44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2024 10:00AM
- May/9/24 3:43:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, after nine years of the Liberal government, we are seeing chaos, crime and destruction across this country, and we have a series of crises in this country. Housing is a crisis. For the first time in many generations, housing, which should be a fundamental right in Canada, is unattainable for so many. We talk about poverty levels and the ability to have nutritious food. Many Canadians right now talk about the inability to go to the grocery store to buy the food they need. They are buying less food right now.
There is a drug problem across Canada. It is very stark in B.C., and there has been mention of Alberta. I come from Belleville, Ontario, which is a rural town about two hours east of Toronto and two and a half hours west of Montreal. It has been hit hard by the drug problem that is affecting all of Canada.
Right now, the Belleville Sens AHL team, the farm team of the Ottawa Senators, have done what Toronto could not do this year, and certainly what Ottawa could not do even to get to the playoffs. They are in their second round of the playoffs in the AHL and are doing well. They are playing the Cleveland Monsters. Procter & Gamble is in Belleville, as well as Kellogg. For everyone who is a Cheezies fan, Hawkins Cheezies is in my riding. There are some in my office and they do not last very long. They go well with pinball.
I was born in Belleville, and so were Avril Lavigne and Bobby Hull. We are very proud of the city and all its accomplishments. One of the prime ministers, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, “the accidental prime minister”, was from Belleville, Ontario.
Belleville was rocked by overdoses in February. There were 13 overdoses in only two hours, 23 overdoses in just over 24 hours, 90 overdoses in one week and 240 overdoses in 11 weeks, or 3.5 overdoses a day. The mayor of Belleville, the former Liberal member for Bay of Quinte, declared an emergency. There is drug addiction, mental health and homelessness. As much as Belleville has good health care and a great hospital, there are zero treatment beds. There are zero detox beds. When it comes to mental health and addiction, there is a waiting list that is over 500 people long. The emergency crisis was called because rural Ontario and rural cities across Canada, much like Belleville, are finding it too hard to deal with this crisis, which is becoming far too common in all of Canada.
When we look at the resources that are needed in this country, I give full credit to what the community does in my region. When we look at homelessness and poverty and how they affect mental health and drug use, they are all related. When we do not take care of the top layers, they affect the bottom layers. We do not have detox beds or facilities. The only ones we have are an hour east, in Kingston, for men or women, and another one an hour west. Hospital beds are full. With the overdose and mental health crises, all available beds in all hospitals are filling up. A councillor in my region could not even go to Belleville. He had to go Picton, almost 40 minutes away, because hospitals are filled to the brim.
Paramedics feel helpless when, in one week, they responded to 90 overdose deaths. They suffer from burnout when the resources are depleted. Police are the first responders. There is a great mental health program called Impact. It consists of medical health first responders, and they feel depleted and helpless. They pick up people who need help and bring them to the hospital. There is nowhere to put them, so they are back on the street and the cycle begins again.
Most importantly, when we look at what we need to fix this crisis, aside from detox facilities and beds, it comes down to the fact that drug dealers are allowed to roam free and put illicit drugs on the street. The Belleville police chief has been very vocal about this. Mike Callaghan just retired and Chris Barry is in the role now.
I make it a habit every year to go on a ride-along with local police. On that ride-along, I talk to the officers, the first responders, those heroes who are dealing with the crisis, the mental health professionals, and this is what they tell me. They know who the drug dealers are. They know where the drugs are coming in from. There are four sources in the town that bring them in from Toronto, down the 401. They pick up these drug dealers, and they are out on bail the very same day. The next morning, they will pick up another drug dealer and, again, it is the same process. Police call themselves “recyclers” because, in effect, they pick up people who are then back on the street, and around and around we go.
This affects a very small community, but it also affects Canada. When we look at this and what is happening across all of our nation, it is not just something happening in B.C. or in Alberta. It is happening in small communities and rural communities like Belleville and Monkton. It is happening in Peterborough, and it is happening in Kenora. It is happening in Thunder Bay. It is happening in Kingston. At the end of the day, we have failed, and the government has failed, to take care of this drug problem. It is affecting not only every family in this country; it is affecting all of our communities and all of this country that we call home and that we love.
It is squarely put onto the government and how it is handling this: the fact that we are not taking care of these crises, the homelessness and the housing crisis, ensuring that we look at mental health and addiction, our health care crisis as a whole, and, of course, the fact that we cannot even get drug dealers off the streets.
When we look at this and how it affects the small town of Belleville, Ontario, and when we look at the ideology of how we are approaching this problem and how we are going to solve it, it comes down to one thing: Drugs are bad. I remember growing up as a teenager in the 1980s, and we would see commercials on TV. One commercial said, “This is your brain, and this is your brain on drugs.” What are the commercials that we see right now? “Do drugs with a friend.”
