44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
- Jun/20/23 2:07:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not want to brag, but I sincerely think that my riding is home to the most incredible people in Quebec, people who are committed and involved in their community. Among them are three exceptional individuals whose work I want to recognize today because they are retiring.
The first is François Picard, who is retiring on June 30 after 41 years of service in Quebec's weekly newspaper industry. I want to congratulate him.
The second is Sergeant Lionel Bourdon, from the Longueuil police department, who retired just a few days ago after, believe it or not, 58 years of loyal service. He now holds the record for longest-serving police officer in Canada.
The third is Hélène Bordeleau, from the Table Itinérance Rive-Sud, who has worked for community organizations that strengthen the social safety net for nearly 40 years.
Today, before all of my colleagues here, I want to tell them how inspirational they are and how much their work has done to change the lives of the people of Longueuil—Saint-Hubert. I sincerely thank them.
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- Jun/20/23 2:43:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for Quebeckers, July 1 is not a day to celebrate; it is a nightmare. July 1 is just a week and a half away and hundreds of people do not know where they are going to live because we are in the midst of a housing crisis. In five years, Quebec will be short 50,000 social housing units. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's 2021 findings, if we rely on funding from Ottawa, we will not have any more social housing units.
The federal strategy is a failure that barely maintains the status quo. In other words, there will be no more housing units available in the future than there are today. When will this government truly address this housing crisis?
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- Jun/20/23 2:44:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I invite the minister to come and walk the streets of Longueuil on July 1. He will see whether it is a nightmare or not.
The Liberals' investments are barely enough to maintain the status quo. We have no new affordable housing. They say that everything is going well for families in greater Montreal, who the federal government is forcing to compete for the same housing that keeps getting more and more expensive, but let them come and tell that to the people of Rimouski, Granby and Drummond, where the vacancy rate is 0.4 %. Anyone who manages to find housing there should go buy a 6/49 lottery ticket.
We are in an unprecedented housing crisis. When will the federal government make investments to adequately address this crisis—
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- Jun/20/23 2:45:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, “low rental housing stock disproportionately impacted low-income renters.” This is not from the Bloc Québécois, but rather from CMHC's annual report.
The federal corporation itself has found that the federal strategy is abandoning the less fortunate. We need 1% for housing. We are not talking about housing for the wealthiest 1%, but about 1% of federal revenues invested in housing, with Quebec's share transferred to build social and community housing.
We are in a housing crisis, so it seems to me that 1% is not too much to ask.
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Madam Speaker, my Conservative friends are very good at criticizing, but they offer very little by way of solutions to real problems. For all the years that we have been talking about fighting climate change, we have constantly criticized the government, and rightly so, because the Liberals are absolutely useless at fighting climate change. However, the Conservatives do not offer any meaningful solutions to real problems.
The revenue sharing in Bill C‑18 is a real problem. In my riding, there is a weekly newspaper that had 10 journalists five years ago. Now there are only two left. How can they cover all the events? There are six federal ridings and there is simply no way they can cover all the regional news, which is extremely important.
What solutions does my colleague have to offer for this problem that is real and widespread across Canada?
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Madam Speaker, this bill is a bit of a nightmare. We had pretty much forgotten all about the pandemic for a year, and all of a sudden, this afternoon, just before the summer break, we are being forced to revisit the pandemic and the restrictions.
I wonder whether my colleague would not agree with me. Instead of proposing a vaccination ban, why not introduce a bill that would require the government to properly fund the health care system so that, if we ever end up in another nightmare, if we ever have to live through another pandemic, we can tackle the real issues that we faced during the pandemic, namely the underfunding of the health care system?
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Madam Speaker, for the past few years, Google and Facebook alone have been gobbling up 80% of the advertising revenue in Canada that used to go to small regional weeklies, small community radio stations like the ones in my riding, and small community television stations, which I have in my riding as well. That money is no longer going to the regions, small weeklies or small news producers, it is going to large international billionaire conglomerates.
I really cannot understand how the Conservatives can rise in the House today and defend these billionaires, who are going to continue to make billions if we do not legislate to stop them. We have to work for our journalists, our weeklies, the people in our regions who produce news for local residents. I really cannot understand how the Conservatives can stand up and do this.
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