- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Mirabel
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,073.56
- Government Page
- Mar/29/23 5:34:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we look at the debt and the deficit, we have to look at it in proportion to the ability to pay. Any banker who is asked for a $2,000 or $3,000 loan does not treat someone with an annual income of $10,000 the same as someone with an income of $50,000 or $100,000. The same applies to people with assets and people with no assets.
The first thing to look at is the debt-to-GDP ratio. The Conservatives go from dollars, which they call nominal, when it suits them, to the ratio when that suits them. A little consistency would be nice. Beyond that, public finances have to be looked at as a whole. It is important to be concerned about both the deficit and the federal debt, but if the provinces are going broke in the meantime and they have to borrow money, or choose between borrowing money and caring for their residents, that has to be taken into account.
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- Mar/29/23 5:33:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no need to get angry.
My colleague started by telling me that the government is good at administering programs, and he spoke about employment insurance. I hope that the government will not dip into the dental care fund as it did with the EI fund, because it is not doing a good job of administering that.
Health care is a provincial jurisdiction and an area where the federal government often shows its incompetence. We know that from experience. What the Government of Quebec is saying is that health is important to us and that existing programs must be improved.
What Quebec is saying is that birthing rooms remain closed, there is a lack of palliative care, cancers are going undiagnosed, emergency rooms in the regions are struggling to stay open, and mental health services are unavailable. We are not saying that dental care is not important, but rather that the NDP is using this issue for electoral purposes. We see that clearly. That said, as public decision-makers, we must set our priorities. The NDP is making the next election its priority.
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- Mar/29/23 5:31:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, last week, the member for Kingston and the Islands tweeted so much misinformation that Twitter had to put a warning notice on his post. I just realized that the Liberals are okay with that way of doing things. That way of doing things has spread from Kingston to Outremont.
I am going to set the record straight on a number of things. We never said that everything in the budget was bad. However, we made very clear, specific pre-budget requests. In a budget, there is what is included and what is missing. Are the Liberals telling me that it is okay to refuse to grant health care transfers, to reject our seniors and to leave half of unemployed workers out in the cold? Are they telling me that all those things are okay? In any case, that is clearly what the member for Outremont is saying. The member for Outremont is rejecting the needs of Quebec, and that makes me sad.
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- Mar/29/23 5:18:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on February 14, I wished the NDP and the Liberals a Happy Valentine's Day. Today, to look at the budget document we have before us, I think that the union has been consummated. It is clear.
What we learn from reading the budget document, which was summed up well by my colleague from Joliette, is that the federal government has a tremendous amount of means and that, with the help of the NDP, which is not surprising, it is having a hard time spending and investing those means wisely in the priorities of people on the ground who are dealing with real problems when it comes to employment insurance, seniors' return to work, or health. There is absolute disparity between the government's financial capacity and the real needs on the ground. It is not for nothing that when the Liberals toss $4 billion to provinces that are asking for $28 billion and tell them to accept it or get nothing, they have the nerve to stand up and say that it is an agreement. They have the nerve to do that. I know that they are not lying. They believe themselves and that is even worse.
The budget document is clear. It seems to be very much like what the Parliamentary Budget Officer described, and my colleague put it well. It states that, in 25 years, if we include the new financial commitments, Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio will be zero even in the worse case scenario. There is no other industrialized country that plans to reduce its debt-to-GDP ratio to zero, which means that there will be no debt, without looking after its people. No other developed country is doing that.
There is fiscal flexibility in the budget. The Parliamentary Budget Office has done the calculations. Those people are paid to provide Parliament with information. They are competent. They are quite right in saying that as the government eliminates its debt over time, the provinces will find themselves in more and more trouble, and that when the federal debt is eliminated, the provinces will be technically bankrupt.
The federal government tells us that there is no fiscal imbalance because this year, the current year, some provincial governments are running small surpluses while the federal government has a $40-billion deficit. All of this is without recognizing that the problems we are experiencing in health care today are the same problems that could not be solved 25 years ago when the Liberals began cutting the transfers. By repeating the same thing today, they will create even more serious problems 25 years from now. In their minds, there is nothing dynamic. They are always thinking six months ahead, to the next election, and it is exactly the same with the NDP.
There is $40 billion in lapsed spending from last year. We have the figures and the public accounts. That is $40 billion that was not used. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has said that another $40 billion could be used to help the provinces with health care and other things. Even so, the federal debt-to-GDP ratio would remain the same and the provinces would be able to take care of people. We are talking about $80 billion.
We can add to that the fact that inflation is estimated to be 3.5% this year. That number is way off, which means that there will be additional tax revenue. That puts us at more than $80 billion, which is far more than the $28 billion the provinces were asking for. They would have $50 billion or $60 billion left over while allowing us to take care of our people. This is no joke. They could keep lowering the debt-to-GDP ratio while taking care of people.
Allow me to summarize. The Liberals had an opportunity to relieve the suffering of Quebec's patients. Instead, they decided to relieve the electoral anxieties of the NDP. That is essentially what they did. I can understand why the NDP is crowing about it. If I were them, I would be happy too. That is the reality.
What will the NDP tell us? The NDP is going to tell us that they got us dental care. The budget says that Health Canada is basically going to turn into an insurance company. If you have tried to get a passport, Mr. Speaker, you have every reason to be concerned. By the end of the year, it looks as though Health Canada will become an insurance company. They are going to call all the dental associations in all the provinces and they are going to negotiate agreements. Then we will be able to start submitting dental bills, all by the end of the year.
