- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- Bloc Québécois
- Montarville
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 59%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $115,582.71
- Government Page
- Mar/29/22 11:48:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would simply like to reiterate that this government claims that it has a mechanism in place to quickly take in a large number of refugees.
First off, the word “quickly” is inaccurate, since there is nothing quick about it. As for “large numbers”, we have only to look at what happened in Afghanistan, since history tends to repeat itself. The government promised to take in 40,000 Afghan refugees, but fewer than 10,000 have made it here so far.
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- Mar/29/22 11:42:28 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I touched on that a little in the answer I just gave my Liberal colleague.
It is obvious to us that the federal government cannot hide behind the intake mechanisms of Quebec and the provinces to explain its own indolence in this matter. If, as my colleague so aptly suggested, the federal government feels that it cannot bring in Ukrainian refugees if they do not have the necessary support to come here, then it should give them that support. After all, the government spent two years loosening the purse strings for anything and everything.
Why is the government being so stingy when it comes to Ukrainian refugees? Rather than loosening the purse strings again, why is the government asking the provinces and Quebec to cover the cost of welcoming these refugees? If the federal government will not do it, then, as I said before, Quebec will.
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- Mar/29/22 11:19:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I must admit that I am a bit surprised by the direction this debate has taken. Frankly, I was not expecting that there would be so much agreement on this motion. I listened to our Liberal colleague's passionate speech and I found myself wondering what, exactly, we disagree on. I took another look at the motion we are debating today.
It states, and I quote:
That the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration report the following to the House: We (a) condemn the unwarranted and unprovoked attack on Ukraine, which was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, a clear violation of international law....
Unless I am mistaken, we all appear to agree on this part, so that is clearly not where the issue is.
I will continue reading the motion, as follows:
(b) call on the Government of Canada to support Ukrainians and people residing in Ukraine who are impacted by this conflict and ensure that it is prepared to process immigration applications on an urgent basis without compromising needs in other areas....
It states, “on an urgent basis without compromising needs in other areas”. Perhaps this is where things start to become problematic, but it seems to me that the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration set out an important parameter in this second point, so I do not think that should be the case. What then do the Liberals have a problem with?
In the next point, it states:
(c) implement visa-free travel from Ukraine to Canada, including by the rapid issuance of an electronic travel authorization (eTA), and increase staffing resources so that the existing backlog for all immigration streams is not further impacted by this humanitarian crisis.
Before I comment on that, I would like to point out the extraordinary work that our colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean has done on this file. Unfortunately, he is unable to be with us today because he is being cautious, I would say.
I applaud his work. Point (c), which calls on the government to “implement visa-free travel from Ukraine to Canada”, was the initial proposal. My colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean and our Liberal colleagues, among others, added “including by the rapid issuance of an electronic travel authorization”. Rather than eliminate visas entirely, this at least maintains the requirement for an electronic travel authorization. That does not seem to be good enough for our Liberal friends, who were the only committee members to vote against the motion despite the requirement introduced by our colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean.
Point (c) goes on to say: “increase staffing resources so that the existing backlog for all immigration streams is not further impacted by this humanitarian crisis”.
Are we to understand, based on our colleague's fiery speech, that the Liberals have no intention of increasing resources? Are they saying that they think we have enough staff to handle this kind of situation?
If so, that is worrisome, to put it mildly. The outcome of the federal government's efforts to welcome Afghan refugees is a clear indication that performance has been underwhelming so far.
The Liberals promised to welcome 40,000 Afghan refugees. Fewer than 10,000 have made it to Canada so far. This means that, despite the best intentions, if the means and resources are not there, those intentions will not translate into concrete results.
We do not need to wait another three months to reach this conclusion. We already know that. We only have to look at what happened with the Afghan refugees to realize that not deploying the necessary resources means that we will not achieve the objectives set. Exactly the same thing is likely to happen with Ukrainian refugees.
What, then, is the government's problem? Is it related to the call for visa-free travel, while maintaining the compromise and fallback proposal made by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, namely, maintaining the requirement for electronic travel authorization?
