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Oct/30/23 2:43:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is not true that the government is flexible or financially responsible. If the government were responsible, it would do everything in its power to prevent 250,000 businesses from going bankrupt. If it were responsible, it would understand that businesses pay faster when they are up and running than when they are bankrupt. If the government were responsible, it would know that the employees of these businesses are more profitable when they are working than when they are on employment insurance. If it were responsible, it would again defer the repayments and would assess every business's account to find personalized solutions. That is what it means to be responsible. Is the government not willing to try?

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May/29/23 7:52:43 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, when it comes to the wage subsidy program, the government got helping workers confused with Halloween because the Liberal Party was caught with both hands in the candy bowl. Liberal Party of Canada employees received wage subsidies. Does the minister think that the political parties that benefited from wage subsidies should have to pay taxpayers back?

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May/29/23 7:49:48 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, indeed, just over $25 billion in additional funding was put into EI during the crisis. That was a small portion of the $250 billion to $300 billion that the Government of Canada spent to help Canadians and Quebeckers during the pandemic. For the other programs, unlike EI, Quebeckers and Canadians have decided to stand in solidarity and band together to cover all of these pandemic-related expenses through the government's consolidated fund. In this case, the government is going to take another $25 billion out of the pockets of businesses and unemployed workers over the next seven years. Does the government not think that it should show solidarity and treat this spending as pandemic spending instead of dipping into people's pockets for the next seven years?

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May/29/23 7:46:39 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, during the pandemic, we saw significant gaps in the social safety net, especially Canada's social safety net, which led to the use of a set of temporary measures. Naturally, all parties quickly agreed to them. One temporary measure after another was implemented. Ultimately, these measures were poorly targeted and very costly. Although it does not want to do so for China, does the government plan to launch a public inquiry into the reasons for these gaps in our social safety net so that, in the event of another crisis, we need not reintroduce the temporary measures one by one, since we know how costly they will be for taxpayers and future generations?

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May/29/23 7:45:39 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I notice that the longer the answers are, the more they seem like a “no” in disguise. We know that during the pandemic, health care was underfunded, that there was a shortage of hospital beds that led to people being turned away, and that the pandemic measures needed to be extended. If, during the pandemic, we had had a dental plan like the one the minister is planning, how many more hospital beds would Quebec have had as a result of that dental plan?

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Context: House Hansard - 142 - Dec/6/22

May/29/23 7:41:25 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, this is the first government budget that we could describe as a postpandemic budget. Obviously no one here in Parliament is to blame for the virus. However, the programs that might have helped us to get through the pandemic at the time are the responsibility of this Parliament. We need to learn important lessons and make corrections. We also need to prepare for the next crisis that could arise. The government boasts about having signed agreements with the provinces on health. These agreements were imposed. Out of the demands that were made by the provinces and Quebec, only $1 out of $6 was granted. Before the Liberals came along, the transfers covered 24% of provincial health costs. Now they cover just 22%. With these new agreements, which are not real agreements, we are back to 24%. They are perpetuating the chronic underfunding of health. Does the minister recognize that the federal government's chronic underfunding has left us short on hospital beds and that the measures to counter the pandemic, which hurt our economy, had to be excessively extended?

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Context: House Hansard - 127 - Nov/15/22

Dec/6/22 3:12:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to make a long story short, today the Minister of National Revenue attacked a fundamental institution of the House whose primary role is to hold the government accountable. She tried to mislead the House. She was therefore out of order. Today she must rise, retract her comments and apologize.