That is the promise that they are going to make to us, but they need a reality check. The federal government is so bad. The Liberals have no idea how to do anything. They are so far removed from what they are good at—and one has to admit that there is not much that they are good at—that the dental care program is not even included in the budget implementation bill.
They are going to implement the budget without even knowing how to do so. The dental care program is not even there. That will bring us to the summer. We will come back in the fall and there will not even be a dental care program because they just have no idea how to implement one.
There has been no talk of seniors because the Liberals created two classes of seniors, those aged 65 to 74 and those aged 75 and up. There is nothing in the budget for seniors aged 65 to 74. They are taking the injustice they created and indexing it to inflation, and yet this government is supposed to have an aversion to injustice.
When it comes to inflation, the NDP has spent all year getting worked up into a lather over grocery store owners. The Liberals decided to make the NDP happy. They are going to take the GST rebate cheque that they doubled, as the Bloc Québécois has been asking them to do for a year and a half, they are going to issue it early in the year—we asked them to increase the frequency of the cheques—and they are going to call it a grocery rebate. It is a great victory for the NDP. We congratulate them.
On employment insurance, this system that insures one in two people and leaves half the people behind when they lose their job, they are saying that there will be a recession, but no EI reform.
If I were looking to insure my house and the insurer told me that I had a 50% chance of my claim being rejected if my house burned down, I would switch insurers. That is exactly the situation that the unemployed are facing. The Liberals say that, according to actuarial forecasts, the EI fund is good for another 10 years before it needs to be reformed. There is nothing in the budget about getting experienced workers back to work without penalizing them for offering their strength, intelligence and experience to our businesses. When I walk around Mirabel and other places in Quebec, everyone talks to me about it. Everyone is talking about it except for the Liberals and the NDP.
There is nothing for the aerospace industry. The minister was telling me that he is talking to CEOs and inviting them to invest. The minister is not a lobbyist. His job is not to be a chargé d'affaires but to ensure that the investment climate is favourable to investment, in order to have investment, research and development, investment funds, credits for research and development, and to fix the implementation of this luxury tax, which is about to kill 2,000 jobs in Quebec. People will go elsewhere to buy planes.
We are the laughingstock of the G7. The Liberals tell us that aviation is important, but they are closing the control tower in Mirabel. They have shut down light aircraft access, our flight schools and a runway. The industry's strategic infrastructure is now managed by a board of directors that takes care of Montreal and whose CEO is a former accountant from Coca-Cola. Nobody is accountable and nobody knows anything about aviation. They appear to be really good at this. When they do not know something, it is scary.
With regard to energy, the budget gives $18 billion in subsidies to oil companies, which have money. When it comes to taxing luxury jets that are used to transport passengers and that harm our industry, there is no problem. They are for equality. However, when it comes to giving subsidies to companies that are making tons of profit, that could invest in reducing their emissions if they wanted to avoid the carbon tax, but instead the government gives them subsidies so that these CEOs can buy private jets to go to their cottages, that is not a problem for western Canada.
Now there is an election coming up in Ontario. Their 15% and 30% clean energy subsidies—because when we get right down to the nitty gritty, CO2 is all that matters to them—are going to go to Ontario's nuclear plants. Oddly enough, there is an election coming up in Ontario. Oddly enough, the majority of the next Canadian government is going to be in Ontario.
We are willing to collaborate and we are willing to vote in favour of measures that are good for Quebec. That is what we do, but our goodwill is like an elastic. There is a limit.
Since my time is almost up, I will move the following amendment to the amendment:
That the amendment be amended by deleting all the words after the words “since it” and substituting the following:
fails to:
(a) immediately reform employment insurance and increase old age security for seniors aged 65 to 74;
(b) fight climate change by ending fossil fuel subsidies; and
(c) increase health transfers to 35%, preferring instead to interfere in the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, such as by creating dental insurance without giving Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation.
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- Mar/29/23 4:55:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the leader of the official opposition for his very good speech, especially the parts in French.
As he knows, the French language has a very rich vocabulary. We have a recipe for shepherd's pie: beef, corn, potatoes. For big numbers we say: millions, billions, trillions. I invite him to repeat after me.
He began his speech with a lecture about consistency by using the Minister of Finance's own words. He pointed out inconsistencies and told us that we could no longer believe what the government says because it is not consistent.
Right after that, he quoted the Governor of the Bank of Canada, who he threatened to fire for incompetence a few months ago during the leadership race.
When I openly say that someone is incompetent and that the first thing I would do when I become prime minister is fire him—I can assure members that I will not be prime minister in this place—I do not quote that person. I do not quote incompetent people who I want to fire.
My question is the following: Does he still want to fire the governor of the central bank, whom he quoted in his speech? If he no longer wants to fire him, what thought process led to his change of heart?
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- Mar/28/23 4:32:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the aeronautics and aerospace industries are the pride of Quebec. Despite this, Canada is the only G7 country that does not have a comprehensive policy in that area.
This budget contains nothing to correct the harmful effects of the luxury tax on small aircraft, which threatens 2,000 direct and indirect jobs in Quebec. When the time came to help Ontario's auto industry, Ottawa was always there.
Today's budget allocates $18.6 billion in subsidies, most of which will go into the pockets of oil companies. There is not one red cent for the aerospace sector. Why?
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