Is that the problem on the Liberal side, or do they have a problem with the second part of point (c), that is, the call to “increase staffing resources so that the existing backlog for all immigration streams is not further impacted by this humanitarian crisis”? Frankly, if that is really the sticking point, then that worries me, to say the least.
The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship and the parliamentary secretary quite rightly recognized that my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean is working very hard with them on this file. He is our citizenship and immigration critic, and from the outset, he was prepared to find solutions, collaborate and co-operate.
The Liberals are not really used to that. The Prime Minister stated that things have been very tense in Parliament and that it is paralyzed, unresponsive and dysfunctional. However, what the Prime Minister may not have understood is that since the election, the Bloc Québécois has constantly repeated that it is willing to work constructively with the government. That is what motivated our colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean to respond proactively to the significant humanitarian crisis under way in Ukraine. He came up with proposals.
His first proposal was a three-year extension of the work and student visas of Ukrainians already in Canada. The government acted quickly on that point. We commend and applaud it. That is wonderful. This was a Bloc Québécois proposal that quickly received a favourable response from the government. When this government is determined to act and takes its head out of the sand, it can do things quickly.
The second proposal put forward by my colleague from Lac‑Saint‑Jean was to drop the visa requirement. This suggestion did not go anywhere and quickly faced obstacles. We then realized that the government did not really want to drop this requirement.
As the leader of the Bloc Québécois pointed out, thousands of people are entering via Roxham Road without presenting any travel document, visa or biometric test whatsoever. During the entire pandemic, it was proven that it is possible to close off that route. The government has now decided to reopen the floodgates and has no security concerns about doing it. People are streaming in, no problem. The Prime Minister is rolling out the welcome mat for them.
However, the same does not seem to apply to the poor Ukrainians who are fleeing their country, which has been unjustly invaded by Russia. The government said it would speed up the process, but it took weeks just to announce that accelerated process, which, by all accounts, is not that much faster anyway.
Let us put ourselves in the shoes of these poor Ukrainian women, who are the most likely to have taken refuge in Poland, Moldova or Romania. They would love to come to Canada and get as far away from the conflict as possible.
Canada is asking them to fill out an application for a temporary resident visa, which, according to experts, can take up to three hours for someone who is proficient in English or French. These people are unlikely to be proficient in English or French, but they are still required to fill out the form or else they will not be allowed in.
Then, these people need to set up a meeting at one of the visa application centres to submit their biometrics. I remind members that this is an emergency and we need to get a huge number of people here, but they are being asked to show up between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. or between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. if they want to be able to come over here.
On top of that, they are required to pay $185 in fees, even though some are destitute. They are still being asked to cough up the money. The government says that it will refund the fees, but these people still need to pay up front without knowing when or how the money will be refunded.
These are the documents that the government requires: bank statement, official ID, passport and travel insurance. However, I am not sure that people took the time, especially if their house was destroyed, to collect all their documents thinking that the Canadian government might ask for them. Will these people take the time to search through the rubble of their homes for their passports and bank statements? What the government is asking the Ukrainian refugees to produce so they can access the fast-track procedure is not necessarily possible.
I will point out that, to date, of the 40,000 Afghans we promised to take in, we have only welcomed 8,580 so far. There is therefore cause to worry about this fast-track procedure when it comes to visas because, in any case, it has not worked that well so far, whatever the measures implemented by the government.
As for visa-free travel, there seems to be a security concern eating away at the government: It is afraid that some nasty Russians could sneak in. I figure that those who sneak in will not be on site to fight the Ukrainians, but that is another story.
The government is very concerned about security. However, no fewer than 91 countries are allowing Ukrainians to cross their borders without a visa. I guess these 91 countries do not have the same security concerns as Canada.
Also, the government told us that it could not really lift the visa requirement because it would take 12 weeks to adapt the IRCC’s computer system. The IRCC minister said that himself. Perhaps if it had started earlier, it would be about ready to remove the visa requirement.
