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Context: House Hansard - 45 - Mar/24/22

Jun/8/22 10:10:08 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-19

Madam Speaker, I seldom rise in the House, and so I hope that you will listen to me, as my colleagues obviously will. The Conservative Party proposed very concrete solutions to address inflation and the cost of gas, food and housing. Yesterday, our interim leader moved an opposition motion that was debated and voted on. The motion called for the implementation of simple, sensible and concrete solutions. It was a motion full of empathy and compassion, which demonstrated our support for Canadian families, workers, youth, families and seniors. The motion would have given farmers some breathing room and allowed the tourism sector to grow after two years of misery. Unfortunately, all these solutions were rejected outright by the Liberal-NDP coalition. I would like to come back to these matters today and show how arrogant, out of touch and petty the Prime Minister is. In the past, Canada has gone through periods of high inflation that often resulted in recessions. At present, we are clearly in a period of inflation, and red flags are being raised. Has the government learned from the past, and will it do everything in its power to prevent history from repeating itself? I am not so sure. There are currently huge wait times for passports. It is insane. Canadians want answers about the services they are getting. Then there is the skyrocketing price of gas. In Rivière‑du‑Loup, in my riding, gas is currently around $2.24 to $2.30 a litre. That is the highest price in a year, or ever. We have never seen gas prices so high. Summer is almost here, and people are planning vacations. We need to put ourselves in the shoes of an average Canadian who wants to leave home after two years of the pandemic. They want to visit regions all across Canada, especially Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, of course, and drive through all of our magnificent scenery. How can they plan a family vacation when they cannot even make ends meet? They were thinking of travelling 700, 800, 1,000 or 2,000 kilometres, but they now have to reconsider since that is nearly impossible, considering the cost of gas. When it costs $100 to fill the tank, it makes a person think twice about taking a road trip. When we ask the government about this, it blames international circumstances and the war in Ukraine. The budget should be providing solutions, but it has none to offer. We in the Conservative Party put ourselves in the shoes of our constituents and share their fears. That is why we proposed concrete solutions. We asked the government to drop the GST on fuel as a priority to give Canadians a break, just as several countries have done. We called for a pause on the carbon tax hike that took effect on April 1. The government refused our requests. Let us talk about food. The cost of groceries has risen at an unprecedented rate, the highest in 40 years. Some families have already paid over $1,000 more for groceries since the beginning of the year. Other families have to make an agonizing choice between buying groceries, paying the rent and filling up their car to get to work. I myself have employees who are asking if they can work remotely because it costs too much to go to work. This is not a joke. Food banks are now providing food to people who have full-time jobs, not just disadvantaged, penniless folks. These are people, families, couples who are working, but who are still being forced to turn to food banks in order to eat. The government has no short-term solutions in its budget, only crumbs, to help these people, and it voted against the motion we put forward. The Conservatives argued for solutions to the supply chain issues and for farm taxes to be eliminated to help bring down food prices. Let us now talk about housing prices. Since the Prime Minister came to power, housing prices have doubled in Canada. Young families are watching their dream of home ownership drift further and further out of reach. The budget mentions a $1,500 tax credit, but that will not even pay the lawyer's fees. This amount is nothing when the average price of a home in Canada is about $800,000. In my riding, some sellers are getting four or five offers on their homes, which has never happened before. Houses are obviously less expensive in my riding than in Toronto or Vancouver, but sellers are receiving multiple offers, pushing the selling price above the asking price. The government had six years to solve the affordability problem, but it did nothing. It left the real estate market in the hands of foreign buyers and unscrupulous speculators, who drove up the price of housing. We proposed an amendment to budget 2022, demanding that an inquiry into money laundering be launched immediately in order to curb speculation. Surprise, surprise, that amendment was rejected too. Concerning the tourism sector, I am pleased to be part of the shadow cabinet on tourism together with my colleague from Peterborough—Kawartha, who is not here. In a region as picturesque as mine, tourism plays an important role in economic development. This is particularly important to me. As members know, the pandemic devastated the tourism sector, especially during the two years of recession when many restaurants had to close their doors and performance venues sat empty. These are incredibly sad stories. There was some emergency assistance, and the Conservatives supported a number of government measures. We even helped find solutions in some cases, because the assistance was not all that well adapted to many businesses or economic sectors. We therefore helped the government. The government stubbornly insists on maintaining the COVID‑19 measures at airports, leading to very lengthy lines. Many people have had their entire vacations cancelled. That is completely ridiculous. There are some important things to be done about this, as well. The luxury tax imposed by the Liberals is another measure in the budget that has an impact on this sector. The owner of a flying school in my riding buys 25-, 30- or 40-year-old aircraft secondhand for teaching purposes. Planes are not toys. They can be quite expensive. Because the planes are worth more than $100,000, this man will be forced to pay a luxury tax, which means that he will have to charge all of his students more. There are some measures in this budget that make no sense. I sincerely believe that this threshold needs to be reviewed. We have proposed amendments to the legislation. Agriculture is essential to my riding. The price of gas and fuel is one thing, but the price of fertilizer has also gone through the roof in the past few months. It is unbelievable that none of the measures in the budget provide assistance for these sectors. I could go on for another 12 pages.