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Context: House Hansard - 127 - Nov/15/22

Nov/15/22 6:01:12 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-293

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my colleague from Beaches—East York for introducing this bill. I must say I have a great deal of respect for that colleague. I think he is a free thinker and a top-notch parliamentarian. I noticed that even before I joined Parliament. I was waiting for the right time to tell him, and now it has come. Bill C‑293 essentially seeks to ensure that the Government of Canada is better positioned, at least in theory, to deal with future health crises and pandemics and, in some way, to learn from them. What is more, as I said earlier in my question, this bill is very proactive. It talks about establishing an advisory committee, developing a plan for the future and appointing officials to prepare contingency plans for future pandemics, although the bill provides a lot of room for that to potentially evolve in one way or another. This would also require major involvement from Health Canada, the Department of Health, and so on. I feel somewhat uneasy about this bill. Although I believe that it is well intentioned, I think that the Government of Canada already has, and did have, a large number of tools at its disposal that were not used much, if at all. I seriously wonder if we are adding another layer of red tape, more committees and all sorts of things when the recent pandemic already exposed the significant flaws in the federal apparatus. I believe that what we need at this time is a public inquiry. If we are unable to have a serious independent inquiry shed light on the serious flaws in the federal government's management of the pandemic over the past months and years, we will not be able to benefit from any new institutions, such as the ones presented in this bill. We are in a rather odd situation. We have a minority government, and we are currently in a situation where the Conservatives have asked for an independent public inquiry and the Bloc Québécois is in favour of an independent public inquiry. I also heard my NDP colleague, who asked a very good question earlier, reiterate that we should have an independent public inquiry. What is the Minister of Health's response to that? The minister says it is important to have a mechanism to hold an inquiry, but he will not say how or when. That is typical. It is like saying, someone is very sick, but I am not telling if or when I will call an ambulance; we will just hope for the best. It is like saying, we know illegal firearms are out there in Montreal, and we think that is a big deal, but we are not telling how we plan to get them off the streets or when. It is like saying, we know French is in danger in Montreal, and we think that is a big deal, but we are not telling what we plan to do to protect it or when. That is basically what the government and the Minister of Health are saying. I know that it is not the fault of my colleague who is introducing the bill. However, as parliamentarians, this puts us in a tough spot. We know that they want us to sit until midnight, that this means we will have less time in committee, and that we need to carefully select the bills we send to committee because of the behaviour of the Liberals and their friends in the NDP. This basically forces us to vote against the bill. It forces us to vote against it and tell the government to use the tools that are already at its disposal. If it has nothing to hide, then it should come clean on how it managed the pandemic. What is the solution? According to the first part of the bill, it is the creation of a committee. Actually, the solution is to immediately launch an independent public inquiry. Then there are the second and third parts, which I find problematic, particularly as a sovereignist, as a Quebecker and as a Bloc Québécois member, because they talk about a prevention plan overseen by a national coordinator. I am starting to spend a lot of time with the Standing Committee on Health, and I know that when something starts with “the federal government shall coordinate” or “the federal government shall use its leadership role”, it ends with federal legislation, spending power and conditions on our transfers. I know that if we do not do this or that, they are going to coordinate by tightening the purse strings and withholding the money. That is what coordination is, and that is what federal leadership is. I know my colleague is well intentioned, but I have a hard time believing that the tools proposed in this bill will be put to good use. The priority should be to launch a public inquiry immediately. With respect to jurisdictions, the bill states the following: “in collaboration with provincial and municipal governments, assess the public health and pandemic response capabilities of those governments”. Assessing the capabilities of provinces and municipal governments does not mean meddling in their affairs. This is complete interference. Since the Liberals have trouble looking inwards, they blame others and point fingers. This is minor interference. A public inquiry is needed because 45,000 Canadians died and there were many failures on the part of the federal government. My colleague said the pandemic should not be used to score political points or to point fingers at others. He is right, but we have been asking for accountability for quite some time now, and we never see any. I do not understand how all these new committees and institutions will be used on a permanent basis. My Conservative colleague spoke earlier about the Global Public Health Intelligence Network, an alert system that was modified in 2018, though we do not know how. It was changed by some official, and at some point in 2019, it shut down altogether, 400 days before the pandemic of the century. It is an alert network that gives us the opportunity to learn about global pandemics. The bill we are studying today proposes to establish a small committee to assess how provinces and municipalities have done their job. My colleague from Beaches—East York said earlier that we need to be prepared for the next 10, 20 and 30 years. In 1950, the national emergency stockpile was established to store pharmaceuticals, supplies, pandemic stockpiles, and so on. However, that stockpile has been systematically neglected, and since 2015, N95 masks have even been destroyed because the government got tired of storing them. Now we would be planning for the future without knowing what happened with that. We recently spoke about the infamous respirators. There were 27,148 in the stockpile, but the government ordered over 27,000. The Minister of Health told us that it was important to look out for people and plan ahead. I am getting good at imitating the health minister. In the worst-case scenario modelled by the federal government, we needed 13,500 respirators. A $237‑million contract was awarded to FTI Professional Grade, a shell company owned by a former Liberal MP. This company produced half of the surplus, or 10,000 respirators. We now have 13,000 too many, yet we need to set up small committees. Let us talk about quarantine management. Montreal had to rush its own staff over to the airport because the federal government was too incompetent. What is more, 30% of the COVID-19 tests from screening locations at airports went missing. There was no automated quarantine registry. There was no follow-up with 59% of those who were flagged as priority cases. The federal government did not follow up with or contact 14% of those it knew had tested positive for COVID-19. Screening was not done in both official languages. I will not even talk about temporary foreign workers, because there were already major problems with that program and the federal government was unable to adapt it. Then there is vaccine capacity. The government will say it ordered tons of vaccines, but as the 2003 Naylor report on what we learned from SARS revealed, Canada's production capacity is inadequate. We know we have to be more independent and capable of producing more. That report came out in 2003. The government does not want a public inquiry, and the Minister of Health has nothing of substance to say. Moreover, the government does not want to give the provinces money, even though they are the ones who will be on the front lines if ever there is another pandemic. Honestly, I respect my colleague. Truly, I do. However, I think introducing this bill at this point in time is inappropriate. The ball is in the government's court. I would like to see it use the law and the mechanisms it has to prove to us that it managed the pandemic properly. Once that is done, it might think twice before telling Quebec and the provinces how to manage things.

