- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Mirabel
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,073.56
- Government Page
- May/6/24 1:17:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Member for Lévis—Lotbinière talks about a double standard, and yet he always votes against Quebec and for Alberta. He votes against the right to opt out with full financial compensation for Quebec, but he has no problem giving oil companies $55 billion or $60 billion in financial incentives. This is paid for with Quebeckers' money meant for day care, health, education, social programs, housing and refugees but it ends up in the pockets of oil companies. Is that not a double standard?
In the Bloc Québécois, for as long as I can remember, we have not supported any of Ottawa's budgetary policies because we always set conditions. As far as we are concerned, common sense is set out in black and white. Our conditions are clear and reasonable. That is why Quebeckers vote for us.
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Madam Speaker, this budget is unacceptable to the Bloc Québécois because it is unacceptable to Quebeckers. Let us keep the suspense for the movies: We are voting against the budget.
This is a budget that, in many ways, feeds on human misery. It is a budget of fiscal imbalance. This budget is the soul of the federal spending power, through which the federal government assumes the right to impose conditions on Quebec in its own areas of jurisdiction. These are areas in which the federal government does not have the right to legislate, such as housing and health care, among others. It is unacceptable.
Quebec has denounced the Liberal government, along with its NDP allies. Last week, the National Assembly unanimously adopted a motion. Not a single Quebec MNA refused to vote in favour of this motion, which called for the right to withdraw with full financial compensation for Quebec in the event of interference into its jurisdictions, as is the case with this budget. These are what we call Quebec's traditional demands.
Every Quebec government dating back to well before I was born made this demand, in particular the Jean Charest-led government, which included the member for Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis. Had she been in Quebec, she probably would have voted in favour of this motion, rather than voting against last week’s proposal by the Bloc Québécois to give Quebec that right of withdrawal.
Last week during question period, a minister, whose name and title I shall not mention since this was partially private, yelled from one side of the House to the other to ask me what was a unanimous consent motion by the National Assembly worth. According to this individual, there is one every month, since the National Assembly is always unanimously criticizing the federal government.
This helps us understand just how wide the gap is between Canada and Quebec from a budgetary standpoint. Rather than turning to Quebec and showing the province a modicum of understanding and respect, Ottawa says Quebec is wrong to ask for respect in its own areas of jurisdiction. There we have it, the Liberal ministers showing the depths of their contempt. Above all, they are showing their total inability to admit that they are wrong and that they should not interfere in areas outside their jurisdiction they are incompetent to manage. No jurisdiction and no competence makes for an incompetent federal government.
This is an omnibus bill. Right off the bat I expect that the member for Winnipeg-North, an outstanding debater, will likely rise shortly, although my saying so now might dissuade him. He is going to tell me there is something or other that is good in the budget, that there are not just bad things in the budget, that some of what it contains is acceptable. Fine, except that this is an omnibus bill, a bill that has everything and anything and that amends numerous acts and regulations.
In such instances, our values must guide us and we must draw a red line. We in the Bloc Québécois have been transparent. We signalled this red line to the government before it tabled the budget. We told the Liberals that if they wanted, then maybe they could possibly consider seeking the Bloc’s support. One never knows, the NDP might leave their side.
In exchange for this support, we wanted the right to opt out of programs under Quebec's jurisdiction with full financial compensation. Is that included in the bill? Not only is it not included, but the Conservatives, the Liberals and the NDP voted against the amendment to the amendment that we moved to add it to the budget. They voted against Quebec's National Assembly and against all the Quebec governments that have made this request since the 1950s. What the NDP and Liberals are telling us is that they do not think the Quebec government is doing a good enough job in its own areas of jurisdiction and that they do not trust it. However, some of the problems that Quebec is having with health care, education and housing are due to the fact that it does not have full freedom to act, because the federal government is standing in the way.
We asked for old age security to be increased starting at age 65, but that is not in the budget. We asked for an end to the fossil fuel subsidies, but there are fresh subsidies in this budget, and the government is promising a plan. The Minister of Environment said that the government had abolished inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. However, when we asked him what “inefficient” meant, he could not even define it. The reality is that the tax incentives took on a differnt form.
The federal government owes Quebec $900 million. As François Pérusse put it, “a debt is a debt” and must be repaid. The federal government owes Quebec $900 million because we had to give asylum seekers integration classes, French classes, health services and so on. Quebec incurred these expenses and paid for them with Quebeckers' money. This budget is a slap in the face for Quebec.
