44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 30, 2024 10:00AM
- Apr/30/24 10:26:53 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech.
Of course we do not agree on many things, but we were told that the Conservative Party would be a decentralizing party. Yesterday, when it had the chance to prove it, the Conservative Party unfortunately voted against an amendment proposed by the Bloc Québécois that simply called on the House to respect the Canadian Constitution and the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces.
My question is very simple. Why vote against a Bloc Québécois amendment that simply calls for the Canadian Constitution to be respected?
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- Apr/30/24 12:00:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the member’s presentation.
No one here will deny that there is a housing crisis, to be sure. We have been talking about it for a long time, and we have been providing examples to highlight the issues for a long time. The government had a national housing strategy. Is the fact that we are talking about it now an admission of failure about its own strategy? In fact, it is the provinces, cities and municipalities that are in charge of housing.
The main thing I want to say about the budget is that you can list all the measures you want, but it will not do well in the polls. You did not wow anyone. There is no wow factor.
There is a lot of interference in provincial and Quebec jurisdictions. However, when it comes to your own areas of jurisdiction, such as pensions, old age security and employment insurance, there is nothing. There is no commitment from the government to finally eliminate discrimination against seniors aged 65 to 74. There is no commitment from the government to reform the EI system, which leaves behind thousands of unemployed people.
What does the government have to say about not investing in its own programs?
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- Apr/30/24 12:16:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really enjoyed my colleague's speech.
It is clear that this budget is mostly about interfering in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces.
Now, let us talk about something that strictly concerns the federal government. I am talking about tax evasion. We are often told that the government will seek to collect as much revenue as possible, yet tens of billions of dollars are being lost to government revenues because of tax evasion right here in Canada.
I have a very simple question for my colleague: What measure is in this budget to recover the money lost to tax evasion?
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- Apr/30/24 1:18:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a bit surprised to hear this coming from a member from Quebec, because we went through years of austerity, service cuts and additional costs for social programs and infrastructure for municipalities. We know how that turned out: Quebec went through a very difficult period.
It is the role of a government, especially the federal government, to invest in the economy to ensure that all Canadians across the country have a desirable quality of life.
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- Apr/30/24 1:20:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the question from my Bloc Québécois colleague, because she is asking how the federal government can help producers in Quebec's fishing industry.
We are here to support the industry and help it. We have set aside money in the budget to facilitate the arrival of temporary workers. We know there are still problems, but I have confidence in our Minister of Fisheries, who represents the Magdalen Islands.
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- Apr/30/24 1:22:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by stating that I wish to share my time with my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères to speak on this budget.
It is a budget that is a little difficult to characterize and a little difficult to describe. I was going to say that it demonstrates once and for all that there is a deep abyss between Quebec's expectations, Quebec's needs and respect for Quebec's jurisdictions, which Quebeckers hold dear, and the expectations of the other nine provinces and three territories as to what the federal government should do, but the federal government gives us plenty of opportunities to demonstrate this over and over again. One example of this deep, historical cultural abyss between what we Quebeckers expect and what the rest of the country expects in terms of federal action is the media's treatment of the budget. When we look at how this budget has been treated in English Canada, we see that analysts have focused mainly on the issue of the capital gains tax inclusion rate.
As everyone knows, some people realize huge capital gains. One example is someone who buys a property, sells it several years later and makes more than $500,000 in profit. Yes, some people do make a lot of money in certain cases. Anyone who makes over $500,000 in profit has been told that they will have to contribute a little more. Obviously, this is one way for the government to bring in a good chunk of revenue. This cash grab will help the government keep its promise on the debt-to-GDP ratio, although artificially. Analysts in English Canada are talking about this and wondering whether this a good tax or a bad tax. What effect will it have on investment? Is it fair? Did the Liberal government do the right thing? Analysts in all the major media outlets have been talking about this.
As an economist, I too asked myself that question. I read the English-language media and I fell into the trap. As members, we are discussing whether it is a bad tax or a good measure. However, at some point, our intellect as Quebeckers will lead us in another direction. Regardless of the new sources of revenue the federal government has found, we will start wondering what it is going to do with the money. We will realize that the billions of dollars that the federal government is raking in with a tax measure that may indeed be effective are being used not to balance the budget after the extremely expensive pandemic measures or to restore fairness between generations, but purely to trample on Quebec's rights, to interfere in Quebec's affairs and to meddle not only in areas that are none of the federal government's business, but in jurisdictions in which it is notoriously incompetent, such as health care, dental care and housing.
