SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

Feb/15/24 11:19:22 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Voltaire said that fanaticism pretends to be the child of religion. I think we have proof of that again today, unfortunately. Our colleague stated the Conservatives' position on freedom of choice, on medical assistance in dying and on providing relief to people who are suffering. The Conservatives want to abolish medical assistance in dying. That is what we just heard. The Liberals claim their position is different, but I cannot tell the difference. They are going to put the decision off for three years, but by then, the Conservatives will be in power and can decide to abolish it. Then there is the NDP, which is applauding that. Is the real coalition basically just the Ottawa coalition?

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Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Feb/15/24 11:33:44 a.m.
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Re: Bill C-62

Madam Speaker, from my perspective and that of my party, the substance of Bill C-62 is to ensure that we never discuss this again. By choosing to extend the exclusion by three years, there could well be a Conservative government─possibly a majority government─in power. I would be amazed if that government chose to follow up and move in the same direction. Let me remind my hon. colleague that Canada is a federation that includes several nations. The Quebec nation has a unanimous position on advance requests but cannot implement it because the federal government refuses to amend the Criminal Code. We understand that the rest of Canada may have other debates. That is the idea of a federation, to bridge different cultures and perspectives. There is unanimity in Quebec. We are not asking for a unilateral approach or for the Quebec model to apply from coast to coast, but for Ottawa to stop blocking what Quebec has unanimously decided.

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Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Dan Muys (Flamborough—Glanbrook, CPC)

Feb/15/24 2:50:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the previous Conservative government invested significantly in roads and highways in the GTA, Ontario and Canada, so that non-answer does not cut it. Canadians already pay plenty of taxes, sending their money to Ottawa and expecting the government to build roads and infrastructure, yet the Prime Minister and his radical minister would endanger the lives of Hamiltonians by not supporting projects like the Highway 6 south expansion. Will the Prime Minister stand up for Canadians and reject his radical environment minister?

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Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Feb/15/24 2:55:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they would have us believe that the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission is independent. That is funny, since it is the Governor in Council that appoints the president. That is just an example. Burying nuclear waste one kilometre from the Ottawa River is an unnecessary risk to the drinking water of the Anishinabe people and half of Quebeckers. We are talking about one million cubic metres of radioactive waste here. That is not a little compost bin. The Montreal metropolitan area is against the Chalk River project. The City of Gatineau is against it. The indigenous communities affected are against it. Environmental groups are against it. When will the minister say no to this project that is threatening our health and the environment?

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Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Jacques Gourde (Lévis—Lotbinière, CPC)

Feb/15/24 2:59:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when was the last time that the muzzled radical minister travelled through the Lévis-Quebec City area without his limousine? Building a third link is a necessity, not a luxury. Quebeckers in remote areas pay taxes and send their money to Ottawa, which is supposed to build roads and reliable infrastructure for them too. Will the Prime Minister stand up for the interests of Quebeckers and remote regions, instead of going along with the foolishness of his radical environment minister, who is anti-third link ? Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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Context: House Hansard - 283 - Feb/15/24

Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ)

Feb/15/24 6:23:53 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-354 Bill C-11

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona for being so concise. On this February 15, before I begin my speech, I would like to salute a few illustrious people, namely François-Marie-Thomas Chevalier de Lorimier, Charles Hindelang, Pierre-Rémi Narbonne, Amable Daunais and François-Stanislas Nicolas. We think of these persons today, as we have done every year on February 15 since 1839. The bill we are discussing today is a very simple bill. What we are really asking is that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act be amended to ensure that Quebec is systematically consulted when the CRTC puts in place any regulations that would have an impact on Quebec culture. It is a short bill involving one very simple amendment. Earlier I listened to my Conservative colleague recount the events that followed the passage of Bill C-11. When Bill C-11 was almost ready to be passed, the Conservative Party released a letter that was sent to the government, the Liberal Party, to the heritage minister at the time. That letter set out Quebec's specific demands with respect to Bill C-11, which reformed the Broadcasting Act. I would like to provide a bit of context. With a little good faith, I think that my Conservative colleague will lend credence to what I am going to tell the House. The Conservatives unduly delayed and blocked the bill in committee for a very long time. Quebec had demands and it was not consulted during the study of the bill, at least not formally. By the time Quebec's demands finally arrived, the bill was about to be passed. Does that mean that the demands therein were illegitimate? No, not at all. Realistically, however, it was too late to reopen the file in committee and go back to the drawing board, so to speak. If my Conservative colleague had the slightest understanding of how the Government of Quebec operates in this kind of situation, he would not have talked about having Quebec's minister of culture and communications, Mathieu Lacombe, appear before the committee. If he had the slightest understanding of how the relationship between Quebec and Ottawa works, he would know that Quebec government ministers do not testify in committee. They have a nation-to-nation relationship with Ottawa. They speak minister to minister. Ministers from Quebec do not appear before committees. He should know this, but he does not. It was much more dramatic to take the letter and say that the Bloc and the Liberals do not listen to Quebec. He said the Bloc did not listen to Quebec, did not listen to cultural groups and did not listen to groups in Quebec's broadcasting sector during the study of bills on broadcasting, online news and anything to do with Quebec culture. What a joke. It is funny, actually, so that is how we will take it. That being said, we have here Bill C-354, which was introduced by my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île. This bill addresses one of the most important demands set out in that letter from Minister Lacombe and the Government of Quebec. This is a natural demand and Minister Lacombe was not the first to make it. Quebec's need, its desire, its demand to have its say in the decisions that are made in Ottawa and that have an impact on francophone culture and the French language dates back to 1929 and has been kept alive by successive Quebec governments. The premier at the time, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, saw this weird new technology called radio and thought that it needed to be regulated immediately. That is when a regulatory body was created to provide oversight. To no one's surprise, instead of agreeing with what Quebec was doing and choosing to play a part in this regulatory body, Ottawa decided to do something else. It created the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, or CRBC, the current CRTC's ancestor. Both organizations were developed in parallel, as is so often the case, with a tiny intrusion into Quebec's jurisdictions. It seems that this was even more commonplace back then and that people did not complain as much. There was no Bloc Québécois to fight for Quebec in Ottawa. Long story short, wanting to have a say in French-language communications and culture in Quebec is not just a Quebec separatist or nationalist thing. Liberal governments also asked for it, and so did Union Nationale governments. Even former minister Lawrence Cannon, who was a Liberal minister in Quebec before becoming a Conservative minister in Ottawa, asked for it. This is not a demand being made by spoiled sovereignist brats who want to repatriate all powers to Quebec. This is a reasonable request to ensure that Quebec is consulted on decisions made by the next-door nation that affect the Quebec nation's culture. We will be voting on Bill C‑354 in a few days. We are not asking for the moon. At the moment, we are not even asking for the right to immediately create a Quebec CRTC, which is also among Quebec's requests and the Bloc Québécois's plans, and quite reasonably so. For now, this is not what we are asking. For now, we are simply responding to a straightforward request from Quebec. As my Conservative colleague said earlier, the Conservatives tried to promote this request themselves, but it was already too late in the Bill C‑11 process. I presume that the entire House of Commons will support this very reasonable request when we vote on this amendment to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission Act. Bill C‑354 was introduced in response to a request from Quebec, the Government of Quebec and the people of Quebec, and I think everyone in the House should agree that Quebec and the provinces that are concerned about preserving French in some of their communities should be consulted when regulations are put in place that will have an impact on the French language and culture in those places.

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