Instead of granting unconditional housing transfers, the federal government decided to impose even more conditions. Quebec has had permanent housing construction programs for decades. Now, at a time when people are living on the streets, sleeping in tents or in their cars, the government got the brilliant idea to add even more red tape. The Liberals seem to think this is the best Liberal idea this year.
The consequences are serious, tragic and inhumane. For ideological reasons, this government is determined to crush Quebec and its desire to take action in its own areas of jurisdiction. The other provinces can do what they want, but this urge to crush Quebec is having tragic and inhumane consequences. The same is true when it comes to health.
This may not be the worst part, but what makes this bill even more unacceptable is the part about open banking. Banks have changed. The big banks have basically become financial product factories, selling loans, insurance and other financial products. Consumers often use third-party apps to deal with banks. The banks manufacture the financial products, and the apps handle the customer service for those products. This needs to be regulated. These transactions involve personal and private information.
The government had three choices. First, it could have opted for the Interac model, where the industry regulates itself. For instance, take Desjardins in Quebec, provincially regulated financial institutions, and credit unions in the rest of Canada. They coordinate with the banks so that the information that is shared is regulated, customers receive their product and their information is protected. This involves some self-regulation. We are not huge fans of this model, but it could have worked. However, the government said it was not interested.
Then there was the second approach, which is more collaborative and involves securities commissions. This is where Ottawa sits down with Quebec, in particular. Not only is Desjardins the biggest employer in Quebec, but it is also its biggest financial institution. The idea would be to harmonize our laws and regulate the exchange of information to protect consumers, while ensuring that they receive quality service and that new banking services meet their needs. Ottawa, which says it is still working with Quebec, has closed the door on that option.
The government has therefore decided to introduce legislation that will lead to a plan next fall, under which federal financial institutions will be included in the legislative framework. Desjardins and other Quebec co-operatives are literally being told that they have the choice of ignoring Quebec's Consumer Protection Act, ignoring Quebec's Bill 25 on privacy protection and that, if they want, they can come into the federal fold. They will fall under Ottawa's jurisdiction, which contradicts the most basic spirit of co-operation.
That is exactly how the federal government behaved. It not only stomped all over Quebec's jurisdictions, it held a knife to Quebec's throat. It behaved a bit like that when it imposed a securities commission that was supposedly national, but in reality centred on Toronto, before the Supreme Court ruled against it. The government is not open to talking with Quebec.
The Liberals can go ahead and list all the good things they want about Bill C‑69. They can try to convince us that Ottawa knows better than Quebec when it comes to managing hospitals, operating child care and fixing teeth, but that will not not change the fact that this is a bad budget. It goes against Quebec and Quebec's interests as framed by every Quebec government throughout history.
Once again, I am announcing that not only will the Bloc Québécois vote against, but I will be pleased to rise and vote no.
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- Apr/30/24 1:22:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by stating that I wish to share my time with my colleague from Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères to speak on this budget.
It is a budget that is a little difficult to characterize and a little difficult to describe. I was going to say that it demonstrates once and for all that there is a deep abyss between Quebec's expectations, Quebec's needs and respect for Quebec's jurisdictions, which Quebeckers hold dear, and the expectations of the other nine provinces and three territories as to what the federal government should do, but the federal government gives us plenty of opportunities to demonstrate this over and over again. One example of this deep, historical cultural abyss between what we Quebeckers expect and what the rest of the country expects in terms of federal action is the media's treatment of the budget. When we look at how this budget has been treated in English Canada, we see that analysts have focused mainly on the issue of the capital gains tax inclusion rate.
As everyone knows, some people realize huge capital gains. One example is someone who buys a property, sells it several years later and makes more than $500,000 in profit. Yes, some people do make a lot of money in certain cases. Anyone who makes over $500,000 in profit has been told that they will have to contribute a little more. Obviously, this is one way for the government to bring in a good chunk of revenue. This cash grab will help the government keep its promise on the debt-to-GDP ratio, although artificially. Analysts in English Canada are talking about this and wondering whether this a good tax or a bad tax. What effect will it have on investment? Is it fair? Did the Liberal government do the right thing? Analysts in all the major media outlets have been talking about this.
