44th Parl. 1st Sess.
December 13, 2023 02:00PM
- Dec/13/23 2:26:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative leader continues to rise in the House to talk about austerity.
Last week, we saw the true nature of the Conservative Party's austerity. The Conservatives voted against help for dairy, egg and poultry farmers in Quebec. They voted against funding for the Plains of Abraham. They voted against help for people in the Magdalen Islands following hurricane Fiona. What is worse, the member for Mégantic—L'Érable voted against funding for the rail bypass in Lac-Mégantic. That is truly shameful, and Quebeckers will never forget it.
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- Dec/13/23 2:48:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are having very good conversations with our counterparts in Quebec, as we always do, about how we are going to help Quebeckers and provide them with the care and services they need. We are here to work with them, and we are going to continue those discussions with the Quebec government, not with the second opposition party in the House of Commons in Ottawa.
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- Dec/13/23 3:03:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are two solitudes in our approach to asylum seekers.
On one side, Quebec is taking in half of Canada's asylum seekers. We do not hesitate to do so. We first deliver services at our own expense and then we ask the federal government to reimburse the $460‑million bill. We take care of the people first and then we deal with the money.
On the other side, the federal government offers no services. When it comes time to pay, it tells us that it is not an ATM. Lucky thing Quebeckers do not take the same approach toward asylum seekers.
Will the Prime Minister contribute his share and reimburse Quebeckers?
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- Dec/13/23 3:05:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, asylum seekers are a federal responsibility.
Instead of repeating that Ottawa is not an ATM, it is time for the federal government to stop treating Quebeckers like a credit card. The entire cost of services for asylum seekers is being foisted on us. Now the bill is due, and the Prime Minister has to pay it. True to form, however, he is running away. He does not like paying his debts. We know him, and he does not like doing that. We will not give up.
Will the Prime Minister take responsibility for asylum seekers, show some respect and reimburse Quebec?
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- Dec/13/23 3:05:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have been sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Quebec for years to help it take in asylum seekers.
We recognize how generous Quebeckers have been and how much they have been there for asylum seekers. Yes, we will continue to be there to help. Canada is a welcoming country, but also a country that must ensure that everyone is properly protected when people arrive, even asylum seekers.
Yes, we will continue to work with Quebec. We will continue to be there to support asylum seekers because it is the right thing to do.
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege and honour to rise to speak to Bill C-290, an act to amend the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, at third reading. First, I want to give a huge shout-out to my colleague from Mirabel for tabling this bill and taking leadership on this. I also want to thank my colleague and friend from Beauport—Limoilou, who worked really closely with me and our team of New Democrats because we both care and really are passionate about protecting workers' rights.
I want to talk about those workers. These are brave Canadians and Quebeckers who report wrongdoing or crimes in their workplace and often experience consequences like losing their income, health and happiness and all for speaking the truth. All Canadian and Quebec workers should be able to feel safe when they are reporting workplace crimes and negligence.
We know Canada has some of the worst whistle-blower laws in the world, tied with Lebanon. The Conservatives like to pat themselves on the back and say that they care about whistle-blowers, but it is Liberals and Conservatives who have teamed up over decades to make sure that whistle-blowers do not get the chance to protect our society and government.
It was actually the current leader of the Conservative Party who last brought in legislation when he was in government. The experts say that he did not make things better; he made it even harder for whistle-blowers. He made it even worse. The Conservatives say they are for workers, but what did they do today? They moved a concurrence motion so that we could not talk about anti-scab legislation. The Conservatives are not here for workers.
Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to defeat numerous amendments that would actually strengthen protections for whistle-blowers in this bill. They voted against many amendments to Bill C-290. We talk about the coalition. Let us talk about the coalition of Liberals and Conservatives who are fighting workers, muting workers and stonewalling workers from doing the right thing and being able to have the opportunity to protect Canadians and Quebeckers. It is not surprising for the Liberals and their rich friends who are not worried about whistle-blowing. The leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservatives will always prop up their big bosses and not workers. We know that. They have a track record. We have receipts. We are keeping receipts. Canadians and Quebeckers need stronger whistle-blower protection, so that there is more transparency and accountability of government and the public service.
As New Democrats, we are committed to protecting the rights and safety of all workers. That is why we are pushing to make sure Canadians and Quebeckers have the strongest whistle-blower protections possible. I want to talk about the importance of strong whistle-blower laws. Because of how weak our protections for whistle-blowers are, less wrongdoing will get reported and stopped. Protecting whistle-blowers is necessary to protect Canadians' and Quebeckers' lives and security.
Whistle-blower reports protect Canada's global reputation and relationships, so this is important. Luc Sabourin reported that superiors at Passport Canada were destroying foreign passports and logging that they returned them to the foreign embassies. He endured eight years of harassment and abuse, including hand sanitizer in his coffee and threats to his children's safety. Before losing his career in 2016 and almost losing his life, he had the courage to show up at our committee and to fight to protect the future of all workers. He is a hero and the reprisal has been significant, and the impact and damage to his life have been significant. I want to thank Luc for the courage to have shared his story; and my colleague from the Bloc who brought Luc to committee and worked with Luc.
As I said, whistle-blower reports save lives. In 1996, Michèle Brill-Edwards also lost her career after she reported that big pharma was influencing the drug-approval process here in Canada, endangering Canadian lives.
We brought forward amendments that were defeated. Our first amendment that we brought forward was to allow whistle-blowers to go to the public or media in specific situations where, for example, the commissioner is not dealing with the complaint or decides not to do anything to stop the wrongdoing. Liberals and Conservatives teamed up in their coalition to oppose this. Therefore, now whistle-blowers are at a huge risk if they expose wrongdoing to the Canadian public.
