SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 103

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 27, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)
  • Sep/27/22 11:07:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien
  • Sep/27/22 11:08:34 a.m.
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I do not quite know how to start my speech because I am a little discouraged. We are used to the Conservatives saying things that border on populism, and they have a tendency to oversimplify things. They do not seem to have faith in the intelligence of Quebeckers and Canadians. Sometimes, we think they must be joking. At one point, the new leader came in and we thought he might put the party in order, but things are even worse now. Since he came in, the Conservatives appear to be revelling in populism. It feels like they absolutely want Maxime Bernier back. I do not know what is going on. I taught for 20 years and when I talked about inflation I usually devoted four to six hours to the topic, which is extremely complex and must be approached with a modicum of intelligence. No one can claim to have a magic formula to deal with inflation. That would be too easy, and yet that is what the Conservatives are suggesting. They say that they will solve everything by lowering the tax on petroleum products. That is what they want to do, but it does not work that way. Usually, in economics—
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien
  • Sep/27/22 11:08:44 a.m.
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Usually, in economics and the humanities, and even in the pure sciences, if you want to solve a problem, you have to define it first. Then, you need to find the sources of the problem. Lastly, you need to address those sources. The problem is inflation. Is inflation purely a Quebec or Canadian problem? No, every country in the G7 and the OECD is dealing with inflation. That is the first element. Is it the fault solely of the federal government, then? I do not think so. Did it act appropriately on every aspect of the inflation issue? I am not sure, but it does not bear sole responsibility. That is what I want to say. Then, we see that inflation was at 7% in August and that it dropped a bit because of the price of oil. That means that it is relatively high. Everyone is affected by inflation. No one is immune, but the most hard hit are people on a fixed income: seniors and people with low incomes. We need to focus on these people and try to find solutions to lessen the impact of inflation on their lives. That is the intelligent approach. That is what the Bloc Québécois is doing. We asked ourselves how we could help these people. Once we have determined what the problem is and who is affected by it, we must determine why we have inflation. There are two factors. One, the demand for goods and services has risen sharply. Interest rates have gone down and federal assistance has been astronomical, which has greatly increased the demand for goods and services. That, in turn, has created inflation. Two, the supply side of the equation has shrunk. Madam Speaker, I listened respectfully to members of the Liberal Party and I would like them to show some mutual respect, if at all possible.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien
  • Sep/27/22 11:10:52 a.m.
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Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was saying that supply has decreased. This is partly because of broken supply chains, the war in Ukraine and the labour shortage. These are the causes. That means that, if we want to solve our problems, these are the things we must act on. What are the solutions, then? What should we do? First, we need to help those that are affected by inflation. We need to increase support for seniors. The Bloc Québécois has been saying this for a long time, but it is truer now than ever. Seniors live on a fixed income. They have been hit hard by inflation. We need to help them. We also need to help low- and middle-income people. They are also suffering from inflation. We need to be prudent in the way we help people. We cannot implement measures across the board. If we try to help everyone, we will just be stoking inflation. We need to target the people who are really in trouble and help them more. Then, we need to increase the supply of social housing. That is clear. Rents are higher because there is a shortage of housing units. You do not need a doctorate in economics to understand that. When something is in short supply, prices rise. We need to increase the supply of social housing. We also need to eliminate our dependence on oil. I forgot to mention that the causes of high inflation include the increase in oil prices and the war in Ukraine. We need to transition to renewable, clean energies. That is what we need to do. The extremely populist Conservative Party is doing the opposite. Conservatives love oil and they have no qualms about saying so; they eat it on their cereal in the morning. They say that the solution is to stop punishing oil consumers. They want to lower taxes so that people can consume more oil. Are they helping our seniors? The answer is no. Are they helping people in difficulty because of their income? The answer is no. They are helping Suncor, Imperial Oil and so on. Once again, those who are producing dirty oil will be rewarded by the Conservative Party's immoral policies, and this is just the beginning. If there is an election in three years, I can only imagine what we will be debating here in the House. What a horror show it will be. It will be the bogeyman all covered in oil. That is what will happen, and it is no laughing matter; it will be appalling. I hope that he will not light up a cigarette. Then they attack the central bank, the Bank of Canada. That is something else. I taught for a long time. I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in economics. The Bank of Canada often hires the most talented economists. It is internationally known as one of the best banks. In 1991, when it decided to adopt a policy focused on fighting inflation, it was only the second bank in history to do so. For 30 years, it kept inflation within a range of 1% to 3%. It worked. That no longer works because of the pandemic. This is an exceptional