When will he start looking after his own affairs instead of always meddling in Quebec's jurisdictions?
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C‑14.
I want to start by giving an overview of the problem that this bill is designed to fix in part. Every 10 years, the Chief Electoral Officer presents a new distribution of the number of seats in the House of Commons, so there are some things that keep happening every 10 years.
One thing that comes up systematically is that Quebec loses a percentage of its share of seats in the House. Allow me to give a quick background, and I will ask my colleagues to take me at my word. I have the figures and have pored over them like a dog eyeing a steak. Back in 1867, Quebec had 36% of the seats in the House and in 2015, it had 23.1%. That is typical. With the new distribution, Quebec will drop from 23.1% to 22.5%.
My colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères said something extraordinary. He is a brilliant Bloc Québécois member, although that is redundant. I see more and more Conservatives looking at us, as though they, too, can be brilliant. I would tell them to be patient because anything is possible. We are extending a light blue hand to their dark blue hand and we are waiting.
Back to the debate. My colleague said that the francophone nation used to be in the majority. It was decided back then that, because Quebeckers were in the majority, they would split the seats 50-50. As soon as it no longer suited them because there were more of us, they changed their mind. In the old days, Quebeckers had a lot of children—14 or 15 per family. Some parents even put stickers on their kids because they could not remember their names. In 1867, the government decided to change things. Going forward, seat distribution would be determined on the basis of population. At that point, four provinces were created, and Quebec's share of the seats fell to 33%. Our minority status in Canada was institutionalized. That is Lord Durham's political legacy.
In this classic tale, where we lose a certain percentage seats, there was recently a new plot twist. In addition to having fewer seats in percentage terms, Quebec was actually going to lose a seat. That matters. Our number of seats was going to drop from 78 to 77 seats. The Bloc Québécois began to fight, as did the Quebec government and various stakeholders in Quebec, and rightly so. Certain members here from other provinces even thought we were going a bit too far. That is when we began speaking out, because this sort of thing has not happened since 1966. The government eventually began to think that maybe it should not do this, because it did seem a bit crazy. If you want to drown someone in the pool, of course it looks crazy to push their head down and hold them in the water. What looks less crazy is gradually raising the water level in the pool. This way, a nation will eventually die, but quietly. That is what is planned for Quebec. That is what is going to happen.
The fact that Quebec has managed to make French the common language of Quebeckers is no small feat. It was even impossible for the French who failed us in 1760. They left and abandoned us, saying that things were not going well here and that, in any event, the English would take care of us, along with the priests. They thought that we would be speaking English within a generation. Two hundred years later, when France's General de Gaulle saw that Quebeckers were still here and were speaking French, he made the connection and declared, “Vive le Québec libre”.
It is a feat, but as we fight against the odds, in a situation that is becoming increasingly untenable, we will eventually need help to ensure that our nation survives and thrives, so that this nation lives on.
Is it because Quebec is better? No. Quebec is not better than the rest of Canada, but it is different. Beauty is often found in differences. I like going to Toronto. It is not home, but I like it. I like going to New York and France. I like that. It is not home, but I like it.
When the Bloc came to the House last year saying that Quebec is a nation, MPs got on board. I was impressed. We thought we were going to have to fight harder than that. Of course, the motion did not pass unanimously, but the vast majority of members agreed that Quebec is a nation.
Then some other members began getting ideas. I can never remember other people's riding names, which are incredibly long and just keep getting longer. There are 338 of us, and it is getting out of hand. We might as well use acronyms.
Getting back to my point, when we declared that Quebec was a nation, a Conservative member from British Columbia said that his province was also a nation. I told him that I was unaware, that he should explain it to us, prove it to us and bring forward a motion to that effect for us to discuss.
Then one of his colleagues, who was even more worked up than he was, said that Alberta was a nation. I will not say his name, but he did say that Alberta was a nation, and for 30 seconds he tried to convince us of that. I had to wonder.
Quebec is definitely a nation. We have a different language. We like to speak out, loud and clear, in our different language. Members can argue about it and say that language is not a big deal, but actually, it is a big deal. We are a different culture. Quebec has its own writers. I could name a few, and I doubt the other members would have any idea who they are. We had to fight at the leaders' meeting to convey how important Pierre Bruneau is to us.
