- Member of Parliament
- Leader of the Bloc Québécois
- Bloc Québécois
- Beloeil—Chambly
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 56%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $98,385.23
- Government Page
- May/29/24 3:02:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is outlining a series of principles that seem very benevolent, yet he never seems to be willing to follow through by adopting and putting forward, in co-operation with like-minded countries and allies, a set of policies that will help force Israel to end the violence in Gaza.
Will he stop spouting empty words and start taking action? We have just sent him 10 proposals for doing just that.
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- May/29/24 3:01:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us not misunderstand each other. I have the utmost respect for the State of Israel, but it is time for this to stop.
In that spirit, is the Prime Minister prepared to support the International Court of Justice and potentially the International Criminal Court in enforcing international law and commit to arresting anyone on Canadian soil who is named in an arrest warrant? Is he prepared to apply Canada's sanctions regime to Israeli ministers who openly call for the commission of crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip?
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- May/29/24 2:45:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, neither wine nor vanilla yogourt are a solid foundation for international relations. Canada must plant its feet firmly on the ground and take a strong position.
Is now not the best time to promote peace, starting with recognizing the Palestinian state?
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- May/29/24 2:43:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in mid-March, the NDP had a very balanced motion passed in support of Palestine and the Liberals effectively struck out the part recognizing Palestinian statehood.
Today, as the Prime Minister himself says he supports a two-state solution, is he prepared to join the many countries that formally recognize the State of Palestine?
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- May/29/24 2:31:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is not obliged to say yes or agree with me, but I would like to ask the question nonetheless.
Would he agree, and does he recognize, that establishing either short-term or sustainable peace in the Gaza Strip requires both a ceasefire and the involvement of an international peacekeeping force to intervene between the Hamas terrorists and the Israeli army?
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- May/29/24 2:30:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in order to put an end to the horrific violence that is devastating the Gaza Strip, can the government and the Prime Minister start by reiterating Canada's support for an immediate ceasefire and the free flow of medical, food and humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza Strip, but more importantly, support the Arab League in its call for the creation of an international peacekeeping force to be deployed to the occupied Palestinian territory until a functional Palestinian state is established?
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- May/28/24 2:29:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, those were not challenges; they were monumental failures resulting from ignorance and carelessness. All parties participated in creating the Hogue commission. Naturally, the commission is calling for information in order to remedy these failures, but the Prime Minister's Office literally withheld information and documents that the commission struggled mightily to obtain. The Hogue commission itself called for the documents, and now it has to make sense of all the pieces.
Will the Prime Minister promise to co-operate fully and unconditionally with the commission from now on?
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- May/28/24 2:28:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a report on foreign interference that included the 2019 and 2021 elections reveals a serious lack of coordination and rigour. I would even venture to say that the Prime Minister's Office swept everything under the rug.
The Prime Minister probably does not know the whole story, because he himself admits that he did not read the reports. He is just not interested, and that is not leadership.
How does the Prime Minister plan to stop this kind of complicity in foreign interference, particularly from his own office?
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- May/23/24 10:37:13 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is wonderful to see the NDP recommending and hoping that the Canadian government will outsource public programs to the private sector, which will make a profit from the public program.
I will repeat the fundamental principle to the unions, the NDP and the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie: There is nothing that a Canadian can do that a Quebecker cannot do, except perhaps extracting oil. Therefore, I invite everyone to commit to improving services in Quebec. We must invest in services in Quebec. The government does not need to negotiate with Quebec. It is supposed to transfer money unconditionally. That is what is missing.
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- May/23/24 10:35:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a wonderful opportunity. However, there are a number of factors.
First, I acknowledge the Conservatives' new position of wanting to give unconditional health transfers, or transfers of any kind, to Quebec and the provinces.
I have a second piece of good news. We will hold the debate on independence. Indeed, the tide is turning, we are coming up on the third referendum and we will win it. There will be room for everyone in Quebec to continue in politics, including the members of Parliament.
There is a third thing. Let us get something straight in this slogan‑driven demagoguery. The Bloc Québécois has voted against every Liberal budget and every Liberal economic update. That said, the failure to vote in favour of appropriations in a number of cases amounts to replicating, as the Conservatives know all too well, the American model of government paralysis designed to prevent the state from functioning. The departments in question would be unable to issue paycheques. This is the simple explanation. We voted against the budgets and the updates, but the Conservatives can go ahead and keep repeating in French that the Bloc Québécois did this and in English that the NDP did something else.
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- May/23/24 10:33:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in a way, the answer is in the question.
I would like Quebeckers to hear someone stand up in Parliament and tell them, in English, to look at what the rest of Canada is doing better than they are, and to tell them that they are so bad that the federal government needs to develop programs that will be imposed on them with their own money. I think it is completely ridiculous to say that a Canadian is intrinsically superior to a Quebecker.