It is not all that hard for a Quebecker to prepare a speech about the budget because it contains wall-to-wall interference. Let me give what I would call a historic example: In the budget, the federal government has decided to inferfere in Hydro-Québec's rate setting. When it comes to housing, we are basically used to it, because it happened gradually. We know about the punishing impact of the health conditions on patients. We know about the consequences of the agreement with the NDP. Now, however, the federal government is placing conditions on Hydro-Québec. How did that happen?
It happened because, in the past, when the federal government was giving out subsidies for energy and for clean energy, it excluded Quebec. It said Quebec was being shut out because Quebec had a Crown corporation that supplied almost 100% of its electricity. It said Quebec would not receive one red cent. Now that there are lots of Bloc Québécois members here, the Liberals know that Quebeckers are going to speak in the House. The Conservatives, the Liberal backbenchers and the lone NDP member from Quebec are not going to do it. The federal government said, in last year's budget, that the Quebec government or Hydro-Québec would be able to apply for subsidies for green energy. It was the first time that had happened, so we were surprised. However, the conditions were not met, so not a penny was paid out.
What do we see in this budget? We see conditions. In exchange for subsidies to help Hydro-Québec with its wind and solar projects, the federal government is demanding that it adjust its rate schedule so that 100% of the subsidy is passed on to the consumer.
That is impossible. When I buy electricity, when I receive my bill from Hydro-Québec, I do not know whether it comes from La Romaine or a wind farm in the Gaspé. We do not know where it comes from. It is impossible to enforce, which means that Quebec will very likely once again be excluded from the program.
I see the parliamentary secretary looking at me with one eye wider than the other, as usual, thinking that that was not the intention and that he and his colleagues do not want to hurt Quebec. However, it is once again symptomatic of the fact that they do not understand, because they are not good at this. They are not competent when it comes to energy. Why, then, did they design the subsidy the way they did? They figured they were going to ask polluting provinces to implement green projects. There are a lot of private companies involved, but the government wants to make sure that they do not pocket the money. Consequently, they tell them to develop projects, but to make sure that the green energy is less expensive in order to encourage people to switch over. That is essentially the plan. Then, since the government wants to apply uniform measures and does not recognize that Quebec is different, we have a program that is no good for Quebec and that is literally a violation of Quebec's areas of jurisdiction.
However, that is nothing. What the government calls clean in the rest of Canada is nuclear energy. It believes nuclear energy is clean. The small nuclear reactors that refine oil sands using less oil sand so that they can export more oil sand, that is green. That is what they want to subsidize and facilitate. They will make sure that consumers pay less. This government believes that natural gas is green. Subsidies will go directly to natural gas, as long as there is a carbon capture strategy and technologies that do not exist, except in the Liberals' minds. Here are more measures that are bad for Quebec, and they keep coming.
There is still no health transfer agreement with Quebec. The federal government used to manage a hospital in Quebec. It was a military hospital on Montreal's West Island. When management was transferred to the Quebec government, we heard through the grapevine that managing a hospital cost the federal government three times more than it did the Quebec government, yet the federal government has the gall to come tell us how to manage our health care system. Why? Because they want to be seen doing something and they want a maple leaf on the corner of the cheque. It is the same story with prescription drug insurance, since 100% of Quebeckers already have prescription drug insurance. We already have a plethora of programs in Quebec. The money should be given to Quebec. The same applies to dental care, since all Quebec dentists who treat children are registered in Quebec's automated system. If it wanted to implement these programs quickly without making people pay directly, the federal government would have given Quebec the money so that it could do what it is good at. However, that will not happen, because the federal government always wants to be seen to be doing something.
It is the same for housing. The federal government may well have good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Every time this government has gotten involved in housing, there have been fewer units. When it came up with its national housing strategy, it ignored the fact that Quebec was the only province that had had permanent social and co-op housing construction programs, among others, for years. The terms and conditions of those programs were familiar to everyone in the field. What did our excellent programs get us when the federal government failed to recognize them? They got us three and half—almost four—years of negotiations, lost years during which people were sleeping in their cars, people in the regions where the housing crisis is spreading. The Liberals keep telling us that the federal government should get involved and impose all kinds of conditions. In my riding, there is a collective dwelling program that has been on pause for eight years because of these complex conditions.
What is the Bloc Québécois asking for? We are asking for the right to opt out with full financial compensation. I will close with that. We are asking that Quebec get its money in areas under its own jurisdiction.