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Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Mar/24/22 1:21:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is so unbelievably virtuous and knowledgeable about science. If we had not moved this motion today, we would not have even had the opportunity to debate the issue of vaccine mandates. On my side of the House, we think that scientists have the right answers. Could my colleague explain why the advice of 10 Canadian provinces that have scientists working on COVID-19 is not valid?

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Context: House Hansard - 39 - Mar/2/22

Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Mar/2/22 3:05:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the tourism industry is still being affected by public health measures, and even replacing PCR tests with antigen tests will cost a lot of money for nothing because the tests still have to be certified by a health care professional. Canadians are not even taking short trips to the United States because they are worried about being exiled from their own country for 10 days or facing fines of up to $5,000. When will the government eliminate testing at the border?

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Feb/20/22 7:24:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I am seeing today, and what I have been seeing from the beginning of the debate two days ago, is that the NDP has lost its bearings concerning this motion. I am putting it politely. The NDP always stood up for all Canadians. It always defended Canadians, but today it is joining forces with the government to vote in favour of this motion. That is totally unacceptable.

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Feb/20/22 7:22:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was the first to condemn the vaccine mandate for truckers on December 15. I can assure the House that I have not changed my mind. As the hon. member for Louis-Hébert said earlier, the government used the election to sow division between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated in Canada. It is still doing so. The Liberal Party members are doing the same thing now. It was not necessary to impose this requirement on the truckers, since the government tolerated the situation for two years. The government did not present any valid studies to show that the truckers were coming into Canada with COVID. There was absolutely no need to impose this requirement.

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Feb/20/22 7:21:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. The reality is that Ottawa was under siege. We never said that it was not. The problem is that the Ottawa police and city council did not act promptly, although they had all the legislation at their disposal to undertake the operation to clear the convoy. Other provinces did so in four different places before the Emergencies Act was invoked. Everything was cleared by means of the existing laws.