If good ideas are implemented in one place, they can be implemented in other places. Take, for example, child care services, whose model originated in Quebec, or pharmacare, whose model originated in Quebec. If the Canadian government feels entitled to copy what Quebec is doing right, I hope it will at least acknowledge that this is because Quebec is capable of doing it.
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- May/23/24 10:22:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, over the past few years, the Government of Canada has developed a way of doing politics that follows a clear and heavy-handed approach, including an egregious abuse of the so-called fiscal imbalance. This means that the federal government is receiving more revenue than it needs to fulfill its roles and responsibilities, whereas Quebec and the provinces are collecting and receiving less than they need to fulfill their respective roles and responsibilities.
The government is taking that money and using its constitutional spending power to intrude into areas under the exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec, the provinces and the territories, as set out in the Constitution. What is emerging more and more is the government's persistent, clear and ideological push to centralize powers, in the sense of the responsibilities specific to a level of government. I certainly do not mean powers in the sense of ability or the faculty to do something. These powers are being centralized in the federal Parliament.
When we take a close look, it is pretty clear this is a failure. It is one failure after another. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Jonquière. I could list a whole series of the federal government's failures when it comes to interference, but I could go on for days, so I will just name a few.
I will use a recent example, namely the government's desire to intrude in the area of dental insurance. At first glance, this seems ideological. Then they decide to hand it over to the private sector, with the support of the NDP. Now it seems no one can make heads or tails of it. It is a failure in the making. It is clearly the result of their refusal, for many years, to make the health transfers that Quebec, the provinces and the territories are unanimously calling for.
In this context, the federal government claims to be working hand in hand with Quebec and the provinces. However, no serious person with a third-grade education still thinks that this is not some kind of a never-ending conflict with the provinces.
There are the conditions imposed by Ottawa on municipal infrastructure. There are the conditions imposed by Ottawa on social housing. There is the colossal failure of immigration: Ottawa is incapable of handling visas, there is a years-long backlog of case files, and the Minister of Immigration has lost track of hundreds of thousands of people currently on Canadian soil. There is the sub-contracting of immigration policy to a highly questionable company such as McKinsey, an ideological aberration that ultimately weakens Quebec. The federal government has failed across the board.
There was much talk about language over the last few days. The vulgar language we have heard is essentially a panic reaction. It betrays a lack of an intelligent response, because there cannot be an intelligent response to what we have seen. We cannot invite people to appear in committee only to treat them in a way that would shame a schoolyard bully.
However, the numbers speak for themselves when it comes to the situation of the French language, both in Quebec and across Canada. The Liberal government does not care all that much about the decline of French, but it sure cares when someone points it out. This is the same government that intends to support a Supreme Court challenge of Bill 96, which seeks to strengthen the French language in Quebec.
I am talking about setbacks, failures and intrusions galore. I am talking about a lack of respect.
Of course, I could talk about secularism, but I will merely say that a secular state would never conceive of imposing Islamic mortgages on a level of government such as the Quebec government, which endorses state secularism. Quebec would not hesitate to eliminate the religious exemption that allows the worst hate speech to spread under the guise of religion.
I repeat, these are failures. In fact, the only good thing the Liberal government ever did with respect to language and secularism was convincing the Conservative Party to basically share its views, views that are extremely unpopular among Quebeckers.
The Phoenix pay service, a terrible failure, will now be replaced. This will not get us our money back. There is also the ArriveCAN failure. The repercussions, the spin‑offs, if you will, have now reached the billion‑dollar mark. This money has come out of the pockets of the Canadian state. It is one failure after another.
Consider the tens of thousands of businesses that were abandoned after receiving assistance from government programs during the pandemic. Given the labour shortages, inflation and interest rates, those businesses faced a highly complex situation. Many of them—we will never know the exact or the real number—had to declare bankruptcy and close down because of this government's ineptitude. This is another failure.
One failure on the international stage, which again is repeated and ongoing, relates to a lack of credibility. It is the inability to have a plan to reach the 2% investment target. It is the position on the war in Gaza and the inability to take the normal and increasingly internationally recognized step of recognizing the Palestinian state. Once again, it is a series of failures.
Bombardier, for example, is missing out on $5 billion in spin-offs. Meanwhile, Boeing will award contracts worth $400 million with the co-operation of the governments of Quebec and Canada. I doubt whether we will ever find out the real reasons behind that whole mess. It is one failure after another.
The government is incapable of doing its own work properly, yet it wants to do the work of others in their own areas of jurisdiction. The people have given it a mandate, but it is a minority mandate. This minority government, as I said, is a failure. Interference always takes longer, always costs more and never improves things. It is done at the cost of a series of subcontracts, whether we are talking about McKinsey, ArriveCAN or others of the kind. It is done at the cost of 109,000 more civil servants. That is on top of the subcontracts and the increasing duplications in Quebec and provincial jurisdictions. There is also the $40-billion deficit, which is no small matter.