Any member who works for Quebec should agree with that. We have been good sports. Yesterday, we asked for it by means of an amendment to an amendment, but the entire Quebec Conservative caucus said no to Quebec. They turned their backs on Quebec. That is what the members of that caucus are willing to do to one day get a ministerial position. They are willing to grovel. The same goes for the NDP and the Liberals. There is only one party that will consistently defend Quebec's interests and jurisdictions, and that is the Bloc Québécois. People will remember that on election day.
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- Apr/30/24 1:32:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member talked on many points, but he forgot to mention the one key thing for Quebec, and that is the knowledge-based sector in Quebec and Montreal. For example, the Montreal-based artificial intelligence industry is leading the world. This budget, to give a couple of examples, would provide $2 billion toward the AI compute access fund and $200 million to help sectors like agriculture, manufacturing and minerals to use artificial intelligence in their operations.
Does the member not recognize that this budget would provide for the growth of Quebec's knowledge-based economy and knowledge-based corporate sector so it can be a leader in technology in the world?
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- Apr/30/24 1:33:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague has the nerve to extol the virtues of a so-called industrial policy that will benefit Quebec, after Honda used massive amounts of federal funding to concentrate the auto industry in Ontario, after a battery plant in Ontario received six times more federal funding than Quebec and after the Liberal Party's life sciences supercluster put our pharmaceutical sector at a disadvantage.
He has the nerve to talk about artificial intelligence when the Minister of Industry introduced a bill that was so inadequate that we are up to about two inches of pages of amendments put forward by the minister himself two years later.
If that is the centrepiece of the budget that he is trying to sell me, I have one more reason not to buy it.
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- Apr/30/24 1:35:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, during the pandemic, we had to help all sectors, however imperfectly, to prevent them from collapsing. Where were the Conservatives when these expenditures were incurred? They were sitting around the table with Minister Morneau, spending tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars. If I were the hon. member, when he talks about the nine years of the current government, I would be a bit embarrassed.
He is right about one thing, though, and that is that the federal government will be looking for additional revenue. For me, it is not so much the debt servicing that bothers me, although that is problematic, it is the fact that they are using these revenues to violate Quebec's jurisdictions, to violate the Constitution, to trample on Quebec and interfere in just about everything and nothing, rather than transferring the money to Quebec and letting Quebeckers be responsible for their own programs. That is what the members of the official opposition should be outraged about.
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- Apr/30/24 1:37:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is funny. The way the New Democrats talk, one would think that the revenue they want to find would be used to buy virtue.
Every dollar that the NDP is calling for in new taxes will be used to buy a new shoe to better walk all over Quebec, to implement programs that infringe on Quebec's jurisdictions, including health and education, lunch, dental insurance and pharmacare programs. I get the feeling that the member does not understand what the Constitution is all about.
Sadly, I did not bring a copy of the Constitution in both official languages, because otherwise I would have tabled it, after highlighting section 92, which clearly states what the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces are. That way my colleague could read up on that.
I am not sure what I think about these additional revenues to walk all over Quebec.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/30/24 1:43:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, since we are talking about the budget, my speech today will focus on the most recent budget, which was tabled by the Liberal government exactly two weeks ago today.
Before I talk about the budget itself, I want to take a moment to give a little background. I want to talk about the context in which this budget was introduced. I would imagine that the government was aware that the polls were not in its favour during the period leading up to the tabling of the budget. Members of the Liberal Party were surely aware that the Prime Minister's popularity was plummeting. In such a context, I would imagine that people got together to have a discussion and figure out what they could do about it.
They came up with a solution. They realized that the situation was so dire that they had to make people forget just how dire things were, so they decided to create a diversion. They decided to talk about something else, to make people look elsewhere, so that they would not look at the government's track record, or the current situation, and instead look at what was being announced and proposed.
As we know, the Liberals are not going to reinvent the wheel. Their solution was to encroach heavily on areas under Quebec's jurisdiction, just to be original. Perhaps we can say they were indeed original, in spite of everything, because they had never gone as far as they did in this budget.
They decided to promise so many billions of dollars that everybody would be happy and nobody would notice anything. It would be so much money that people would not even notice anything else. Well, it did not work. Liberal strategists saw that selfies were not working anymore and decided to try a budget striptease to change things up. We are here to speak out against all of this.
The Bloc Québécois has submitted proposals to the government. For example, rather than the approach it has taken, we would have liked to see money for seniors aged between 65 and 75, who do not receive the same old age security benefit as those aged 75 and over. We believe that everyone should receive a decent pension that covers their expenses. Everyone has rent to pay and food to buy. All retirees have similar expenses, regardless of their age.