We have to explain to members who we are. When Jean Leloup won a bunch of trophies, we had to explain to Canada who he was. We have to explain to members who we are. That is normal, because we are different.
Our economy is different. It is based on other aspects that are less developed elsewhere in Canada. The other regions in Canada are not worse than Quebec. They are just different.
Our history is different. When they get to the chapter on 1759, our history teachers dejectedly explain the defeat on the Plains of Abraham. Elsewhere in Canada, history teachers are pleased as punch to talk about 1759, what they call the victory on the Plains of Abraham. Need I say more?
I have two things to point out to my colleagues who say that other provinces are nations. First, when the Prime Minister was elected, he raised his arms and cheerily declared that Canada would be the first post-national state. To the people who say that their provinces are nations, I say that their leader said that they were no longer nations, that the era of nations is over.
One day, someone said to me, without any malice, that Canada is like a boring party, and everyone is just waiting for the first guest to leave so that they can leave too.
Last week, I heard the member from British Columbia say that B.C. was a nation and that Alberta was a nation in his colleague's eyes. My loving response to them is this: Why not make Canada a true confederation of sovereign states that unite as sovereign states, which manage everything within our own respective borders and which would meet to manage our economic relations and share a currency? Instead of coming together and explaining how we are different, we would meet to talk about what unites us all. That is my wish for all of us.
Unfortunately, Bill C‑14 does not reflect what we want. It is either a partial success or a partial failure, depending on whether we see the glass as half full or half empty. To fix this problem once and for all, and we need to agree on the idea that it is once and for all, Quebec would have to be guaranteed at least 25% of the seats in the House, as was proposed in the Charlottetown accord.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoy listening to him as well, and we have known one another a long time.
A coach does not ask a good defenceman to go out and play offence if he is good on defence. I came to the House to defend Quebeckers' interests while waiting for the big day. That is the Bloc Québécois's mission. We look after the interests of Quebeckers, we speak on behalf of Quebeckers, we explain what Quebeckers need, we talk about the values of Quebeckers and their political views.
We defend Quebec's interests in the House because they need to be defended until the big day arrives. There are people in Quebec City who are playing offence, making sure that a majority of Quebeckers will one day say “yes, finally”, after always being told no by the federal government. At some point, they will think more positively.
In the meantime, I am the Bobby Orr of Canadian politics.
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Madam Speaker, I should apologize because there are indeed MPs from Quebec who are not Bloc Québécois members, but we are the only ones who have not made compromises and do not need to make compromises because our caucus is not Canadian. It represents Quebec exclusively. To hear the sound of a pure, unadulterated symphony, one need only listen to Bloc Québécois members. I recommend that the House do so.
Getting back to my colleague from the riding whose name is impossible to memorize, let me just express my profound respect and admiration for him. The last time he rose in the House to speak to Bill C‑14, he said that British Columbia was a nation and a distinct society. I more or less quoted him verbatim. As I recall, I even invited him to Quebec, and that invitation stands.
I myself am planning to visit British Columbia, where everything looks so gorgeous. I am going next year. I even talked to my wife about it, and she is excited. I want to explore that beautiful part of the country, but I want my colleague to explain to me why it is a nation, because that is what he told the House. We remain friends nevertheless.
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Madam Speaker, you are being hard on me. I may stretch these 15 seconds a little.
Quebec faces many difficulties with respect to its values and needs in the Canadian federation. The solution to this problem would have been to simply set a minimum threshold with a percentage to guarantee that Quebec always has the same percentage of representatives in the House. There is no need to open the Constitution. We do not need 50% of the seats.
Patrick Taillon, a well-known constitutional expert, came before the parliamentary committee and told us that we did not need to do that. It is already provided for. I do not have enough time, but I would have said that the Supreme Court recognized, in 1987, the right to adopt clauses like the senatorial clause and the grandfather clause. We could have called it the Quebec clause. It would have been included in this bill and it would have resolved—
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