As an economist, I too asked myself that question. I read the English-language media and I fell into the trap. As members, we are discussing whether it is a bad tax or a good measure. However, at some point, our intellect as Quebeckers will lead us in another direction. Regardless of the new sources of revenue the federal government has found, we will start wondering what it is going to do with the money. We will realize that the billions of dollars that the federal government is raking in with a tax measure that may indeed be effective are being used not to balance the budget after the extremely expensive pandemic measures or to restore fairness between generations, but purely to trample on Quebec's rights, to interfere in Quebec's affairs and to meddle not only in areas that are none of the federal government's business, but in jurisdictions in which it is notoriously incompetent, such as health care, dental care and housing.
It is not all that hard for a Quebecker to prepare a speech about the budget because it contains wall-to-wall interference. Let me give what I would call a historic example: In the budget, the federal government has decided to inferfere in Hydro-Québec's rate setting. When it comes to housing, we are basically used to it, because it happened gradually. We know about the punishing impact of the health conditions on patients. We know about the consequences of the agreement with the NDP. Now, however, the federal government is placing conditions on Hydro-Québec. How did that happen?
It happened because, in the past, when the federal government was giving out subsidies for energy and for clean energy, it excluded Quebec. It said Quebec was being shut out because Quebec had a Crown corporation that supplied almost 100% of its electricity. It said Quebec would not receive one red cent. Now that there are lots of Bloc Québécois members here, the Liberals know that Quebeckers are going to speak in the House. The Conservatives, the Liberal backbenchers and the lone NDP member from Quebec are not going to do it. The federal government said, in last year's budget, that the Quebec government or Hydro-Québec would be able to apply for subsidies for green energy. It was the first time that had happened, so we were surprised. However, the conditions were not met, so not a penny was paid out.
What do we see in this budget? We see conditions. In exchange for subsidies to help Hydro-Québec with its wind and solar projects, the federal government is demanding that it adjust its rate schedule so that 100% of the subsidy is passed on to the consumer.
That is impossible. When I buy electricity, when I receive my bill from Hydro-Québec, I do not know whether it comes from La Romaine or a wind farm in the Gaspé. We do not know where it comes from. It is impossible to enforce, which means that Quebec will very likely once again be excluded from the program.
I see the parliamentary secretary looking at me with one eye wider than the other, as usual, thinking that that was not the intention and that he and his colleagues do not want to hurt Quebec. However, it is once again symptomatic of the fact that they do not understand, because they are not good at this. They are not competent when it comes to energy. Why, then, did they design the subsidy the way they did? They figured they were going to ask polluting provinces to implement green projects. There are a lot of private companies involved, but the government wants to make sure that they do not pocket the money. Consequently, they tell them to develop projects, but to make sure that the green energy is less expensive in order to encourage people to switch over. That is essentially the plan. Then, since the government wants to apply uniform measures and does not recognize that Quebec is different, we have a program that is no good for Quebec and that is literally a violation of Quebec's areas of jurisdiction.
However, that is nothing. What the government calls clean in the rest of Canada is nuclear energy. It believes nuclear energy is clean. The small nuclear reactors that refine oil sands using less oil sand so that they can export more oil sand, that is green. That is what they want to subsidize and facilitate. They will make sure that consumers pay less. This government believes that natural gas is green. Subsidies will go directly to natural gas, as long as there is a carbon capture strategy and technologies that do not exist, except in the Liberals' minds. Here are more measures that are bad for Quebec, and they keep coming.
There is still no health transfer agreement with Quebec. The federal government used to manage a hospital in Quebec. It was a military hospital on Montreal's West Island. When management was transferred to the Quebec government, we heard through the grapevine that managing a hospital cost the federal government three times more than it did the Quebec government, yet the federal government has the gall to come tell us how to manage our health care system. Why? Because they want to be seen doing something and they want a maple leaf on the corner of the cheque. It is the same story with prescription drug insurance, since 100% of Quebeckers already have prescription drug insurance. We already have a plethora of programs in Quebec. The money should be given to Quebec. The same applies to dental care, since all Quebec dentists who treat children are registered in Quebec's automated system. If it wanted to implement these programs quickly without making people pay directly, the federal government would have given Quebec the money so that it could do what it is good at. However, that will not happen, because the federal government always wants to be seen to be doing something.