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Context: House Hansard - 95 - Jun/23/22

Nov/15/22 5:46:06 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-293

Mr. Speaker, I have read the bill carefully. I understand that there is a very proactive aspect to the bill, that is, setting up committees to improve processes so that we can avoid what happened in the past. The very sad reality is that the pandemic is not over. Hopefully we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but we are still very much in it. The government has made some management errors that are potentially very serious. I am surprised to see a bill like this from the Liberal Party of Canada right now, when the Liberals are the only ones in the House who are still opposed to a public inquiry into how the federal government managed the pandemic. Instead of looking 10 kilometres ahead, perhaps the Liberals should choose to look inward a bit.

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Context: House Hansard - 75 - May/19/22

Jun/23/22 1:12:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the party of the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands throws a motion in our face on Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day, while also saying that if the debate goes on too long, it will be our own fault because we talk too much. I would like to know whether the member for Joliette would prefer that the member for Kingston and the Islands speak a little less once in a while.

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Context: House Hansard - 75 - May/19/22

May/19/22 5:04:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, today we are talking about lifting restrictions. The Bloc Québécois has proposed we look at lifting the restrictions gradually, but our Conservative colleagues refuse. They want to lift all restrictions at the same time. If another wave were to come this fall, would my colleague agree to use the same method proposed in the motion and reinstate all of the measures immediately, all at the same time?

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Context: House Hansard - 52 - Apr/4/22

May/19/22 4:05:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I currently serve on the Standing Committee on Health. Two or three weeks ago, the committee heard from public health officials, including Dr. Tam. We asked her whether she thought that Canada was in the endemic phase of the pandemic, and she told us that she did not think so. My colleague says that he wants to follow the science, but I think public health officials have a lot more expertise than he does in that area. I would therefore like to ask him whether he no longer has any trust in public health experts.