I went on a tour with our critic, the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. We went to a maximum-security prison last weekend: Millhaven, by Kingston, where some of the most ruthless monsters that we have in society are put away and are serving their time behind bars. When we were there touring the facility, three of the criminals were high on drugs, in maximum security, in their cells. I went with the officer because I could not believe it. We walked into the cell block, and we were having a conversation face to face with a criminal whose eyes were like this, and who was locked on drugs. They are getting these drugs because drones are flying in and dropping them in the yard. They are finding ways to get in.
Drug use is far too easy in this country. We are not treating it how we should, as something that is lethal to Canadians and to our children, something that should be outlawed in terms of dealing it and getting access to it, and then treating the ones who are addicted to it with compassion and humanity and making sure that we are getting them treatment and detox.
This motion tackles two things. It ensures that common-sense Conservatives will ban hard drugs, stop taxpayer-funded drugs and put the money into detox and recovery.
For all the arguments we have heard today that this is not compassionate and this is not care, this is exactly what these people need. They need to be treated. The fact is that everything they have in terms of an addiction or mental health is treatable. The fact is that the municipalities, the paramedics, the police and the community groups that are looking after these individuals have no resources. They are at a loss. The fact is that the people who fall into disarray do not have housing. They do not have the pharmaceutical care and they are being treated like consumers by the pharmaceutical companies that are putting these drugs on the street.
This motion does two things only. It would ensure that we look at drugs as bad, that we treat those drugs as substances that should be banned and taken off the streets. We would ensure that we put the drug dealers, those putting the drugs on the street, behind bars. We would ensure that those people who are addicted and need mental health support get the support they need, in terms of detox, recovery and, most importantly, affordable housing that gets them off the street. Then, of course, looking to the fact that we help people, we would bring our loved ones home, drug-free, and help Canadians for once.
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- May/9/24 7:56:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I salute my colleague from Whitby, who I work with at the Standing Committee on Science and Research.
My question for my colleague is on the effectiveness of implementing, creating a new department of housing. Quebec already has the ministry of municipal affairs and housing and the Société d'habitation du Québec.
The last projects that were funded in Quebec, in my region in particular, were funded from money in budget 2022. It took two years to budget the money, transfer it and come to an agreement with the Government of Quebec. I would like my colleague to explain what Ottawa will be able to do better than Quebec. I would like to know what Quebec cannot do with its current expertise.
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- May/9/24 9:11:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. She also made a good speech, in which she spoke about the billions of dollars going to oil companies.
We need to look at the root of government interference, which is fiscal imbalance. What does that mean? First, Ottawa takes in more revenue than it needs. Second, Ottawa uses that financial leeway to interfere in areas outside its jurisdiction. That is exactly what the government is doing with Bill C-59 and Bill C-69.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it himself: If the trend continues, eventually the provincial governments, including Quebec, will be virtually bankrupt, while the federal government will see its revenues increase.
What will the result be? The federal government will be able to intervene in areas of provincial jurisdiction. It is an unprecedented centralization of power in Ottawa's hands. That is one of the many reasons why we will be voting against these two bills.
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Madam Speaker, a leopard cannot change its spots.
Once again, it is clear that the Liberal government is trying to interfere in Quebec's affairs and fantasizing about taking over jurisdictions that do not belong to it and in which it has no expertise. Why? Maybe it is trying to justify its existence and appear relevant. Budget 2024 and this bill are perfect examples of that. That is why the Bloc Québécois will vote against Bill C‑59. Let me say this loud and clear: The federal government's unabashed assault on Quebec's jurisdictions is scandalous.
By choosing to create a federal department of municipal affairs, which it calls the department of housing, infrastructure and communities, Ottawa is announcing yet more interference in how Quebec runs its internal affairs. The size of the public service has jumped by 42%, or 109,000 public servants, and the tax burden has increased by $20 billion, but the Liberal government wants to make the public service even bigger, doubling its army of highly paid public servants, whose thankless task it will be to interfere in areas under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces, and who will give the federal government the organizational capacity to impose even more conditions on Quebec and municipalities.
It is readily apparent that this massive public servant hiring campaign will make it easier to coordinate the centralization of power and decision-making in Ottawa. The father of the current Prime Minister, the member for Papineau, tried a similar approach when he created the Ministry of State for Urban Affairs in 1971. The experiment was a dismal failure. As the saying goes, like father, like son. We need the humility to learn from our past mistakes in order to avoid repeating them.
As a proud regionalist and elected official in a riding that includes 39 municipalities and three regional county municipalities, commonly known as RCMs, I know what I am talking about. Many of them are already having a hard time getting what they are owed from the federal government, because of funding that never arrives on time or cuts in financial support for the cultural sector, for example. Why complicate the process with more delays, costs, disputes and even more delays? Municipalities need fast, effective and direct action to address the various issues. They are the ones that deliver services most directly to the public. The federal government, however, is doing the exact opposite by adding more layers of red tape that will only increase costs and lengthen delays.