It is the same for housing. The federal government may well have good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Every time this government has gotten involved in housing, there have been fewer units. When it came up with its national housing strategy, it ignored the fact that Quebec was the only province that had had permanent social and co-op housing construction programs, among others, for years. The terms and conditions of those programs were familiar to everyone in the field. What did our excellent programs get us when the federal government failed to recognize them? They got us three and half—almost four—years of negotiations, lost years during which people were sleeping in their cars, people in the regions where the housing crisis is spreading. The Liberals keep telling us that the federal government should get involved and impose all kinds of conditions. In my riding, there is a collective dwelling program that has been on pause for eight years because of these complex conditions.
What is the Bloc Québécois asking for? We are asking for the right to opt out with full financial compensation. I will close with that. We are asking that Quebec get its money in areas under its own jurisdiction.
Any member who works for Quebec should agree with that. We have been good sports. Yesterday, we asked for it by means of an amendment to an amendment, but the entire Quebec Conservative caucus said no to Quebec. They turned their backs on Quebec. That is what the members of that caucus are willing to do to one day get a ministerial position. They are willing to grovel. The same goes for the NDP and the Liberals. There is only one party that will consistently defend Quebec's interests and jurisdictions, and that is the Bloc Québécois. People will remember that on election day.
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- Oct/31/23 3:04:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is all about double standards here in Ottawa: the needs of the oil companies and those of the SMEs.
No one here in the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party even questioned the $83 billion in subsidies for the oil companies in the last two budgets. That, according to them, is responsible, but giving small businesses an extra year to pay back their pandemic loans, without losing their subsidy, is too expensive according to them.
When will the government get its priorities straight and defer the emergency account repayment?
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say I am surprised we are having a Conservative opposition day where the Conservatives are asking the government to come up with a plan to balance the budget in eight days. They are saying that five years is too long. One has to be reasonable. It depends on the project. I can tell my colleague that most of what is in the bill already exists in Quebec. We do not need additional resources or bureaucracy, but we will need the money to implement whatever is decided.
Sometimes reports and consultation are needed. The right people need to be appointed in the right places. Unions, employers and educational institutions all need to be included. We have to do it right. We must also not rush to produce as many reports as possible as quickly as possible, only for them to be shelved. There has to be a balance between the amount of bureaucracy and the usefulness of it all. The usefulness of what is in the bill is greatly reduced in Quebec, if not non-existent, because we have already thought of all this. We are simply waiting for the resources to be able to do more.
Obviously, those resources are in Ottawa.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague has some complaints about the budget. Members of the official opposition do not like the budget, and neither do we. We think there are many things missing from this budget.
What are we going to do? We are going to respect Parliament and vote against the budget.
The Conservatives have been wrapping themselves in a cloak of virtue for some time, telling us that they have one, two, three or four conditions, that the carbon tax must be abolished, and so on. They are saying that as long as the government refuses to meet their conditions, not only will they not vote for the budget, they will filibuster it.
Everyone knows that this is all for show, just to waste time, and that they will never vote in favour of the budget. All they are doing is wasting parliamentarians' time.
To prove my point, I wonder if my colleague can give me just one example of a single time in Canadian history when the official opposition ended up supporting a government's budget, in one way or another.
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Mr. Speaker, my regards to you and to all our valiant colleagues who are here with us.
This is a debate at report stage on the budget, specifically Bill C‑47. It is the month of June. The Stanley Cup finals are going on. It is hot out, we still do not have a budget and we have a minority government. As we have seen all this week and today, there is a blockage in Parliament. Everything is delayed, everything is moving slowly. These blockages clearly have an impact on government policies, Quebeckers and Canadians.
In a minority government, we would expect the government to use methods that foster a consensus and the advancement of the work of Parliament. We would expect the government to propose a budget that we could agree on, one that could achieve a consensus, especially since there is great potential for blockage here on the part of the official opposition.
The Conservatives have many faults, including being against women's right to control their own bodies, being against environmental policies and being pro-oil, but they do have one good quality, and that is that they are predictable. We know that they will block everything.
We expected the government to have the foresight to propose a budget that we could work on. Instead, the government did exactly what it had promised it would never do. It is something the Harper government did time after time, namely present an omnibus bill, a colossal bill that is basically impossible to rework and that is almost designed to be delayed.