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Context: House Hansard - 50 - Mar/31/22

Apr/4/22 4:41:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with your permission, I would like to share my time with the hon. member for Terrebonne. I want to begin by stressing the importance of pre-budget consultations and their particular significance this year. We are emerging from two years of a pandemic. It has been extremely difficult. Our businesses, taxpayers, workers and families have been through trying times, something quite out of the ordinary. Given those circumstances, it is more important than ever to consult our constituents, our organizations, the business community, so that we are drawing ideas from the grassroots level. I am an optimist, and I cannot wait to see the budget this Thursday. However, we are already starting to get the feeling today that things are not going well and that there is a chance we will be disappointed. Let us start with health. We know that the pandemic was very hard on the health sector. There has been a lot of focus on COVID-19 patients, COVID-19-related deaths, and long-haulers. We are there for them. It is still very hard for many people, but we cannot forget the triaging, the surgeries that had to be delayed and the families who have had to go through extremely difficult times. We have seen this in other countries. Switzerland comes to mind, for example. Certain other countries have more resilient health care systems. They were more resilient because they have been reformed. They have been reformed because funding was available and more hospital beds were available. This enabled them to do better in the pandemic and to reduce the economic costs associated with all the lockdown measures. What we need now in order to deal with future crises, to clear the backlog of surgeries, to clear all the backlogs, are health transfers with no strings attached, transfers that cover 35% of system costs. Indeed, our health care systems need to be reformed. The Quebec health minister has already presented a major reform plan, but it needs to be funded. As we know, the money is here in Ottawa. We had a long list of health care stakeholders in Quebec today. Everyone was there, including general practitioners, specialists, unions. These people are calling for health transfers with no strings attached in order to ensure predictable funding so that we can plan reforms. These are the people who work on the ground, in hospitals. These are the people who take care of others. I imagine that the budget is pretty much ready to go, that copies are being printed and bound in pretty plastic covers. When we asked the Minister of Health the question, he said that, yes, the government would be giving small amounts. I am sure the member for Winnipeg North will talk about that later. The government is handing out money, but these are ad hoc microtransfers, bits of money here and there. Then the Minister of Health expects us to thank him for that. In the meantime, he is refusing to meet with people in Quebec who take care of the sick day after day. This is one of our demands, something we need to support the budget. We are proud of that because it is what Quebeckers and others want. The federal government is the one with the money and it has to recommit. We are also asking for the Canada social transfer to be brought back to its 1993‑94 levels. The Conservatives are on their soapbox again. Last time it was about their love for Paul Martin. Today it is Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien and John Manley. They like all the Liberals who made cuts. As I have said before, starting in 1995, they merged the health and social transfers and then made repeated cuts to them. We are still not back to the same level of funding as we had before. The Canada social transfer is used for post‑secondary education, social assistance, early childhood education, and educational services. It is astounding to hear the Liberals brag about interfering in provincial jurisdictions when it comes to child care when, for years, they have not made up for any lost ground with the Canada social transfer. That should be done. It is necessary. The provincial governments are the ones providing the services. When the federal government tries, it rarely goes well. We are seeing that right now with Citizenship and Immigration. I attended and participated in the budget consultations at the Standing Committee on Finance. Before the marriage between the NDP and the Liberals was even consummated, people were already asking questions. The recommendations were presented, and we told them that they fell under provincial jurisdiction. However, they do not understand what these jurisdictions are. Last week, the member for Fredericton told me that she understands why the Bloc wants the government to stay out of provincial jurisdictions but that mental health is such an important issue that the government should intervene. I have no doubt that they are sincere, but sincerity and incompetence do not get us anywhere. What matters is money, and it needs to be given to those on the ground. Let us talk about the cost of living. As an economist, I know that the supply chain and the issues we have had are partly to blame for the inflationary pressures we are experiencing. The Conservatives are living in their own little world, where the Earth is flat and there is nothing outside our borders. I know that all these supply problems are a big source of the inflationary pressure, but there is another factor at play. Inflation has been at 2%, or between 1% and 3%, for decades, so families, businesses, governments and anyone who needs to procure goods have planned their finances around a predictable inflation rate of 2%. Everyone was taken by surprise. The most vulnerable members of society are among those who were taken by surprise. Some families are struggling to make ends meet. They are being told that this is temporary, that it will not last long. They are being told that they only have to go hungry for two years, then inflation will go back to 2%. The Bloc Québécois believes that these people need to be supported. This must be done through an increase in the GST credit when inflation is above 3%. Indeed, there is a monetary policy commitment that inflation would not exceed 3%. The frequency of cheques could also be increased. It is important to help these people, because they are struggling financially right now. Let us talk green finance. We want to see that in the budget. During question period today, the environment minister once again boasted about eliminating fossil fuel subsidies. To hear him tell it, one would think the Liberals had been in power for six months, but they have been in power since 2015. The subsidies are still there, and the government is still dumping taxpayer dollars into fossil fuels. That kind of short-term thinking is what gets the world in trouble. That kind of short-term thinking means that, when gas is $2 a litre, we will be even more dependent on it. That is what we need to work on. Our financial institutions must disclose climate risk. That is under federal jurisdiction, but the one time they do have jurisdiction over something, they do not use it. We also need to change the the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's mandate. It is clear from what the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is doing and from all the financial innovations at Desjardins that people want green investments. We have to put money toward the transition. The CPP Investment Board has come up with its own strategy. It wants to invest in carbon capture. Carbon capture does not exist, though. It is a last-ditch strategy that may one day enable us to knock out the last few units, the last few metric tonnes of emissions, but they are up to their eyeballs in oil. Let us talk about access to water. Are the Liberals proud of their legacy? The Chrétien government promised our first nations access to drinking water, Paul Martin made a commitment to that effect, and the current government keeps talking about it, but it has not happened yet, even though drinking water is essential. I will talk about farming because it is very important to my riding, Mirabel. Earlier during question period, the Minister of Agriculture told us that our farmers know how much they will be getting in compensation. Their market was stolen from them with CUSMA, but they will not be getting their money until next year. I feel like going up to every government MP and telling them that their salary is x amount, but I will not pay it until next year, so good luck with the mortgage. Those payments need to be moved up. Farmers are important. They are the ones who feed us. Farmers, especially those who are supply managed, are having a very tough time right now because of input costs. I will close by saying that expectations are high and I am very worried about the signs I am seeing.