However, the Liberals went a different way. We proposed other things. For example, we suggested putting an end to funding oil companies. The Liberals say that they will do it eventually. When they were elected in 2015, that promise was part of their platform. It is still part of their platform today. Maybe it will still be part of their platform in 2050 or 2100.
Unfortunately, in spite of everything, we were realistic. When we proposed these things, we suspected that the Liberals would go in a different direction. Still, we took a chance and hoped they would listen to us and do as we asked.
At the very least, we wanted them to do one thing. We know the Liberals have a habit of encroaching on areas of jurisdiction that are not theirs. We told them that if they did that, they had to give Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation. Again, the answer was no. I think the vote itself was even more telling: It looks as though the other parties in the House agree with the Liberal position.
The reason they said no is not hard to understand, because the only jurisdictions the Liberals are interested in are the ones that do not belong to them. In fact, they solved that problem with their budget: Jurisdictions no longer exist for the Liberal government. The solution was simple. They just made daddy's Constitution go poof.
Being Prime Minister is not enough for the member for Papineau. He decided to become premier of all 10 provinces and three territories and mayor of all municipalities across Canada to boot. Not bad, eh? That is what this budget is all about. We have a Prime Minister who is Canada's new self-proclaimed king. He is the one who will run Quebec's health care system. He is going to show up at long-term care facilities and tell them how to run a long-term care facility. He is going to show up at dental offices and tell them how to run a dental office as well, even though Quebec already has programs to help people. He is going to show up at hospitals to tell people how to run their hospitals, while also telling them that he is not going to give them any more money.
In fact, he is going to show up practically everywhere. He will show up in cities and decide what new urban planning rules they have to follow. He will even decide how land is taxed, which is a big deal. He will tax land in the cities, even though it is a municipal jurisdiction. He will even go so far as to manage school cafeterias. Just imagine.
His own affairs hold no interest for him. What interests him is our affairs. It reminds me a bit of the know-it-all kid at school, who always told everyone else how they should do things, even though nothing he himself did ever worked out right. Do not ask Ottawa to print a passport. Ottawa is not interested in doing it and not capable of doing it. Do not ask Ottawa to manage borders either, because it is not interested or capable. If something is Ottawa's responsibility, Ottawa is not interested. It is that simple.
In fact, for years, I had a hard time understanding the Prime Minister's fascination with the monarchy. Now I am starting to understand it a bit more. The king is someone who is not accountable to the public. He is not accountable to anyone but himself and God because it is God who made him king. It could be Allah, Buddha or Yahweh, or whatever we want to call it. He is accountable to a higher power, hence the idea of fighting secularism and Bill 21 and the idea of Islamic mortgages in the budget. In the Liberals' postnational world, every religion has its own banks with their own rules. It is not up to the government to establish the rules. No, it is up to the religions. If someone is Christian, they will go to the Christian bank. If they are Muslim, they will go to the Islamic bank, and if they are Jewish, then they will go to the Jewish bank. Living together in harmony is wonderful, is it not? This will be called positive segregation: a monarchical and theocratic postnational state.
Obviously, I am being facetious, but I do not think this government is headed in a very good direction. The sad thing is that it is not a joke, because it is in the budget. That is the direction this government is heading in. Naturally, any Quebecker who reads this budget and sees that will want to get out of here, because it makes no sense. It is clear that we need independence. Without independence, soon we will not even have provincial jurisdictions. There will be no more Government of Quebec, no more municipal governments. Ottawa will be the last one standing. Ottawa will call all the shots.
Does nobody care about jurisdiction? That is what we really need to ask ourselves, because that is what the Prime Minister is telling us. He says people do not care about jurisdiction, but I do not buy it.
Let us look at how the government manages its affairs, and take the ArriveCAN app as an example. It should have cost $80,000 to design, but it ended up costing $60 million, and we are not even sure if that is the real figure yet. Two guys in a basement managed to rack up $250 million in government contracts and line their pockets at taxpayers' expense. Soldiers are being forced to go out and buy their own boots because the government cannot supply them. The Phoenix payroll system cannot pay public servants. Federal wharves and train stations are going to rack and ruin. I think people do see these things, and I think they do care about the government's incompetence. The polls are starting to show that pretty clearly.
We can see that the government's attempt to divert attention away from its pitiful track record is not working at all. What we see, in fact, is a government that is completely disoriented and that has lost its way. If we gave it a compass, it would not even know what to do with it.