The second amendment was interim relief, which would have protected whistle-blowers from punishments like termination as soon as they reported wrongdoing. Instead, we are allowing punishments to happen to them and then spending years investigating whether they were indeed punished. The coalition defeated it.
The third one is the reverse onus. Right now, the whistle-blower has to prove reprisal. I will give an example: If they were fired, they have to prove that it was because they reported wrongdoing, which is virtually impossible. This amendment would have forced their superiors to prove that there was a real reason to fire them. In other jurisdictions, this change brings the chances of success from as low as one in 500 to as high as one in three, which would make sense. Those would be strong whistle-blower laws. What happened? The coalition of Liberals and Conservatives teamed up to defeat the amendment.
Again, these are critical amendments. Some things we brought forward as New Democrats were passed. I am grateful that the coalition did not fight these and that we actually got them through, working closely with our Bloc colleagues, who were fabulous on this bill.
The first one is that we improved whistle-blowers' access to the tribunal. This is critical, because the commissioner has been acting as a gatekeeper, preventing workers from accessing the tribunal. In the tribunal's 16 years of operation, the commissioner has only referred nine cases to it. That is insane. It is a terrible track record for Canada and right there, as I said, with Lebanon. There needs to be access to both options, because the commissioner sometimes decides not to even investigate a complaint. It is unbelievable.
The second amendment we brought forward and that passed, as we were glad to see, would create a survey metric to measure whistle-blowers' satisfaction with the process, how supported and protected they felt, etc. We have been looking at the effectiveness of these laws with no input from the whistle-blowers they were supposed to protect. Now they have a voice. Again, I want to go back to my colleague from Mirabel and thank him for that.
The third amendment we were able to get through was adding psychological damage from harassment as a form of reprisal that whistle-blowers are protected from. That is absolutely critical. These are Canadians and Quebeckers who are standing up and fighting for the best services to deliver to their communities.
I am going to finish with one area that is not covered, which is subcontractors. I will give an example: At the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, we found out through the ArriveCAN scandal that there were companies that received a contract, Coradix and Dalian, and they subcontracted to a company called GCStrategies, which then subcontracted to a company called Botler. However, they are not protected. Even though they are delivering services under a government contract through the Canada Border Services Agency, they are absolutely not protected. This is just unbelievable.
Both Dalian and Coradix took a commission of between 15% and 30%, and GCStrategies took a commission of 15% to 30%. None of them had expertise in what they needed. These are headhunters. It is like the worst pyramid scheme, in terms of outsourcing, that is happening with Canadian taxpayers' dollars and the layering of commissions.
For Botler, the reprisal was significant for Ritika Dutt and Amir Morv. It is unbelievable, the punishment they took for standing up for Canadian taxpayers, for whistle-blowing, and the treatment they have been under. The government is continuing to fail them for continuing to tell the truth. It is continuing to allow these contractors, who are suspended from the Canada Border Services Agency, to have contracts with other federal departments, even though they are under investigation by the RCMP. We can talk about how failed and miserable the situation is.
We are taking a step forward to fix how the coalition of the Conservatives and Liberals teamed up to mute whistle-blowers. Again, it is because of my colleague from Mirabel, who used his slot. He was high in the order of precedence, and he took this on to stand up for human rights. New Democrats stand with the Bloc, and we worked really hard on this. I am glad it is moving forward.
Let us hope for a better future. Let us hope we can address the concerns that are not addressed in this bill and continue to work together. Workers deserve it. We owe it to them.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise this evening to take part in my first adjournment debate in the House.
I am speaking tonight to follow up on a question I asked the Prime Minister about Bill C-234 and, more importantly, the embarrassing way it was handled in the Senate. For some unknown reason, it was the Minister of Transport who rose to answer me and, frankly, I was not pleased with the response.
Bill C-234 is a common-sense Conservative bill that would remove the carbon tax on propane and natural gas used for drying grain and heating buildings, to give farmers a chance to survive this government's crippling carbon tax and take the first step toward reducing the cost of food in our country.
In his response, the Minister of Transport said that I was misleading Canadians. He used the same tired arguments he always does, such as the idea that the carbon tax does not apply in or affect Quebec.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of anyone with an iota of common sense, the carbon tax obviously affects Quebec, directly and indirectly. Quebeckers will certainly be affected at the pump when the second carbon tax adds 17¢ per litre to the cost of gasoline.
When Quebec farmers import their propane from Ontario or other parts of the country, the carbon tax applies to them. I have invoices from pork and chicken producers in my riding to prove it, but the government refuses to look at them.
In other cases, the carbon tax applies indirectly, for example, when Quebeckers import any other domestic goods shipped by truck across the country into our province. The higher prices are getting passed on to us because, contrary to what the Bloc-Liberal coalition believes, Quebec is not self-sufficient.
Bill C‑234 is extremely important. At the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, we have heard testimony from countless farmers from every part of the country. Every one of them agrees that this bill should be passed as soon as possible.
The Prime Minister decided to pressure the Liberal senators he himself appointed to gut Bill C‑234 at the Senate and then send it back to the House. They managed to remove the clause on barn heating and reduce the sunset clause from eight years to three years at the Senate. Bill C‑234 will be sent back to the House with these amendments. It will no longer have an impact on the price of food, which was the original purpose of the bill.
As we have heard many times, there is currently no other viable alternative for drying grain or heating buildings. That is why the Conservatives agreed to the eight-year sunset clause in the initial bill.
The questions I have for the government are the following. Does the government think that the carbon tax affects Quebec, either directly or indirectly? When the Senate's new amendments are debated here in the House, will the government do the right thing and delete these two amendments that have completely gutted Bill C‑234, so that it can be adopted as it was the last time, by the vast majority—
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