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

Mar/31/22 11:12:01 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today's motion is so incoherent that I do not know where to start. I will begin, however, by saying that I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue. I must admit that I had to check my calendar when I read the motion. The motion contained so many contradictions that I was sure it was April 1. Let us start with point 1, concerning excessive government spending during the pandemic. Here is what I remember about the past two years. When the pandemic started and we needed to help our businesses, implement rent assistance policies for our SMEs, and create the CERB, there were discussions among the parties. Everyone around the table thought it was a good idea to take action. Everyone saw that there was a crisis and that it was urgent. It seems that the Conservatives forget things as often as they change leaders. Now, all of a sudden, they are talking about excessive spending. All of a sudden, there is absolutely no call for it. The motion mentions inflation and the carbon tax. Last week, I went to gas up in Mirabel, in my riding. I paid about $2 a litre, even though Canada is a net exporter and almost all of the oil refined in Quebec is from North America. Moreover, the “Alberta rebate” was not even displayed. Alberta benefits from increases in the price of a barrel of oil. I invite my colleagues to look at Alberta's budget, which went from a deficit to a surplus. Let us see who is benefitting. The motion contains nothing about supply chains, either. It only mentions excessive spending. It also talks about premium hikes and tax increases. The Conservative amnesia is now affecting memories from 24 hours ago. I was in the House at 6 p.m. yesterday when the hon. member for Lévis—Lotbinière proposed extending EI benefits to 52 weeks for people with a serious illness, which the Bloc Québécois supports. The Conservatives are saying they will do that, but at the same time, they are saying that we should not increase payroll taxes or employee and employer premiums. That is okay, they can be right wing. However, it bothers me as an economist when the numbers do not add up. This is absolutely incoherent. The Conservatives say one thing in English and another in French. In question period yesterday, they said in English that the carbon tax should be axed. In French, they talked about scaling back the carbon tax increase in western Canadian provinces. That is crazy. It is almost enough to make me want to be a translator. They are totally inconsistent. When I got to the motion's third point, I thought things might be looking up. The Conservatives were talking about giving Canadians breathing room, and I was glad about that because for once they were not talking about CO₂. However, there was nothing in there about the energy transition, nothing about reducing our dependence on oil even as they complain about rising prices. I personally like consistency, but the Conservatives are just as likely to say black as they are to say white. Actually, I would like to make an announcement. Liberals, New Democratic Liberals and Conservatives are all about Paul Martin and his fiscal responsibility. They talked about Paul Martin during question period yesterday and again today in my colleague's speech. Do members know what Paul Martin did? He merged the Canada health transfer with the Canada social transfer and then made cuts. He forced the provinces to deal with their deficits on their own. Do members know what that cost Quebec? It cost us ambulatory care and home care, and we are still suffering as a result. That is what Paul Martin did. It is all well and good for the Conservatives to say that they respect provincial jurisdictions, but they do not respect the underlying principle. To them, respecting provincial jurisdictions means that the money stays in Ottawa while the provinces shoulder all the responsibilities; it means starving the beast. The provinces can have their jurisdictions and starve, because they are not going to be given any transfers. I congratulate the Conservatives. I congratulate them for liking Paul Martin. Personally, I find this disturbing. We are familiar with Paul Martin's approach. We are familiar with the approach to fiscal responsibility. It is the typical federal approach. We know that the important responsibilities fall to the provinces and that when citizens like me need services, they never turn to the federal government, unless they need a passport. They seek help from the health care system, the education system or the child care system. All of those areas fall under provincial jurisdiction. Like