That is why we are going to vote against this budget. That is why the Bloc Québécois will keep fighting. That is also why we, the members of a separatist party, insist that Quebec needs to be respected, that its jurisdictions are its own and that it can make its own decisions without constantly having another government's decisions imposed on it. It is not for Ottawa to decide how Quebec will run its cities and hospitals. It is not for Ottawa to decide these things. The government's own Constitution says that it must not run these things. The government does not care, but we do. We are going to create our own country.
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- Apr/30/24 1:54:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member across the way just provided an eloquent demonstration of his government's position, which is to run away, not face reality, not mind its own business, and then tell others how to conduct their business. The reality is that we have child care in Quebec. We have schools in Quebec. We have hospitals in Quebec. They are not perfect, but we are taking care of them. The federal government has none of these things. It is not the one taking care of these things. It is not the one managing these things.
Who are the Liberals to come tell us how to manage our business? Why would a Canadian be better than a Quebecker at managing this?
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/30/24 1:56:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not get the impression that my colleague's question is about the budget. I am not familiar with the program he referred to, but I will be happy to discuss it with him after my speech and this debate, if we get the opportunity.
The question I am asking myself is why we always have an NDP government—or rather an NDP party, but this one is practically a government—that decides to ask the government in power to intervene more and more in Quebec's jurisdictions.
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- Apr/30/24 2:37:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on showing some common sense.
If the Chair wants more questions, we are ready to ask plenty of them.
It is clear that from firearms buy-back programs to the Phoenix pay system, issuing visas, McKinsey and GC Strategies, the government's management is very chaotic. Instead of interfering in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, why does the government not just make transfers with no strings attached?
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- Apr/30/24 2:38:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we will talk about “hand in hand with the provinces” in a bit. In the meantime, after some Pinocchio-like nonsense, the Conservatives are now voting with the Liberals. They are both obsessed with encroaching on provincial jurisdictions.
Despite a request from all premiers—so much for “hand in hand”—the Liberals and Conservatives are voting against a motion on respecting Quebec's jurisdictions.
Can I make a suggestion to both the Conservatives and the Liberals? If they are actually interested in Quebec, they should read the Bloc Québécois's agenda.
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- Apr/30/24 2:39:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois's agenda is about stirring up trouble between Quebeckers and Ottawa.
On this side of the House, we are here to invest in the future of Quebeckers. We are here to invest in families, in seniors. We are here to offer dental care, starting tomorrow, to seniors in Quebec and across Canada. We are here to invest in more child care spaces and to work with the Quebec government on investments in green technologies and a more prosperous future for all.
We are here to work, not to quarrel, and that is what we will continue to do.
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- Apr/30/24 2:43:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us pray that the Prime Minister will remain with us on this Tuesday.
The Prime Minister said he was working hand in hand with the provinces and that his main concern was ensuring that everyone received good services from the Canadian government for people across the country. In a certain number of areas, those services fall under provincial jurisdiction.
Am I to understand that the Prime Minister is saying that when Quebec or the provinces deliver services, it is not as good as when Ottawa delivers the services?
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- Apr/30/24 2:44:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I understand that there was less time to prepare, but yesterday, the Conservatives, Liberals and even the NDP—I say “even” because it kind of goes together—voted against an amendment from the Bloc Québécois that said that the budget was okay, because we are not bad sports, but that the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces need to be respected.
All those here who call themselves federalists voted against the Bloc Québécois. I hope that even the minister understood that.
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- Apr/30/24 2:45:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec just announced $603 million to stop the decline of French. Most of that amount will be used to teach French to temporary foreign workers.
This is good news for the vitality of the French language, but it will not be enough, because the majority of foreign workers are under the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government through the international mobility program, and the federal government has no language requirements. Since the Liberals recognize the decline of French, they must also do their part.
Will the government listen to Quebec's request and add French language requirements for the foreign workers under its jurisdiction?
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- Apr/30/24 2:46:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously we want to support French integration. We have provided $5.4 billion to Quebec since 2015, specifically for French integration classes in Quebec, and it is working well.
I know that the Bloc Québécois is perceived as a bickering machine, but I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the member opposite, who campaigned to ensure that spouses, partners, people who come here to study nursing will be able to stay here. This will increase the number of people who are here temporarily, but that is the good work we can do because the Quebec government demanded it.
We also worked with the Bloc Québécois to strengthen the health care system in Quebec.
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