I would like to point out that, like Canada, Ireland normally does not authorize Ukrainian nationals to enter the country without a visa. However, Ireland was able to lift the requirement in a few hours, rather than a few days or weeks. How is it that Ireland can do in a few hours what Canada can only do in 12 weeks?
Rather than working on allowing visa-free travel, IRCC has worked very hard for weeks to implement the fast-track process I just described. Perhaps it should have gotten off its butt and worked on immediately lifting the visa requirement? I think that would have been the right thing to do.
The government seems to be paralyzed by the security issue, so we proposed another approach. Since the government thinks the biometrics are absolutely necessary for security reasons, we wondered whether we could avoid doing the biometric scans over there, quickly and safely bring the refugees to Canada, and then do the biometrics here. This still seems to be too complicated, though, since the government flatly opposed this other proposal from my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean.
Since the Bloc is always in solution mode, we proposed a humanitarian airlift. We figured that we could ask Canadian airlines for help and they would be only too happy to oblige. For instance, Air Transat has already raised its hand and said it was prepared to send planes if the Government of Canada was interested.
The Minister of International Development told us that his government wants to charter flights for medical assistance, instead of using Canadian Armed Forces planes. Air Transat raised its hand and asked what it could do. We do not know what the holdup is, but we are still looking for the answer. There is no holdup anymore, since Air Transat is prepared to volunteer. It said so publicly. The government has not yet understood that Air Transat is prepared to do it, free of charge, believe it or not.
However, there seems to be some issue with the idea of arranging a humanitarian airlift by chartering planes to Poland and flying them back full of Ukrainian refugees who could quickly find refuge and safety in Canada and Quebec.
I guess some people are wondering whether the planes are going to fly there empty. It would be expensive for them to fly there empty and return to Canada with people aboard.
My colleague from Drummond had a brilliant idea. He said that we did not have to fly the planes empty because the Ukrainian Canadian Congress is working like mad to collect essential supplies. It has gathered tons of supplies from all over the place, and it is running out of room to store them. We are asking that it charter flights to ship the items to Poland and neighbouring countries.
We could organize a humanitarian airlift by filling the planes with the supplies gathered thanks to the generosity of Canadians and Quebeckers. We could fill these planes up, send them to Poland and bring them back full of people. We could fill them with Ukrainian refugees. However, apparently, that is still too complicated. This was another proposal made by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean, and it got a flat no.
So far, the Canadian government has ignored the proposal to set up a humanitarian airlift, yet I find this proposal extremely reasonable.
The government is losing nothing by waiting, since my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean is still looking for positive proposals. It can rest assured that he will continue to make proposals in the coming days and weeks. He will not give up in the face of the government's indolence. I had the opportunity to chat with him before coming here, and I know that he is looking for new solutions, that he is not done suggesting ideas.
I am having a hard time understanding our colleague's inflamed, even incensed, response to the Conservatives' proposal. All in all, it is a very reasonable proposal. Personally, I see it as the Conservatives making an effort to reach across the aisle. The Bloc Québécois is always reaching across the aisle.
How can there be a partisan debate on a motion like this one? It is just bad faith to play partisan politics with this issue and reproach the Conservatives for having dared to ask that the House concur in the report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.
The Liberals see it as heresy, but it is no such thing. I read out the motion. Unless our colleague is saying that he does not want to condemn the unjustified attack or that he does not want to support the Ukrainians, we can only conclude that the problem is that we are asking the government to waive visas, while maintaining the requirement for an electronic travel authorization, which was a compromise, an alternative solution, proposed by my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean. The government is unwilling to add more staff to process applications. That is the government's real problem. That is why it reacted in such an inflamed and incensed manner to the Conservatives' perfectly reasonable motion. The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the motion.
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- Mar/3/22 11:12:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to point out that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Repentigny.
Today, we are being asked once again to participate in a very important debate on the situation unfolding in Ukraine. To present the Bloc Québécois's position on the Conservative motion, I would like to read it point by point.
The member for Wellington—Halton Hills is proposing “That the House: (a) condemn President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation for their unprovoked, illegal attack and invasion of Ukraine”.