the Liberals, the Conservatives tell themselves that, in order to be popular and win elections, they need to get involved in a certain issue because it is important, even though they have no jurisdiction in that area. Once in power, the Liberals got involved in mental health. They appointed a Minister of Mental Health. They have never run a hospital, but they appointed a minister. In Quebec, we are in favour of the child care system; we have had one for more than 20 years. However, if the Bloc had not been there and there had not been an election, the federal government would have imposed its conditions on us and told us what to do in an area in which we have more than 20 years of expertise. That would be like taking driving lessons from someone who does not have a driver's licence. What could go wrong? We are in favour of dental insurance, of course, but it is not in their jurisdiction. As far as the property tax is concerned, the Liberals say it will generate $700 million. In reality, it will generate just $600 million, but that amount does not include the cost of implementing the new tax. Universal medicare is an intrusion by the NDP into provincial jurisdictions. It does not bother the NDP one bit to meddle in our territory. There are all kinds of offices and commissioners for this and that, but in the end, there are always conditions that are imposed. The Liberals are so unfamiliar with provincial affairs that they need to create offices to fine out how to impose conditions. Let us talk about microtransfers and programs for small conditional transfers. Quebec has come to realize that being accountable to a federal government that knows nothing about the issue is so costly that it is almost better to turn down the money. The federal government is interfering more and more in provincial jurisdictions. Now our Conservative friends are talking about fiscal responsibility and the need to reduce taxes because there are too many. I cannot wait to see a Conservative finance minister. The Conservatives can balance a budget without decreasing spending or increasing revenues. I do not know if any of them have ever taken any accounting courses, but I would be curious to see their résumés. Let me get back to the cuts. What are they doing? They are taking the path of least resistance and cutting transfers, like Mr. Harper did. The Liberal government is more subtle. It is not indexing the transfers; it is letting the population age and the system costs increase by 4%, 5%, 6% or 7%, with no indexation. They are letting the water get up to our chins, and they think we will not notice. That is exactly what they are doing. This is not fiscal responsibility, it is poor federalism. It is populism, and it shows a lack of respect for the provinces. We are still waiting for the Conservatives to support our request to increase health transfers to 35% of system costs. What we are saying is that we need to offer solutions to the crisis and to inflation. Let us start with seniors' purchasing power. We need to help our seniors, who are waiting for a cheque. What did we do this week? We debated a motion to undertake a study on seniors' finances, among other things. When I am at my riding office, I never get calls from seniors telling me that prices are going up, that they cannot afford groceries and that we should conduct a study. No one has ever said that to me, but the House decided to conduct a study anyway. What the government is doing is putting seniors' concerns on the back burner. It never puts forward any suggestions. Farmers and truckers are facing increases in the price of gas. Alberta is not going to do them any favours. We need a program to help them, but there is nothing there. People buying groceries need direct financial support. It could come in the form of better indexation of the GST credit or more frequent cheques. That would cost the government peanuts, but there is absolutely nothing about that. We need to strengthen the weak links in the supply chain, but there is nothing about that, either. There is absolutely nothing about the housing crisis. As my colleague said earlier, there is a problem with the supply of housing, but there is nothing about that. Now the Conservatives are talking about fiscal responsibility. They are saying that the spending is not their fault, because they were not in power during the pandemic, they were not at the table and they had nothing to do with it. I have news for them: We are in the sixth wave of the pandemic, and we are not out of the woods yet. What they call fiscal responsibility, I call magical thinking. Personally, I will listen to what the Conservatives have to say once the budget is balanced.

