44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2024 10:00AM
- Mar/21/24 10:14:29 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find it very interesting that the Bloc Québécois is complaining now, because they allowed the vote to happen and voted in favour of a unilingual English motion.
If the Bloc Québécois is actually serious about its desire to protect the French language, then it should have said—
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- Mar/21/24 10:16:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Thornhill.
Today, as members, we will decide whether we will stand with Canadians, including Quebeckers, or with the Prime Minister, who punishes people with taxes, debts and inflation. Today is a big moment. The Bloc Québécois will decide which team they are on. Do they stand with the workers and families of Quebec or with the Prime Minister?
The Bloc Québécois has already supported all of this Prime Minister’s discretionary spending by voting for the estimates. These are not expenditures for health, transfers to the provinces or seniors. These are expenditures for bureaucracy and all the subcontractors, including the arrive scammers. The Bloc Québécois voted for all expenditures, for the $21 billion paid to subcontractors.
The Bloc voted for all the offender release policies. They supported the Prime Minister’s attempt to ban hunting rifles for people in the regions. They supported all the centralizing housing policies, which doubled the cost of housing, including rents in Quebec.
Now, after getting all worked up time and time again complaining about Liberal government policies, they will be able to decide whether they will fire this government. This is a government that has destroyed our immigration system, doubled the cost of housing and released criminals, which led to an increase in auto thefts, among other things. This government caused a drug and homelessness crisis that has forced tens of thousands of Quebeckers to use food banks.
We will see if the Bloc Québécois will support this government. I think they will. I think that, when the Bloc Québécois is here, in Ottawa, it supports the centralizers. The Bloc always votes with the Liberals. However, when Bloc members are in their riding, they say exactly the opposite. This is because there is a symbiotic relationship between the Bloc Québécois and the centralist Liberals. The two agree on all ideological issues. Both are led by the woke lefties of the Plateau Mont-Royal, who want to tax Canadians, put them in debt and free criminals while banning hunting rifles.
Now the Bloc Québécois says it wants to support a tax hike of 17¢ a litre on gas and diesel. In addition, it supports the Minister of Environment and Climate Change, who wants to shut down the forestry sector and kill the jobs of all the workers who depend on wood to put food on the table.
Fortunately, we Conservatives are going to hold the government of this Prime Minister, who is not worth the cost, to account. This government is not worth the cost, the corruption or the crime. It is a government that must be defeated. That is why we are bringing a motion of non-confidence to the House of Commons. We need a common-sense Conservative government that will reduce taxes and stop crime. Only the Conservative Party will do that.
Quebeckers who want to defeat this costly and extremist government have only one choice, and that is the Conservative Party. It is important to know that voting for the Bloc Québécois means voting for the Liberals, because they are much the same. They agree on all issues, except the location of the country’s capital. Aside from that, they agree on all issues.
If people really want change, change based on common sense that will allow them to keep more of their paycheques, that will make work pay again, that will lead to safer streets and that will respect the regions, including places where people hunt and drive trucks, they should keep in mind that only the common-sense Conservative Party can achieve that.
After eight years, it is clear that the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption, but never would we have imagined how bad things would get. Today, I look at the newspaper headlines. Even the media is noticing how bad things are. A headline in the National Post: “Secret RCMP report warns Canadians may revolt once they realize how broke they are”. The RCMP has produced a report saying that Canadians are so poor, desperate and miserable that it may lead to political instability and other turbulence that one could not even have imagined would occur in a first world country eight years ago.
I now turn my attention to The Globe and Mail. Remember, this is the same Globe and Mail that criticized me for using the term “gatekeeper” to describe how homes could not get build. Here is its headline today: “Home ownership is turning into a gated community that renters cannot join”.
Years after saying that it was very dangerous for us to talk about gatekeepers, The Globe and Mail has now awakened to the fact that the Prime Minister, in eight years, has turned home ownership into a gated community, shutting people outside of the gates. A small, privileged group gets richer and richer as a growing mass of working-class youth and seniors renting apartments can no longer afford any place to live.