We completely agree with point (a). However, we were expecting that, a little later, they would make suggestions about possible additional sanctions to punish Vladimir Putin and Russia for the unprovoked and illegal invasion of Ukraine. We were also expecting them to propose additional sanctions on the oligarchs.
The member then suggests that the House “(b) stand with Ukraine, the people of Ukraine and Canadians in the Ukrainian community”.
Again, no one could be against that. We have said many times over that we stand with the people of Ukraine. We are not going to stop standing with them now. We would have liked to see some proposals, though. What more can we do on top of the humanitarian assistance we have already sent to support the people of Ukraine? Will the government increase the $10 million cap it set to match the donations Canadians make to the Red Cross? We are waiting to hear.
Will the government lift the visa requirements that are still in place for Ukrainian refugees? These people are fleeing with a small suitcase, can barely find a place to sleep, and yet they are being asked to fill in 14 copies of forms in a language that is probably not their first language. They also have to pay fees to be able to seek refuge in Canada. As the Bloc Québécois leader said, Canada is allowing people to cross the border at Roxham Road without a visa but cannot lift the visa requirement for Ukrainian refugees.
We were expecting the Conservative motion to propose ways to meaningfully demonstrate our solidarity with Ukraine, the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian Canadians. We then jumped to point (c) thinking that we would see proposals for sanctions to punish Russia, Vladimir Putin and the oligarchs who support him. We expected to see proposals in point (c) to help Ukrainians, Ukraine and our fellow Canadians of Ukrainian origin, but no. What then did we find in point (c)?
It suggests that the House “(c) call on the Government of Canada to undertake measures to ensure new natural gas pipelines can be approved and built to Atlantic tidewater, recognizing energy as vital to Canadian and European defence and security, allowing Canadian natural gas to displace Russian natural gas in Europe, and being consistent with environmental goals in the transition to non-emitting sources of energy”.
If that is not a basely self-serving argument, I do not know what is. Honestly, even if we decided to go that route and build pipelines, despite the fact that it would first of all go against the idea that we need to phase out fossil fuels, the conflict would, hopefully, be long over by then.
What would be the purpose then, other than to export the dirty oil produced in western Canada? It would have no other purpose, because our German friends cannot rely on Canadian oil and gas to replace Russian oil. That is a bogus argument. What we find in point (c) is a bad idea masquerading as a solution.
More than that, it is an idea that would hurt Ukrainians. Why?
This morning, our friend Paul Journet, in La Presse, reported that some oil companies in western Canada are owned by Russian oligarchs who are still free from Canadian government sanctions.
I would have expected the Conservatives to tell us that they are also going to impose sanctions on the oligarchs who hold shares in western Canadian gas companies. No, they are not proposing sanctions against these oligarchs.
However, if we help these oligarchs, we are helping Russia and therefore hurting Ukraine. This contradicts points (a) and (b) in the motion that the House “condemn President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation for their unprovoked, illegal attack and invasion of Ukraine” and that we “stand with Ukraine, the people of Ukraine and Canadians in the Ukrainian community”.
What the Conservatives are proposing means giving more cash to Russian oligarchs who have shares in western Canadian oil companies. Is that how we want to help Ukrainians? Is that the great idea of our Conservative friends to help Ukrainians?
All the Conservatives want to do is help their oil industry, period. There is no other explanation.
I can name names. How about Roman Abramovitch, who owns 28% of Evraz, which supplies steel for pipelines? That is interesting. How about Igor Makarov, Coastal GasLink's primary shareholder? These are oligarchs who are still dodging sanctions, and we would sure like to know why the Government of Canada has not yet imposed sanctions on them.
If only the Conservatives had put forward the idea of punishing these oligarchs too. Let me reiterate: The chief of staff for Alexei Navalny gave the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development a list of oligarchs who should be sanctioned, and that was long before the invasion of Ukraine. We had that list. The Government of Canada had that list. When will it impose sanctions on all those oligarchs?