To govern as a majority, purely for the sake of power, the government joined forces with the NDP. Rather than receiving its mandate from the people, the government receives its mandate from the NDP. It is a fool's bargain. If the NDP does not act soon, it will bring about its own demise. The government has two choices then. It can hold off on its aggressive centralization agenda, its abuse of the fiscal imbalance and abuse of spending power until the end of its mandate, which would normally run until late 2025, or it can call an election now to try to obtain that type of mandate, which I strongly doubt that Quebec will consider. It has no right to dupe Canadians or the parties in the House. As I said before, if the Prime Minister is so interested in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, he can go off and pursue a career in provincial politics, preferably in Ontario.
At the very least, however, what the government must do is acknowledge in every one of its actions the right to opt out with full compensation, with no conditions for Quebec and the provinces. At least its centralizing ideology could then be properly circumvented in a way that respects the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. The main goal—and this is the spirit of this motion—is for the Canadian government to put an end to its increasingly numerous and increasingly crude and misguided abuses that fail to respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. If the government does not do so, since it will have fun raising the issue in the next election, it will see how useful the Bloc Québécois really is.
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- May/23/24 10:22:25 a.m.
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moved:
That the House:
(a) condemn the federal government’s repeated intrusion into the exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec, the provinces and the territories;
(b) remind the Prime Minister that, despite his claims, it is not true that “people do not care which level of government is responsible for what”; and
(c) demand that the government systematically offer Quebec, the provinces and territories the right to opt out unconditionally with full compensation whenever the federal government interferes in their jurisdictions.
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- May/22/24 3:05:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are going to give him a chance. The fishing areas were closed because of right whales.
Everyone wants to protect the right whale. The government is actually endangering it more by opening up areas to offshore oil drilling. Fishers have suggested ways to protect whales, and so have scientists and the Bloc Québécois.
The department is not listening, the minister is not listening and the fishing industry is facing an unprecedented crisis. Some people have doubts, but does the Prime Minister still think that his minister is worthy of fishers' trust and of the role he assigned her?
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- May/22/24 3:03:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, only one fishery is still operating fully in the western Gulf of St. Lawrence, specifically, shellfish, in other words, crab and lobster. All the others are in serious jeopardy, and now even that fishery is in crisis too.
The industry is in distress, but the member for Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Minister of Fisheries is closing vast fishing areas off Chaleur Bay, the Gaspé Peninsula and Acadia.
What does the Prime Minister have to say to the fishers who have to remove their traps, return to port and see yet another season compromised?
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- May/22/24 2:46:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one day we will have our own country and our own future.
The Liberals have admitted responsibility but their actions go against that responsibility. They sent money to the anglophone community in Quebec so it could protect itself, of course, from being assimilated by francophones.
If the Prime Minister is so concerned about Quebec, can he stop opposing the Quebec government's Bill 96 and let Quebec govern its own language laws?
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- May/22/24 2:45:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a brand new study by the Office québécois de la langue française shows that the proportion of young Quebeckers who use French as their language of work 90% of the time has dropped from 64% to 58%.
Will the Prime Minister admit that his language policies are not slowing the decline of French one bit, and that his opposition to Bill 96 is weakening the French language, or will he in turn start hurling vicious and vulgar insults at Quebec scientists?
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- May/22/24 2:31:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he is right, and I appreciate this stroke of brilliance: the best thing that could happen to French in Quebec, in Canada and partly around the world, is an independent Quebec.
Meanwhile, what did the Prime Minister of Canada say during the English debate in 2021? When I was the only one who wanted to talk about francophones outside Quebec, in English, I was told that I did not have the right to talk about French in English during his country's English debate.
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- May/22/24 2:30:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals claim to be interested in French in Quebec and Canada. The fact is that they are subsidizing the quiet disappearance of francophones in western Canada and outside Quebec, much like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water. What is more, the Liberals are mobilizing dozens of unilingual anglophone members to protect their offensive member, whose comments were as underhanded as they were inappropriate.
Would the Prime Minister really have francophones believe that it is out of a love for French that they are going to stack the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie tomorrow?
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- May/21/24 2:23:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot count how many times I have told my colleagues from Jonquière and Lac-Saint-Jean that we should ask Claude. I am of course talking about biologist Claude Villeneuve, a giant in the field of science and a giant of a human being, who left us Sunday evening.
He was a scientist and an academic for whom ideology was no substitute for science and universities should teach facts, not fairy tales. His idea of scholarship was to engage in research, create knowledge and then put that knowledge in service of the common good.
Claude would always play down his talents in such fields as biology, chemistry, physics and energy. He was very quick to launch into some topic or other, but luckily for us, he took his sweet time finishing.
He taught at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, he founded the Chair in Eco-consulting in 2003, he was the driving force behind the Carbone boréal project, and those are just a few of his accomplishments. His passing is even being mourned internationally, because the UN adopted some of his research tools.
A few months before leaving us, Claude paid me and my colleagues the greatest of compliments by saying that he was happy to be handing over his project to us, because he knew that with us, it would get done. What a compliment from Claude, but he is gone too soon.
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