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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Luc Thériault

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Bloc Québécois
  • Montcalm
  • Quebec
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $126,025.95

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 195 - May/11/23
Mr. Luc Thériault
  • May/11/23 4:50:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is not a good look on a party that calls itself progressive. As I was saying, these are the objective and subjective criteria for a nation to be born. The people of Quebec form a nation. Unfortunately, this recognition here is only symbolic. Indeed, the rest of Canada has always refused to enshrine that in the Constitution, to give it a legal effect. That is why Bill 101 was necessary and was passed in 1977, although we were told it was a Hitlerian law. The Quebec nation continues to speak French today thanks to this law. At the end of the 1990s, I was saying that the use of French was declining. I kept saying that there would be an accelerated decline of French in Montreal. I was called a language zealot. Today, on both sides of the House, they are trying to change the Official Languages Act while still considering the Quebec English-speaking community as a minority. We are now paying the price for what happened in 1982. What happened in 1982? Why has no Quebec premier, whether sovereignist or federalist, ever signed the Canadian Constitution since 1982? That is because, in 1982, we were deprived of our nationhood and minority status, quite simply. Who forms the minority? According to the anglophones in Quebec, they do. If, indeed, the Canadian Constitution is built on the idea that there are 10 equal territories and that minority rights are protected, where do the rights of francophone Quebeckers fit in? Francophones are the minority in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Maritimes. Although they are a minority on the continent and in Canada, francophones are the majority in Quebec, which means they have no rights. That is how it was presented to the UN. What did the UN say to Howard Galganov? It said that the so-called English-speaking minority in Quebec was not a minority, but a community that was part of the Canadian and continental majority. These things need to be remembered because I feel that, from one election to the next, historical and sociological references get lost. I would like to say to my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie that Quebec is asking to have its differences recognized and respected. As long as it is searching for recognition and respect of those differences, it cannot deny any other the same recognition and respect of its differences. That is why, when people arrive in Quebec, we want to be able to welcome them in dignity. Dignity is not what multiculturalism has achieved over the years, by ghettoizing differences, turning these people into cheap labour, making them incapable of earning a decent living, even though some of them hold several degrees. Juxtaposing cultures is not what will allow us to live together in harmony. I would like to highlight what Boucar Diouf, our national Boucar, has to say about this. On the subject of multiculturalism, he said, “It is impossible to live together without truly embodying the word ‘together’.” Madam Speaker, I think members are talking a bit too loudly across the way.
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Context: House Hansard - 93 - Jun/21/22
Mr. Luc Thériault (Montcalm, BQ)
  • Jun/21/22 6:40:40 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-21 
Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, the member said that Bill C‑21 does not target hunting rifles and that hunters are capable of managing their firearms responsibly. This bill, however, is a half measure. The member said people should feel safe. As a member from the Island of Montreal, he knows that there are neighbourhoods where people no longer feel safe. Does he agree that Bill C‑21, while it may be a step in the right direction, should have gone much further and should have included stricter control at the border and joint efforts to fight organized crime and smuggling as well as the registry we have been talking about for weeks that could have given us more control over smuggling and made Montreal's streets safer?
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