It almost seems like the government has no respect for the House and is looking for trouble. This bill amends 59 acts, in addition to the Income Tax Regulations. Anything and everything is in there. There is even a royal provision in the budget to recognize Charles III as sovereign. After all that, the government members are surprised that it is being blocked. They are surprised to see the Conservatives propose 900 amendments. They will say that everyone else is being unreasonable, when they are the ones who tabled an omnibus bill. They will ultimately invoke closure. The NDP will get into bed with the Liberals and support closure as usual. After that, they will accuse the other parties of picking fights.
As a responsible opposition party, all we ask is to debate and be able to do our work on each element of the budget bill.
For example, we wanted to be responsible and work intelligently on the royal provision. There is an appointment in the bill. Charles III is to be appointed head of state in a sovereign country. We thought we would do what we do for all appointments of all commissioners and officers of Parliament. We thought we would call His Majesty and have him come to committee. We wanted to give him a chance and see if he is competent to be head of state. There is no one more sporting than us. We are square dealers.
We therefore asked the clerk of the Standing Committee on Finance to contact Rideau Hall and ask them invite His Majesty. This is, after all, part of his kingdom. We were told that they do not have his phone number. We were surprised to see that the Governor General did not serve much purpose. Honestly, I was surprised. I did not expect that. Then we went back to the clerk to see if he could contact Buckingham Palace and ask them to have His Majesty come testify. An email was sent to Buckingham Palace. The response we received from Buckingham Palace was that His Majesty is a bit old-fashioned and only opens snail mail, so the invitation would have to be mailed to him. I do not know if mail addressed to His Majesty can be sent postage free. That should be checked. Nevertheless, he was supposed to be invited by mail.
How should we interpret that? First, we have a head of state who cannot open emails. Do we really need to invite him to committee to know that he cannot deliver results? Would we hire an ethics commissioner or a privacy commissioner who could not open emails? Maybe we should have sent him a homing pigeon. Government do not work that way.
We have to wonder. Does a refusal to come pay a short visit to parliamentarians not show contempt for Canada, its institutions and its Parliament? I see that as contempt.
I cannot believe that, in order to send an invitation to His Majesty, we have to send him a letter on papyrus and wait for the letter and his response to travel across the Atlantic Ocean. I thought it seemed obvious. Even His Majesty is embarrassed about the budget and ashamed to be associated with it. I think members can understand why. The reason is that the things that are most important to Quebeckers and Canadians have been left out of the budget. Even the King is embarrassed.
Take, for example, employment insurance. The government was supposed to have learned from the crisis. During the COVID-19 crisis, the government went from one temporary measure to another. That is because we have an EI system where 60% of people who lose their jobs are not eligible. It is not right that six out of 10 people are not eligible. What is more, women and young people are particularly affected because many of them hold non-standard jobs. They have a hard time qualifying. It also has more of an impact on those who are vulnerable because of the new realities of work, or what is referred to as the sharing economy, which is a way of artificially turning a salaried employee into a non-salaried employee so that they do not have access to all the benefits that a social safety net could provide.
The Liberals have been promising to reform EI since 2015. They promised not once, not twice, but three times. It was supposed to happen in August. Then we saw the actuarial forecasts in the budget. We realized that not only was a reform off the table, but they were going to pick $25 billion from the pockets of SMEs and workers through a payroll tax to pay off the EI fund deficit that built up during COVID‑19, even though all the other pandemic measures implemented were funded by the entire population.
That is why His Majesty is embarrassed to come. He no longer wants to have anything to do with the Liberals. It could be that His Majesty is embarrassed over the environmental policies. We are giving away $20 billion to $30 billion in dirty oil subsidies, allegedly for carbon capture, even though the problem is immediate.
The government tells us that the environment is important. On May 31, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change boasted to the New Economy Canada conference that there was a plan for transitioning to the green economy.
That same day, the Minister of Labour told an audience of business people, “Don't tell me a green energy future doesn't include oil and gas.”
What colour is oil? It is not the colour of the chairs here in the House of Commons. It is definitely not green. The environment is being completely neglected.
Here we have the government creating its much-touted green fund, the $16‑billion Canada growth fund. This fund will be managed by PSP Investments, a company that does not report to Parliament and will not be accountable. The only mandate it has ever had is financial performance. Through no fault of its own, this company has absolutely no expertise in this area. At the moment, it sees carbon capture as the green development model. That technology is not yet up and running, but we are being promised that it will exist in 30 years' time. However, the problem is here now. There is even talk of using small modular nuclear reactors to extract more oil by using less oil to export more. That is what PSP Investments is all about.