Today, the Conservatives actually want us to send more cash their way and help them help Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine. We wholeheartedly agree with parts (a) and (b) of the motion, but how could we possibly support the part (c) the Conservatives have put forward in this motion? Never in a million years would we support that kind of thing because supporting the Conservatives' proposal would hurt Ukraine.
If the Conservatives had been the slightest bit reasonable and honest in their desire to help, given the climate crisis as well, they would have said that this proposal will need to be accompanied by energetic measures, no pun intended, to undertake the green transition and significantly reduce the amount of oil and gas in our economy. Once again, they come up with no such proposal. They are simply proposing that we consume even more oil and gas and export it to other countries so they can continue consuming it, which runs completely counter to the idea that we need to start the transition immediately.
Allow me to reiterate: The Bloc Québécois is voting against this motion. We take no pleasure in doing so, but we have no choice. My colleague from Repentigny will most certainly provide even more reasons why, from an environmental perspective, the Bloc Québécois cannot subscribe to a motion like this one.
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- Feb/28/22 10:13:51 p.m.
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Madam Chair, God knows how much I wanted to believe in peace. I still believe in it today, because there is no other way out besides peace. We must remain hopeful that these rather strange negotiations currently taking place will bring an end to this conflict, and the suffering it is causing, as quickly as possible.
We must remember that during the previous take-note debate on the situation in Ukraine, our party and the government had some differences of opinion about the imminence of the conflict. Of course, those differences of opinion did nothing to prevent the conflict from breaking out. Ukraine has been unfairly attacked by Russia.
I told the Minister of Foreign Affairs that if conflict were to break out, the government could count on the full support of the Bloc and that we would stand in solidarity in terms of our desire to punish Russia and show our full support for the people of Ukraine. There is solidarity among us in the House, exemplary solidarity among the allies, and solidarity with the Ukrainian people, whose courage and resilience are truly admirable.
On Saturday, some colleagues and I met with Ukrainian colleagues. We spent a few minutes with some of them. One of our colleagues told us that the president and the deputies would stay in the capital. It would have been so easy for those parliamentarians to go back to their constituencies, to return to their families and the people they represent, but this is symbolic of how courageous Ukrainians are in the face of adversity, in the face of this unequal combat they are confronted with.
We simply have no choice but to support the Ukrainian people, first because this country is home to the world's third-largest Ukrainian community. These are people we connect with daily, who have family over there. We share and feel their anguish, their sadness, their concern.
We have no choice but to support the Ukrainian people because they have been subjected to an unfair attack that is also an attack against democracy, against freedom, against us.
Finally, we have no choice because the courage that the Ukrainian people are showing compels us to support them. We, by which I mean the Government of Canada and the west in general, have so far deployed a battery of measures to punish Russia, but also to punish Belarus, which has been complicit in the invasion of Ukraine. I mentioned today that we might want to take that a bit further.
As I said earlier, the Russians would not be at the gates of Kyiv if President Lukachenko had not allowed Russia to use his territory as a base to attack Ukraine from the north.
I have to say that I was, quite frankly, impressed by the speed and vigour of the response by western countries. I must admit that I had doubts. In the early hours of the invasion, we were hearing some reactions from Europe. Certain countries were saying that some of their companies should be excluded from sanctions, and that if Russian banks were banned from SWIFT they would have a hard time conducting transactions. It was starting to look like there might be a chink in the armour, which was worrying, but the west pulled itself together and the allies took action. We have to admire how quickly and strongly countries have responded, but there is still a lot to do.
I heard our Green Party colleague talk about certain oligarchs. Leonid Volkov, who is Alexei Navalny's chief of staff, appeared before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade and told us that we needed to take action. He gave us a list of oligarchs who should be sanctioned. Several of those on the list have still not been sanctioned.
I am pleased to hear my colleagues in government tell us that everything is on the table. If the government decides to move forward with this, it will continue to have our support, because we must do more. We cannot tolerate this unacceptable aggression towards Ukraine.
We must definitely provide all our support to the Ukrainian people, as we have started doing. This means providing military equipment, non-lethal as well as lethal. Ukrainians need it, as they are facing the second largest army on the planet. We are also talking about foodstuffs, drugs and medical equipment. We must rise to the challenge and give Ukrainians what they need.