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Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Feb/20/22 7:10:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are here on a rare Sunday evening in the House because this is a historic moment for Canada. We are, of course, talking about the unprecedented invocation of the Emergencies Act, a law that was introduced by Brian Mulroney's Conservative government. It has never been used to this day, because the sponsor of the act made it clear that it was meant to be used only in the event of a threat to “the ability of the Government of Canada to [manage a situation that affects the] security and territorial integrity of Canada”. There are four types of emergencies for which the Emergencies Act may be invoked: a public welfare emergency, a public order emergency, a national emergency or a war emergency. The Mulroney government adopted this new act in the 1980s because it was seeking to limit the powers not only of its own government but also of any future government, to ensure that no individual rights could be violated through the former War Measures Act. Yes, that is the act infamously invoked by Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1970, in a dramatic move that is still talked about 50 years later. Clear guidelines have been established to justify invoking a public order emergency. In our opinion, the Liberal government has not met the criteria set out in the act. That is why we will be exercising our right, as parliamentarians, to vote against confirming the proclamation issued last week by the government. Of course, as one might expect, the government argued that the trucker convoy in Ottawa had forced its hand and that resorting to emergency measures was necessary to remove them. I beg to differ. The reality is that the government does not know what it is doing. On February 11, the Prime Minister himself declared that local and provincial law enforcement had all the means necessary to respond to the situation on Wellington Street and neighbouring streets in Ottawa. However, three days later, he suddenly acted as if the house was on fire and whipped out the emergency measures without offering much by way of explanation. I invite my colleagues to consult Hansard to confirm all the questions we have asked, including calling on the government to provide justification for its decision to invoke the Emergencies Act. The government has had five days to explain itself. However, it has not been able to do so satisfactorily, as my colleague explained a few minutes ago. The order states that the federal government wants to stop Canadians from entering protest areas. However, the provinces had and still have this power, as we saw during the pandemic. As just one example, the Quebec government even split my riding in two in the spring of 2020, restricting movements from the Montmagny—L'Islet RCM to Kamouraska, with the help of the police. The Ontario government was similarly able to limit movements between certain regions, which it did. Whether one is for or against it, the fact remains that the provinces already had the power to restrict people's movements for various reasons. Since the municipalities are creatures of the provinces, the Ontario government could exercise its own powers without the federal government using the Emergencies Act. The House may recall that the Prime Minister pledged the emergency measures would be geographically targeted, but now we know they apply across the entire 5,000-kilometre breadth of this country. The government also pointed to the threat of foreign political interference to give itself the power, in this order, to deny access to any foreign national entering Canada with the intention of participating in the convoy's demonstrations. Here again, the government already has this power. Our borders have been closed to foreign nationals for almost two years, thereby preventing them from coming to Canada for any reason deemed non-essential. Even before the pandemic, travellers were required by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to justify the purpose of their trip, be it business or tourism. Any non-Canadian entering Canada as a tourist may be questioned by the Canada Border Services Agency to verify the accuracy of such a claim. If the authorities find that the purpose of the trip is other than stated, the traveller may be automatically sent back across the land border or, in the case of arrival by air, may be detained until they board a flight back to their country of origin. There is a lot of redundancy in the measures invoked in the government's proclamation. We think that they were adopted by a government in panic mode that was desperately trying to appear as though it was doing something after the negative media coverage of the truckers' blockade in Ottawa. Like all members of the House, we have seen that, over the past three weeks, there were a thousand and one reasons for the Ottawa police to take action and remove the blockade from the main road running east-west in front of the parliamentary precinct. Police could have taken action as of day one of the protest by enforcing the city's noise, idling control and parking bylaws, but nothing was done. The Ambassador Bridge blockade in Windsor had major economic impacts across the country. However, last weekend, the RCMP and OPP were able to get the situation under control by arresting protesters even before the Prime Minister invoked the Emergencies Act. There were also other protests in other parts of Canada, and all of them were dealt with using laws that were in place at the time and are still in effect. The Liberal government's argument that the convoy on Wellington Street would not have been cleared if it had not invoked the Emergencies Act simply does not hold water. Practically every protester arrested in Ottawa since Friday is currently facing charges of mischief or counselling to commit mischief, two offences that have been in the Criminal Code for years. To my knowledge, among the hundreds of individuals arrested, not one was charged with an offence under the Emergencies Act. To sum up, the government used a cannon to kill a fly. I do not want to diminish the importance of what is happening in Ottawa. On the contrary, the repercussions on the residents have been awful, as we can all agree. That being said, as Conservatives, we have serious concerns about the precedent that the government is setting by adopting coercive measures that we are simply not used to seeing in a free and democratic society. One of them is the measure to direct designated persons to render essential services such as towing. To my knowledge, the only people who can be compelled to render anything are members of the Canadian Armed Forces, under penalty of being charged with desertion. In fact, some professional bodies, such as physicians' associations, might also have their own rules of conduct. However, at no time during the pandemic did we see the federal government invoke a state of emergency or emergency legislation to get people to work overtime. With the Emergencies Act, who knows if the federal government will one day see fit to order Canadians to render services against their will. The Liberals may well say that these measures are temporary, but once the toothpaste is out of the tube, it is very hard to put it back in. We also have concerns about the Government of Canada giving itself discretionary powers to block or seize the bank accounts and credit cards of individuals who have supported the protest in recent weeks. Some of the convoy organizers may have broken Canadian laws, and they will have to answer for their actions in court, which is entirely appropriate. A judge could seize their assets and force them to pay fines and penalties to reimburse municipalities or other victims of their actions, such as businesses that were forced to close. However, this usually happens after the defendants have been through criminal or civil trials, not before. The burden of proof for those affected by these emergency measures will be reversed. The onus will be on them to prove their innocence, whereas under normal circumstances, it is the Crown that must prove their guilt. I did not donate to the convoy, and I obviously condemn the disruption caused to the residents of Ottawa, to all the businesses, to all the workers adversely affected by the closure of the Windsor-Detroit bridge, and to many others. I have to wonder whether crowdfunding sites are doing enough to verify the identity of donors, and whether it is too easy for people to donate in someone else's name. This has happened. One of my colleagues tweeted that a woman in his riding had donated $50, and now her account is frozen. She is a single mother. How is the government identifying these people? How will it sort out this mess if it turns out that these people have been falsely accused? Invoking this legislation was unnecessary. Clearly, the government screwed up and wanted to take an unnecessary step far too quickly.

