SoVote

Feb/9/23 11:15:35 a.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, typically, I think our answers are supposed to be as long as the questions, which means that I am going to be making another speech given how long my colleague's question was. First of all, I could respond to the member for Drummond that his question does not matter to me one bit either, but I will try to be a little more polite than he is on that front. As I said in my speech, it is clear that the Bloc Québécois wants sovereignty; it is a left-wing party that supports the Parti Québécois. There is no denying it. The Government of Quebec is not the Parti Québécois. The Bloc Québécois does not have the sole authority to speak for all Quebeckers. That is patently untrue. I am a Quebecker and proud of it, as are my Conservative colleagues and even several Liberal members. We are all Quebeckers and we all speak for Quebec. When I make connections between Bloc Québécois positions, I look at their platform and I look at the state of affairs, such as bills C-5, C-75 and C-21. I could go on and name more, but I do not have enough time.

226 words

Context: House Hansard - 157 - Feb/9/23

Mrs. Marilène Gill (Manicouagan, BQ)

Feb/9/23 3:41:13 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, as my colleague said earlier, the Bloc Québécois is asking the House today to recognize a fact by asking “[t]hat the House remind the government that it is solely up to Quebec and the provinces to decide on the use of the notwithstanding clause.” Acknowledging a fact seems like a no-brainer. That said, history, even very recent history, reminds us that we should take nothing for granted. Nothing is ever a given. This is serious. Think, for example, of Morgentaler reading the bills from the member for Yorkton—Melville, of Pythagoras learning of the Flat Earth Society, of John Locke hearing the Prime Minister of Canada exclaim on January 23, 2023, that he is going to intervene in the Supreme Court case involving Bill 21, right down to tagging the use of the notwithstanding clause. No, nothing is ever a given and no right is a given. The Bloc Québécois knows this and is watching out for Quebeckers, and even for the provinces and territories in this case. We want to reiterate that it is imperative that the House unanimously reaffirm that Quebec alone must decide when it should use the notwithstanding clause. Does the Prime Minister really know Quebec? Does he even know the history of Quebec? I have my doubts, most of the time. To know Quebec is to love it, not fear it or coerce it. Does the Prime Minister remember the people of Quebec who have slowly but surely distanced themselves from the church and its robes? Does he remember the long journey Quebeckers have taken to achieve the full separation of church and state? Does he remember the night of the long knives? Does he recall that Quebec never signed the Constitution of 1982? Does he realize that perhaps, for Quebec, the notwithstanding clause is like a tiny bit of sugar in a glass of poison hemlock? I truly and sincerely do not think so. To know Quebec is to recognize how enamoured it is with equality and freedom. It is to recognize that Quebec's biggest source of faith is intelligence and reason. It is to know that Quebec believes in the sovereignty of the state and that if it is subordinate to anyone, it can only be to itself, to the Quebec people. The gods, whoever they may be, do not belong in the affairs of the state. They may be in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the car, in the street, or in the church, mosque or synagogue, in a book or in our thoughts. They are certainly not here in the House or in the robe of any Supreme Court justices, who do not make the laws. Imagine for a moment what it means to a Quebecker like me, who knows and remembers her history, to theoretically be the subject of a monarch—a monarch who is the head of the Anglican Church, no less—and to sit in a Parliament where MPs ask the Christian god to legitimize their duties and their votes on a daily basis. As an elected representative, I answer to the people, not to gods. Imagine, too, what it means to a Quebecker like me to hear the fear, arrogance, disdain and intolerance in the Prime Minister's articulation of the fundamentally dishonest and misleading stereotype of a xenophobic or even racist Quebec where freedom and equality are but mirages. As an elected representative, I answer to the people, not to myself. The Prime Minister's outsized attack on Bill 21 is a violent attack on the people of Quebec, for what is violence if not one party imposing its will on another by force? Violence and democracy are two sides of the same coin. Speaking of outsized, what is the elephant in the room here? What is this terrifying Bill 21 that gives the Prime Minister the green light to go ballistic on Quebec sovereignty, its national assembly and the will of the Quebec nation? The law simply prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by state employees in a position of coercive authority, as well as teachers in the public school system, while grandfathering in those already in their positions on March 27, 2019, the day before the bill was introduced. Bill 21 marks the separation of state and religious powers. It guarantees freedom and equality for all. Freedom of conscience remains. We must always keep in mind that we, as elected officials, are accountable to the people and I, as a Bloc Québécois MP, to my National Assembly. I was listening this morning to the member for Outremont. In a nutshell, she said that using section 133, the notwithstanding clause, was not consistent with section 33. That was her concern. She is worried that the notwithstanding clause is a notwithstanding clause. I do not think the government intends to open up the Constitution, but what I am hearing is that there is a concern that Quebec is Quebec. In closing I would say that the notwithstanding clause is a place for the Quebec nation in the Constitution of Canada, a document that René Lévesque never signed. It is a place to wrest a little freedom for Quebec. I think that is hyperbole. It is a little freedom for its identity, for its essence. Quebec is granted permission to exist using an exception. By asking these judges to stifle the notwithstanding clause, the Prime Minister intends to stifle Quebec. Why is it that the only way the Prime Minister can be Canadian is to viciously attack Quebec? No nation has the right to dictate to another nation what it should be. Quebec has its values. Quebec is secular. The notwithstanding clause does not by any means allow Quebec enough room for its existence. No one can dictate to me the kind of person I should be. I am for state secularism. I am a Quebecker. I am a separatist, and my bags have been packed for a long time now.

1024 words

Context: House Hansard - 157 - Feb/9/23

Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Feb/9/23 4:57:46 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, this is an attempt to hijack the debate. I, for one, have problems with all kinds of laws, from a moral standpoint. There are laws that are passed in other Canadian provinces, in Quebec, in other countries and just about everywhere that I disagree with, whether they use the notwithstanding clause or not. The precedents my colleague refers to come from trying to revoke the unconditional nature of the notwithstanding clause and add additional layers of interpretation, even though the Supreme Court has already been very clear. The sovereignty of parliaments comes with the possibility that those parliaments will make mistakes. It also comes with the possibility that voters will sack governments that make mistakes.

118 words

Context: House Hansard - 157 - Feb/9/23

Mr. Pat Kelly

Feb/9/23 5:13:21 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, there will be a provincial election soon in Alberta and I invite this member to contest that provincial election, because all she does is come here and raise issues about provincial politics. This is the federal Parliament. Let us focus on federal issues and let this member run in the provincial election if she wants to debate Danielle Smith on the sovereignty act.

65 words