In the budget, there is nothing for seniors who dealt with the crisis and were hit hard by it. Even before the crisis, their purchasing power had declined.
There is nothing for our regions either, nor for discount regional flights. I am thinking about Abitibi, the Gaspé and the north shore. We know that for regional development, for economic development, we need regional flights. It is very important. There is absolutely nothing in the budget. It is always promises, promises.
The budget includes changes to the equalization system that deny Quebec of $400 million in short order. Let us talk about equalization. We are still in this mode where the Liberals are not meeting their commitments. That being said, they are doing some things. It is not all bad, but they are not getting results where it counts.
They will tell us that we should support this because the best is yet to come, but we know all about Liberal promises. We knew about them in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. We still know about those Liberal promises, but we no longer believe them. That is why we are going to do what King Charles III would do if we were in our shoes: We are going to vote against the budget.
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- Jun/1/23 4:53:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when the biofuel regulations came out, parliamentarians asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to assess the cost of that measure. When the Conservatives read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, they decided that there were indeed costs involved and that they should oppose the measure.
Now I am trying to figure out whether they are spreading misinformation or whether they simply do not understand the role of the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Have they ever known a situation where, when asked for a program costing analysis, the Parliamentary Budget Officer calculated something other than costs? Also, based on their logic, should we oppose all measures whenever the Parliamentary Budget Officer does his job?
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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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Mr. Speaker, is it futile? It is not nearly as futile as what the Minister of Health said.
Then again, there was an opportunity here. In fact, a budget is presented every year, in March, and there are updates and implementation bills, like the one before us today. The government has the opportunity to put forward more measures, to implement them quickly, but also to present them to the public. When we are dealing with a budgetary or quasi-budgetary exercise like the one we are debating today, the public pays more attention, journalists pay more attention.
The fact that this opportunity was completely wasted and this statement mostly recycles old items shows just how tired and uninspired this government is.
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- Jun/7/22 11:48:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is a great person and I thank him for his question.
They have the right idea. They identified a problem and they want to find solutions. However, the Bloc Québécois and I find that these solutions are short term and not a good fit for the situation. These are not the right solutions.
I realize that this is not a Conservative budget, thank God. However, it does give us some indication that, if the Conservatives were in power, oil companies would take precedence over the people of my riding.
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- May/10/22 1:46:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, they presented a very thin budget in which they overlooked health care, seniors, the provinces and just about everyone else. They missed a budget day, as well as a budget debate. Because budget debates annoy them, they want to cut them off.
They feel that they can judge how we use our time. Shame on them.
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- Apr/26/22 4:37:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague and friend from Saanich—Gulf Islands for sharing her valuable time with me.
If I had to describe the thin little budget that was tabled three weeks ago, the phrase that would come to mind would be “missed opportunity”. I am not just talking about one missed opportunity, I am talking about a slew of missed opportunities.
First, the pandemic should have alerted the government to the plight of seniors, to the fact that they are on fixed incomes and their purchasing power has been greatly eroded. I was hoping that the Liberals would understand, given that before the election, they had said it was urgent to send a $500 cheque to seniors aged 75 and over, to win their vote. Indeed, the plight of seniors was appalling back then, when it was time to win votes.
All of a sudden, we are presented with a budget that not only contains nothing for seniors, but includes a small graph that basically tells them to stop complaining and whining, that their lives are fine, that they need to stop asking for money, and that the government is tired of them, literally.
The budget should have been an opportunity for the Liberal government to show that it understands that there are major funding problems in the health care system. We are not making this up. For weeks now, the Minister of Health has been going around bragging about how, during the pandemic, he was forced to rush tens of billions of dollars to the provinces. The provinces—underfunded since the 1990s, thanks to the Liberals—started offloading, rescheduled surgeries and ran out of space, almost to the point of leaving people to die in the streets.
Instead of increasing health transfers and recognizing that reality, the minister says we should consider ourselves lucky that he bailed us out during the pandemic and would be wise to settle for what he has to offer, which is nothing.
We have a Minister of Environment and Climate Change who should have realized that, if he continues to allow increased oil production, it will have a negative impact on the future of the energy transition. This same minister boasted on social media last week about how Canada had lowered its emissions in 2020, in the middle of a pandemic, when cars were off the roads and planes were grounded.