We must also welcome Ukrainian refugees. There are currently half a million of them gathered in neighbouring countries, and they are asking for help. The leader of the Bloc Québécois pointed out that if we can accept people at Roxham Road without a visa, why should we continue to enforce entrance formalities for Ukrainian refugees and make them complete all the formalities for receiving a visa? We must remove these requirements and make it easier for Ukrainians who wish to find refuge in Canada, temporarily or permanently, to enter our country.
We have to cut Russian propaganda off at the knees by removing Russia Today from Canadian airwaves. Speaking of Russian propaganda, the Russian people need to be informed. I cannot help but be amazed at the thousands of people in the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other Russian cities risking arrest the moment they hit the streets to protest this war against a people that did nothing to deserve it, a people whose destiny they have shared for over 75 years.
Many Russians do not understand, and many of those who do not understand are speaking out against what they feel is unacceptable. How many Russian families will be bereaved? How many soldiers' bodies will be returned to their families as casualties of an unjust conflict?
As I said today, there may be hope in the Russia that is making itself heard today despite pressure from the powers that be.
In addition, as we heard from—
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- Dec/7/21 5:58:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague just asked me a really big question. I want to thank him for that.
We can see it with the Russian troops massing on the border with Ukraine. We can see that a number of countries that do not necessarily share our values may have interpreted the coalition's withdrawal from Afghanistan as a sign of weakness and may seek to take advantage of that supposed weakness to impose their views.
We certainly have to pay close attention to what is currently happening in Europe, but we also have to pay close attention to what is happening in Asia. I think one of the biggest challenges facing western countries in the relatively near future is the situation in Taiwan. I actually think the People's Republic of China, like Russia, sees the West as weak and a failure. They may believe they are in a position of strength vis-à-vis the western nations.
We will most certainly have to ask ourselves some serious questions sooner rather than later, perhaps some of the toughest questions we have had to ask ourselves in many years.
What happened and is happening in Afghanistan is bound to have consequences. It is linked to what is happening and likely to happen with the world order that is currently being established.
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- Dec/7/21 5:56:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with my colleague. I think that when we must intervene or are called upon to intervene we must do so in a timely fashion.
I also agree with him that Afghanistan, which is currently under Taliban rule, is not the same Afghanistan that the Taliban controlled when the international coalition intervened. This intervention by the international coalition is likely the reason why the Afghanistan of today is not the same one that the Taliban controlled when we first intervened.
I agree that we should be optimistic, but we must also take a realistic look at which aspects of our intervention were successful and which aspects were more or less appropriate.
Yes, we must intervene, but we must also find the best way to do so.
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- Dec/7/21 5:54:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I suspect that my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie is aware of the speech I gave to the Parliamentary Assembly to the Council of Europe a few days after the election this September, in which I spoke about the repercussions and implications of the conflict in Afghanistan. I spoke about how it is often very difficult to make fundamental changes through military intervention alone, especially when the countries working to drive out the Taliban are dealing with a cultural context that is so different from their own.
It was clearly a resounding failure, as I pointed out in my speech, when I spoke about how the Taliban that we chased out has now reclaimed power in Afghanistan. We did all of that work and people were killed and injured for virtually no reason. We must reflect on what kind intervention is possible and on how to intervene in other countries when we want to bring about fundamental social changes.
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- Dec/7/21 5:51:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his kind wishes and his question.
I want to say two things in response to that question. First, I believe I said that the amendment we moved sought to remove any attempt to make the motion a partisan exercise.
Second, I also had the opportunity to say that we had a Standing Committee on National Defence, a Standing Committee on Immigration and Citizenship and a Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs.
However, we must not take a compartmentalized approach to studying this multi-faceted issue. On the contrary, we need a comprehensive perspective to ensure we are not just studying bits and pieces without seeing the big picture. Seeing the tree is all well and good, but it is important to see the forest too, and I believe that is what this committee will enable us to do.
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- Dec/7/21 5:50:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have no idea.
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