situation. Should we blame the bank? The answer is no. We need to trust it and allow it to remain independent from political power, or the situation could become dangerous. If things go off the rails, people will flock to cryptocurrency, which is not a good idea. When I heard the leader of the Conservative Party extolling the merits of cryptocurrency, I was taken aback. I told friends of mine that I did not understand what he was saying. No one understood, although most of them have a doctorate in economics. I do not think they were the ones who were wrong. We are getting to the solution. The Bloc Québécois thinks that increasing the GST credits is a good idea, a good solution. The government is on the right track. Let us look at what the Conservative Party is proposing. The Conservatives claim that, if we reduce that tariff, everyone will benefit. That is false, because any such reductions will be offset by an increase in payments to Canadians who are struggling the most to make ends meet. The ones who will profit from this obscene populism will be the oil producers. Really, now. My colleague from Jonquière asked the leader of the Conservative Party a question, and the leader in question did not even know that there is a carbon exchange in Quebec. We still have a long way to go. If the Conservatives want votes in Quebec, they will have to learn more about the Quebec nation, what it is and what it wants. What does the Quebec nation want? It wants less oil and more renewable energies. The Bloc Québécois is here to remind everyone of that. In Quebec, we believe in the potential of renewable energies. That is how we will be able to protect ourselves from future oil price shocks. Quebec will consume less and less oil, and that is the direction we need to take for the sake of the planet and our future economy.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien
  • Sep/27/22 11:17:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that, in a way, sums up what I was getting at. I thank my colleague for the question. It allows me to elaborate a bit. In politics, as members know, we try to reach people to listen to their problems and to offer them solutions. We then come to the House to represent them and speak on their behalf. When a party leader comes here but does not even know the reality of the Quebec nation and is incapable of understanding it, how can he possibly represent Quebec in the House of Commons? It is impossible. I know that the number of Conservative MPs is now nine and is trending downward. I would therefore suggest that the Conservative MPs from Quebec reason with their leader and have him stop talking nonsense about Quebec.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien
  • Sep/27/22 11:19:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the two bills seek to help lower-income households deal with inflation. We obviously agree with increasing the GST credit. We have been talking about that for a long time, and we are glad that the government is waking up. However, there is one thing we do not like as much. It is a Liberal tradition, one they learned from the NDP. The NDP are Liberals in a hurry. What they want is to have every possible reason to interfere in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. They told themselves they were going to help households. Some, wanting to go even further, thought they would help households while sticking their their noses in the business of Quebec and the provinces. They thought it would be really cool, because they believe they are smarter than everyone else and know what Quebeckers need better than the Quebec government does. They figured they would show up with their nice cheques adorned with a maple leaf and just bypass Quebec's authority. That, however, is not a good idea.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien
  • Sep/27/22 11:20:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am still in shock. I would like to thank my colleague for his question, because it gives me a chance to gather my thoughts. In fact, this is all so absurd that I am struggling to make sense of it. It is important to understand that the leader of the Conservative Party is not crazy, not at all, so we have to ask why he did not know that. The answer is that he does not care. He is switched on to what western Canada wants. He listens to what his cronies in Alberta and Saskatchewan want and caters to their needs. Then he says he wants to be the prime minister for all Canadians and expects us believe that. What he really wants is to defend the views of western Canada and then try to sell those views to everyone else, including Quebec. I have to tell my Conservative friends that they will find us, the Bloc Québécois, standing in their way.
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)
  • Sep/27/22 2:28:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the CBC reports that the federal government is transforming Roxham Road into a permanent crossing and that this has already cost more than $500 million. The federal government has signed contracts up until at least 2027 for hotels, land and trailer leases, for goodness' sake. All this will stay until at least 2027. That is why they are not suspending the safe third country agreement. That is why they are not cracking down on criminal smugglers. They want it to last. Who does it benefit to make the crossing at Roxham Road permanent?
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Context: House Hansard - 103 - Sep/27/22
Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)
  • Sep/27/22 2:29:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me explain who benefits from making Roxham Road permanent. It benefits the smugglers who traffic people. It benefits the criminals who see the families' desperation and figure there is money to be made. It benefits Liberal donors who get all kinds of contracts from this government. They are laughing. They know that Roxham Road will stay open for the next five years. It may never close. Thanks to the federal government, they can turn their little racket into a thriving economic sector. Why is the government drumming up business for criminals instead of thinking about what the migrants need and closing Roxham Road permanently?
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