SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 305 - Apr/30/24

Apr/30/24 1:21:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to assure the hon. member that I am an avid advocate for the disability benefit. Having worked somewhat in this field, though, I am painfully aware that just putting in a benefit at the federal level will not solve the problem. We need to work closely with the provinces and with the other plans that are in place. The worst thing we can do is put in a federal benefit and then have provinces and other private plans withdraw their support. I am confident that, with this new plan, it is a great start and it is a great day for the disability community.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon (Mirabel, BQ)

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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Mr. Chandra Arya (Nepean, Lib.)

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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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

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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Mr. Arnold Viersen (Peace River—Westlock, CPC)

Apr/30/24 1:34:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have seen over the last nine years that our country cannot afford the Prime Minister's budget. I am wondering if the member has any comments on the deficit spending. The Conservatives have noticed that all of the GST that will be collected in the coming year will go only to pay down the interest that is being accumulated on our national debt. I wonder if the member has any thoughts on that.

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

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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Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)

Apr/30/24 1:36:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke about taxation and the issue around taxes. What I do not see in budget 2024 is a windfall tax, an excessive profit tax, for example. We know there is a high rate of inflation and people are struggling with food prices. We also see a free pass being given to the corporate sector. In fact, the Conservatives and Liberals have aided and abetted this practice and refused to increase the corporate tax rate. If the government increased it to 15% to 20%, that would bring $16 billion a year into the treasury to support a variety of different measures. Would the member call for the government to do what is right for all Canadians, which is to put forward an excessive profit tax?

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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

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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Mr. Jean-Denis Garon

Apr/30/24 1:38:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. I understand that people are not always happy with what is said in Parliament. That is the nature of our work. However, I just heard the member use the word “disgusting” after my speech. I think that is unacceptable and that she should withdraw her comment.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/30/24 1:38:34 p.m.
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I did not hear what was said. Of course, we can review the tape to see whether it was recorded. The hon. member for Vancouver East.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Apr/30/24 1:38:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do find it offensive for the member to suggest that I do not know about the Constitution. I am a Canadian. I have read the Constitution, and I am proud of the Constitution, and to suggest that I do not know about it—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/30/24 1:39:03 p.m.
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That is a point of debate. I will certainly ask that we review the tape to see what was actually said, because I did not hear it from this end. I will certainly take it from here. On another point of order, the hon. member for Drummond.

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Mr. Martin Champoux

Apr/30/24 1:39:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do understand that what my colleague from Mirabel was saying may have been offensive to the member. However, I think it was entirely within parliamentary standards to say that a member does not seem to understand provincial jurisdictions. That being said, when the member for Vancouver said the word “disgusting”, her microphone was off. That is what my colleague from Mirabel's point of order was about. My colleague from Vancouver, standing up to defend her point, repeated the word “disgusting”. I think the very nature of the word should be the subject of this debate.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/30/24 1:40:09 p.m.
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As I said, I did not really hear the word. I understand what the member is saying. If that is the word that was used, I want to ensure that people are using words that are acceptable in the House. I can ask the hon. member to withdraw that word, and we can continue the debate. I would ask the hon. member for Vancouver East if she is willing to take back the word she had used. The hon. member for Vancouver East.

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Ms. Jenny Kwan

Apr/30/24 1:41:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, no, because I do find it offensive for someone to suggest that I do not know anything about the Constitution. I think it is patronizing to suggest that. I think that in suggesting that, it is also disgusting to me.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/30/24 1:41:25 p.m.
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I want to remind members to be extremely careful. I will have the tape reviewed just to see how the word was used. Again, I would remind members to be very careful with the words being said. I do not know the context. I understand what the word was, but I do not know if it was used in the term that the member was disgusting or whether it was used in the term of what he was proposing was disgusting. I will listen to what was said and then I will come back to the House. The hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord.

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Mr. Rhéal Éloi Fortin

Apr/30/24 1:42:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with all due respect, I do not think that it is necessary to listen to the recordings because we all heard the member repeat the word three times. The question is whether or not, in your opinion, the word “disgusting” is acceptable in the House. If it is unacceptable, then you must take immediate action. Every time you give the member the opportunity to explain herself, she says, rightly or wrongly, that it is up to you to decide, that that is what she said, that she believed it and that it was appropriate in the circumstances. I would ask you to take what she said and decide whether in your opinion it is acceptable in the House for someone to say that what they are hearing is “disgusting” or if it is unacceptable—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Apr/30/24 1:42:54 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member and the other members who made interventions. The word in and of itself is not unacceptable. What matters is the way the word is used. As I said, using that word to describe an event is not the same as using that word to talk about an individual. That is what I said earlier. The word in and of itself is not inappropriate for the House, it is the way the these words are used in the House that matters. As I said, I will listen to the recording to determine how this was said and I will come back to the House if necessary. The hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères.

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Mr. Xavier Barsalou-Duval (Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, BQ)

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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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Apr/30/24 1:53:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am disappointed that the Bloc has made the decision to vote against the budget and the budget measures. The best I can tell, from listening to the member across the way, is that the federal government cares enough to develop a pharmacare program, to provide $200 billion over 10 years to health care and to provide food for hundreds of thousands of children. Does the member not recognize that there is a role for the national government to play in Canada, with respect to education and housing? I am very proud that the Prime Minister came to Winnipeg and met with the premier and the mayor to make a wonderful announcement on housing. There is nothing wrong with governments working together for the betterment of Canadians. Why is the Bloc so insistent on not having the services Canadians want, and why does it not want the federal government to contribute to them?

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