The government is congratulating itself instead of acknowledging the sacrifices that will have to be made in the future to make this transition. The Minister of Environment is happy about the pandemic, the Minister of Health is happy about the pandemic and the Minister of Seniors is happy about the pandemic.
This budget is jam-packed with oil subsidies. When I checked the news and turned on my computer to see reactions the day after the budget was presented, I figured I could judge how good the budget was based on who liked it. The first reaction I saw was from the oil and gas industry, which was very happy with the budget. It obviously did not get everything it wanted, since the Liberals had to leave a little for Jean Charest and the member for Carleton, but oil companies still did well.
Legal and environmental associations, as well as the mayor of Montreal, whom the environment minister likes to quote, came to say that this is a bad budget. The organization West Coast Environmental Law told us that carbon capture is an experimental technology that could increase water and energy use, as well as our GHG emissions.
The budget includes subsidies for exactly this purpose, even though we have been calling on the federal government for years to abolish subsidies to oil companies. We are not talking about small amounts here, but about huge subsidies. For the next five years, $2.5 billion will go directly into the pockets of the oil companies each and every year. That means $12.5 billion in total over that period, but we have to remember that the government has no money for health care. For the next four years, $1.5 billion per year will go directly into the pockets of oil companies, for a total of $18.5 billion over nine years.
The government says that it is also making an effort and that it has done away with “inefficient” subsidies to oil companies. We have been waiting for many years for a definition of what an inefficient subsidy is. It is important to note here that the subsidy that the government has abolished is worth $9 million out of a total of $18.5 billion. Rounding up the figures, the difference between the two is therefore $18.5 billion more to the oil companies, no more and no less.
To get us to buy into that, they trot out their classic excuse, which is that, in western Canada and Newfoundland, people work hard to earn a decent living in the oil and gas sector. They call it the energy sector, which sounds better. They talk about these people who earn a decent living, families with mortgages.
That is true. There are people who are stuck in this situation, who work in that industry and did not ask to be stuck in it. The problem is that, as we produce more and more oil, we get more and more families in trouble because they depend on that industry. The more trouble they are in, the more complicated it will be to scale back the industry in the future.
From 1990 to 2010, Canadian oil production rose by 69%. From 2010 to 2015, it rose by another 31%. From 2015 to 2019—and this was under a Liberal government, our eco-friends across the way, Conservatives garbed in green—there was another 22% increase. Their recent announcement of an extra 300,000 barrels per day to save the world is another 13%. That is a 209% increase since 1990, the Kyoto protocol base year. The reason the Liberals use 2005 as their base year is to hide that.
Let us get back to the fact that the government is getting families in trouble and making the transition harder as a result. We have the numbers. From 1995 to 2012, as a barrel of oil went from $33 to almost $130, the number of people working in Canada's oil and gas industry and depending on it grew from 99,000 to 218,000.
We prefer a constructive approach. We believe there has to be a transition. It has to be done fast, but it has to be done right. We have not asked to shut everything down. We think production needs to be capped and there should be a gradual transition. We also think there should be green finance initiatives.
This plan has nothing but generic sentences such as, “the Sustainable Finance Action Council will develop and report on strategies for aligning private sector capital”. It is all hot air. The federal government's plan is nothing but hot air. It has no transition plan. That makes it hard to vote in favour of this budget.
There are solid proposals, like the train, the high-speed train that we have been wanting in the Quebec-Windsor corridor for years. The Minister of Environment and Climate Change has been bragging for years in interviews about not having a car and about how he likes the train. What we want is a high-speed train, a turtle that comes by twice as often.
In the budget, there is $400 million over two years. A person might think there may be a train. However, when we ask officials what the $400 million is for, they tell us it is to find partners. Partnership is expensive.
However, when it comes to the issue of western oil, then there is enough cash. That works.
When it comes to infrastructure, it is even worse. The government wants to again start using the Canada Infrastructure Bank to save the world. This bank was created by the Prime Minister in 2015 during the economic downturn. The bank took so long to get off the ground that when it did start operating the economy was in full flight. Today, the government wants to drag its feet a second time with the transition.
That is why this budget is against seniors, against our health care systems and against the transition. However, it is not too late to change it.
We have a Prime Minister who travels across Canada, from coast to coast to coast, who lectures us, who tells us that we need to purify our hearts. He tells us that we must change, and that we are to be better.
However, this budget contains irrefutable evidence that we have a tired government and a Prime Minister who does not intend to be better.
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- 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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