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Context: House Hansard - 27 - Feb/9/22

Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Feb/9/22 4:23:13 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said it is time for the government to stop spending money, like the $100 billion in the latest budget. I believe the Parliamentary Budget Officer is an independent officer of the House of Commons. What does my colleague think of the PBO's recommendation?

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Context: House Hansard - 15 - Dec/10/21

Mr. Bernard Généreux (Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, CPC)

Dec/10/21 11:56:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Mr. Castillo and Ms. Ruel are constituents of mine in Montmagny. They were fined $10,000 on November 29 after returning from a short trip to the United States lasting less than 72 hours. First, border officials turned them away and told them to submit their ArriveCAN info. Then it was not until November 30 that they were told they had to provide a test. Government communication was extremely unclear and inadequate. Will the government be flexible when it comes to honest people who thought they were following the rules?

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Dec/8/21 9:21:53 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am glad the President of the Treasury Board rose to answer me, but unfortunately she did not answer my question. My question is very simple: Where will the money come from?

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Dec/8/21 9:21:10 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will try to be even more clear when I ask my question. The government is planning to spend $7 billion to help people in the tourism industry, all those the minister just listed. The President of the Treasury Board is unable to tell us where the money will come from. Where will that $7 billion for all those sectors come from?

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Dec/8/21 9:20:28 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I forgot to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Richmond—Arthabaska. I will ask my question again. The government introduces bills to get them passed, but we are not told where the money will come from. I want to know if it is borrowed money or money in the bank. It is a very simple question.

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Dec/8/21 9:19:39 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I do not want to insist, but I must. The bill talks about $7 billion. The Minister of Tourism cannot say what the amount is, and the President of the Treasury Board cannot say where the money will come from. My colleague from Carleton asked the Standing Committee on Finance some questions and asked where the money would come from. We were told what it might be spent on, but no one told us where the money would come from.

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Dec/8/21 9:18:59 p.m.
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Madam Chair, what I saw in the bill was $7 billion. I will ask another minister, one who has not said much yet this evening, the President of the Treasury Board, to tell us where the $7 billion is coming from to help everyone in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

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