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

Mar/24/22 1:08:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, given the rough week that the member for Winnipeg North has had, I can understand why he is so energetic and impassioned here today. We are calling for a plan and for more predictability with respect to health measures. This will help maintain social cohesion. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on the idea of a flexible plan that would enable us to look forward and provide some predictability surrounding the measures.

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Context: House Hansard - 36 - Feb/21/22

Mar/24/22 11:50:04 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am looking at the work we have to do. The cultural sector is in need of assistance, the employment insurance regime is in need of reform and health transfers need to be paid, yet today we are debating the opposition motion. When the Liberals brought up vaccines during the election campaign, they cast their line. Since then, the Liberals have been reeling it in and the Conservatives are the fish flopping around. In the meantime, we are not getting our job done. Could my colleague tell us what we could be working on for Quebeckers and Canadians if the Liberals had not politicized the vaccination issue?

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Context: House Hansard - 36 - Feb/21/22

Feb/21/22 4:50:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will start by commending my colleague for his political courage. The member started his speech by talking about our individual responsibilities as legislators in this evening's vote. By making this a confidence vote, the Prime Minister is doing two things. First, he is preventing members of his own caucus, like the member himself, from voting according to their conscience. Second, he is preventing the NDP from voting according to its conscience without triggering another useless election. I heard my colleague correctly. I respect his position, but I would like to know whether, despite their moral contract to vote the same way on emergency and special measures, the Liberals will make an exception for my colleague.

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Context: House Hansard - 36 - Feb/21/22

Feb/21/22 1:23:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, during the debates of the past few days, which I diligently attended, Liberal MPs have mentioned that the application of the Emergencies Act was necessary for the police force of Quebec, the Sûreté du Québec, to be present in Ottawa. I looked into this over the past two days, and this appears to be false. It is enough to swear them in, which has been done in the past. If the Emergencies Act was so necessary, and if democratic safeguards are so important, then why did members of the minister's own caucus feel the need to mislead the House?

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