I used to warn that there were 35-year-olds living in their parents' basements. That is now the least of our concerns. We are now worried that those 35-year-olds and their parents might not be able to make their mortgage payments at all. Defaults are rising rapidly. We have 35 homeless encampments in Halifax and have similar encampments now in every major centre in Canada. We have two million people lined up at food banks in scenes that are reminiscent of the Great Depression, and 35% of charities now say that they are turning people away because they no longer have the resources. Food bank shelves are emptying out.
Then, there are people who are eating out of garbage cans, with 8,000 people now having joined something called a “dumpster diving network”, a Facebook group where they share tips on how they can climb into a garbage can and can pull a meal out because there is nothing they can afford at the grocery store and nothing left at the food banks. This year, groceries are going to cost $700 more than they did last year for the average family.
In the middle of all this, what do the NDP and the Prime Minister choose? They choose to raise taxes on food and fuel, on heat and homes, and to raise taxes on all the materials to build homes, which will raise taxes on all those who buy the homes. They choose to raise taxes on heating those homes, to raise taxes on the gas and diesel needed to get to work to earn paycheques to make payments on those homes and to raise taxes on the farmers who make the food, on the truckers who ship the food, on the grocers who sell the food and, therefore, on all those who buy the food, as if the desperation was not bad enough.
This is in light of all the evidence that has come out that, now, 60% of Canadians are paying more in carbon tax than they are getting back in rebates, a fact that I have read into the record time and time again, a fact that the Prime Minister continues to attempt to hide from, a fact that the Parliamentary Budget Officer just testified to and a fact that we did not need all those accurate calculations to know because every single person who is opening their empty fridge and is wondering how they are going to feed their kids already knew that fact was real.
We cannot, in good conscience, stand by while the Prime Minister imposes more misery and suffering on the Canadian people. Canadians are good. They are decent. They are hard-working. They do not have to give up on things they used to take for granted, like affordable food and homes, just for the incompetence and the ego of one man. He is not worth the cost, not worth the crime, not worth the corruption, and he is not worth giving up the country that we knew and that we still love.
We, as common-sense Conservatives, are ready to restore hope in this country, but it starts with change. We rise today to vote non-confidence in the NDP-Liberal government and to restore the great country that we love based on the common sense of the common people, united for our common home: their home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.
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- Mar/21/24 10:32:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to know how the Leader of the Opposition plans to appeal to Quebeckers. We have heard him say outrageously incorrect things about mayors of our cities. Twelve mayors from my riding came to Parliament Hill yesterday.
At some point, will the Leader of the Opposition come up with something different to say about Quebec mayors if he wants to appeal to people in Bloc Québécois ridings?
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- Mar/21/24 2:23:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost of the support he is getting from the Bloc Québécois. How can the Bloc Québécois support a Prime Minister who has doubled our national debt? How can the Bloc Québécois support a Prime Minister who is sending hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers to food banks?
My question is for the Prime Minister. What promise did the Prime Minister make to the Bloc Québécois to save his career and his government?
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- Mar/21/24 2:24:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the thousands of Quebeckers who are watching at home would have liked to hear an answer to my question.
Here is the question that the members of the Bloc Québécois should be asking themselves today: Will they set their ideology aside for once and vote for the Quebeckers they represent, who cannot take any more of this government's arrogance? This Prime Minister broke our immigration system. He is raising taxes and allowing dangerous criminals to serve their sentences at home. This Prime Minister interferes in all of Quebec's jurisdictions.
I will ask my question again. What did the Prime Minister promise the Bloc Québécois to save his career and his government?
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- Mar/21/24 2:26:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we said yes to the child care program. We said yes to the health agreement. We said yes to dental care. We said yes to seniors and to young people. We said yes to everyone.