I should also point out that the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently said, about federal services, “public services themselves appear to have deteriorated. Not all of them are at the level one would expect from the public service.” Do my fellow citizens really want the federal government to manage more things? Well, no.
The really sad thing about this part of Bill C‑59 is that the Liberals are offering a solution that no one asked for instead of meeting expectations within their own areas of jurisdiction, and that is really detrimental. I feel like I am repeating myself, but the housing crisis we are currently experiencing, which is dragging on because of half measures that do not solve the problem, must be addressed quickly. People are suffering. Social housing in particular has been chronically underfunded since the 1990s, yet the federal government is not stepping up. Instead, it is trying to take even more responsibility despite its ineffectiveness and incompetence in other matters.
The vacancy rate in Rimouski is 0.6%. A balanced market sits at 3%. That means it is almost impossible to find housing. Families are living in motels. It is disgraceful. It is not just in my riding, either. My colleagues and neighbours throughout the Lower St. Lawrence are in similar situations, with a rate of 0.7% in Rivière-du-Loup and 1.2% in Matane. The answer is simple. We are asking the federal government to stop trying to manage everything, to stop micromanaging, and to simply do what is expected of it, which is to transfer the money to the Quebec government, unconditionally. Then we can tackle the crisis and try to resolve it. The Bloc Québécois is not going to make concessions. We will stand firm.
Let us now talk about the second major concern that we have with this bill. While we want to do away with fossil fuels, the Liberals are reminding us that they are great allies of the oil companies by adding a $30.3-billion subsidy in the form of tax credits paid for by taxpayers. I am talking about the taxpayers who are watching us at home this evening. That $30.3 billion belongs to them. This is not really surprising. We know that Suncor had a hand in drafting the government's policy. The image that comes to mind is that of a firefighter arsonist.
In Rimouski, these same super wealthy companies are increasing the cost of gas for residents, sometimes by up to 20¢ overnight. They have a virtual monopoly and yet they are putting a huge burden on the shoulders of those who depend on their vehicles to get around, make a living and get to work. I already know that some members will tell me that those individuals can just use public transit to get around. They are right, but when the federal government abandons the regions to focus on large urban centres, then public transit in the regions is obviously not sufficient to offer a real alternative to vehicle use.
The Lower St. Lawrence has practically no trains or buses anymore. The number of weekly private bus departures has gone from 6,000 to 882 since 1981. That is an 85% drop. I met the heads of Via Rail recently. They told me that the trains that go to Rimouski have been in service since the 1950s or 1960s, that the rail cars are at the end of their useful life and that these lines will have to be shut down in a few years if the federal government does not invest in them soon. That means we are going to lose one of our last links to the rest of Quebec if the government continues to do nothing. This situation has been going on for too long. Budget 2024 was not the boost we were looking for to save the regional connections.
I get the impression that we are going backward. Our ancestors who built the railway must be rolling over in their graves looking at their descendants shutting it down, when we do not even have an alternative in place. Is the federal government waiting to swoop in at the last minute like a hero at the risk of further isolating the regions?
I will not get into the fact that there are virtually no flights in the regions. The wonderful corporate citizens at Air Canada took advantage of the public health crisis to cease their operations in June 2020 and they never came back to our region, or to the Mont-Joli regional airport, more specifically.
As a result of all of these transportation problems, some of my constituents now even have to take a taxi to Quebec City to get hospital services. I hold the federal government responsible for that, because it is refusing to abide by its agreement to cover 50% of Quebec's health care costs, which compromises access to health care and the development of these kinds of services in the regions.
Now, if the billions of dollars earmarked for oil companies had instead been allocated to transportation, imagine how much the government could have actually improved the situation. We see that the government's priorities are not always in the right place and that the regions still do not matter to the Liberals. They basically never do.
Consequently, the Bloc Québécois will be voting against Bill C-59, which both encroaches on Quebec's areas of jurisdiction and demonstrates the full extent of the Liberal government's hypocrisy. There has never been a more centralizing government. I get the impression that it wants to revise the definition of a confederation. We are no longer in a confederation; we are under a central government that wants to appropriate all the powers and change the rules of the game without consulting the players. I would even go so far as to say that the rules of the game are constitutional agreements. We cannot take it lightly when agreements with partners are not being upheld. The government claims to want meaningful collaboration with its partners, yet it does not even respect its own agreements with its so-called partners.
Moreover, we will not support the creation of a department whose main task will be to interfere more aggressively in Quebec's jurisdictions and double the government's army of public servants. Nor will we support the $30.3 billion subsidy to ultrarich oil companies that will undoubtedly compromise our ecosystems and slow down the energy transition that Quebec is spearheading.
That concludes my speech. I welcome questions and comments from my colleagues.
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