He must know what a “yes” is. Our friend usually wants to hear “yes”, yet Bloc members have become a chorus of “no”: no to collaboration, no to discussion and no to getting along. They do not like it when things are going well with Quebec. What is good for Quebeckers is bad for the Bloc Québécois.
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- Mar/21/24 2:40:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am well aware that the member across the way followed very closely the decisions we made with respect to asylum seekers from Mexico and reinstating electronic travel authorization and visitor's visa requirements for Mexican citizens. We told Minister Fréchette and the Government of Quebec very clearly that we will work in partnership with them.
The Bloc is not happy that we are working with Quebec. They are picking a fight. It is clear that we have work to do with Quebec, but we will do it in partnership with Quebec.
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- Mar/21/24 2:46:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois is keeping the Prime Minister in power even though he broke our immigration system, raised taxes and doubled the national debt.
What good is the Bloc Québécois if it does not even do its job as an opposition party, opting instead to side with the government every single time to make Canadians poorer and radically increase the carbon tax? Canadians and Quebeckers deserve better.
What promises did the Prime Minister make to the Bloc Québécois to keep his government in power?
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- Mar/21/24 3:00:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Beauce did not get an answer, so I will try again.
The Bloc Québécois is keeping this Prime Minister in power, even though he broke our immigration system, raised taxes and doubled our national debt. It is costly to vote for the Bloc Québécois. It is going to cost even more come April 1, because this Liberal-Bloc government is going to raise the tax by 23%. That is unacceptable.
What did the Prime Minister promise the Bloc Québécois in return for keeping this government in power?
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- Mar/21/24 3:01:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague just talked about what Quebeckers understand. He did not understand my question. I will try a third time to get an answer from this government.
Food banks are overwhelmed, which is unprecedented in Canada. People who voted for the Bloc Québécois must be regretting it. That party is propping up the Liberals and keeping them in power. I would remind the House that this Liberal-Bloc government is going to impose an additional 23% tax on April 1, and that is no joke. It will be costly to vote for the Bloc Québécois.
Will the Prime Minister tell us about the secret deal he struck with the Bloc Québécois?
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- Mar/21/24 3:02:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not very nice of my colleague to chastise the Bloc Québécois like that. Bloc members are already having a hard time, especially today.
To come back to what my colleague said, it is another example of inaction. The minister said it so well. Theirs is the party of inaction. What is the result of inaction? It leads to forest fires, it leads to the displacement of people, it leads to flooding.
Where were they when this was happening in Quebec and across Canada? While they sit around, twiddling their thumbs, we are taking action.
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- Mar/21/24 4:13:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really like my colleague, but sometimes he is hard to follow. I do not really understand what he was trying to get at with that question.
All I know is that, on the one hand, the Bloc Québécois claims to defend the interests of Quebeckers. The reality on the ground, however, is that Quebeckers are paying twice as much for housing, they are paying a lot more for groceries and they are left with less and less from each paycheque.
There is a quick and simple way to change the situation, which would be to change the government that is responsible for all this. The Bloc Québécois will probably support the Liberals in this evening's vote on the non-confidence motion.
However, that is the reality, those are the facts, and that is what people are experiencing every day. I hope my colleague will have a better grasp of what he is trying to ask next time, so we can understand what he is getting at.
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- Mar/21/24 6:13:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the result of the vote and is voting in favour, including the members for Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel and for Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
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- Mar/21/24 6:17:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the results of the previous vote and will be voting in favour of the motion, including the members for Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel and Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
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- Mar/21/24 6:19:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the results of the previous vote and will be voting in favour of the motion, including the members for Bécancour—Nicolet—Saurel and Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
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- Mar/21/24 6:23:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the results of the previous vote to this vote and will be voting in favour.
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- Mar/21/24 6:27:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Bloc Québécois agrees to apply the results of the previous vote to this vote and will be voting in favour.
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