- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Mirabel
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $114,073.56
- Government Page
- Nov/2/23 12:01:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands.
I am able to talk about the ecological footprint of hydroelectricity because that is what we chose. When we decided to branch out into this sector, it was not an easy choice. Everyone said that Quebec was crazy. Some places were turning to nuclear energy, while others were opting for fossil fuels.
Quebec chose hydroelectricity because we believed in the transition. More than that, we believed that it would pay off to invest in technologies that make Quebec unique, technologies that we can export and that make a name for us around the world, as we have done and continue to do today. In Quebec, we are proud to heat our homes with green, renewable electricity. If anyone would like to talk about the carbon footprint of our hydroelectricity, I would be happy to talk about it for hours.
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Mr. Speaker, I see that I received applause from a Conservative. Apart from you, Mr. Speaker, he is the only one who still claps for me. We will see how long that lasts.
The Bloc Québécois's position is clear. It is imperative that we change our energy trajectory so that Canada, which still includes Quebec, for now, contributes to the effort to prevent average temperatures from rising by 1.5°C. That is essential. We are talking about the future of humanity, the health of our people, the safety of our communities and the future of generations to come. We have to make the effort. That means we have to stop ratcheting up our fossil fuel production. That is point number one. The International Energy Agency says we must not start any new oil and gas production projects. By 2030, we need to gradually reduce oil production, which is part of the problem.
It is completely wrong to think that some kind of capture technology is going to let us increase oil production while reducing our absolute emissions. I am not talking about emissions per barrel, but absolute emissions. These are basic scientific facts. By reducing our oil production, we will gain access to large sums of public money, which is currently being disproportionately invested in fossil fuels. This money could be directed elsewhere so that Canada can transition to a 21st-century economy, focused on the long term, on the future of coming generations and on renewable energy.
We stand in solidarity with the workers who will have to participate in this process. When the Trans Mountain project began, we did not just say that the government should not invest money in that project and that there would be cost overruns. We know that the project is costing over $30 billion. What we said was that we should take that money that was in the Canadian public purse and use it for the transition, for good-paying jobs in the high-tech sector that produce technologies that can be exported, namely, energy storage technologies. By so doing, we would not impoverish communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, who are the primary victims of the lack of transition, who will be among those who will pay the most, and who will be even more disproportionately affected when finally do make the transition when it is too late and it is even more urgent.
The government has done enough greenwashing. We need to take action. Obviously, when we talk about greenwashing, I cannot help but think about this bill, which basically contains nothing of what I just talked about. There is nothing about any of that in this bill. The Liberals are saying that they want to train workers in the clean energy sector, but they are investing billions of dollars in dirty energy. Clean energy workers do not need this bill. They need an employment insurance system that works.
We learned from the member for Thérèse-De Blainville that half of all workers are not covered by employment insurance. When I look at the federal government's investment strategies, and when I look at the Conservatives' plans, I am not sure I would want to apply to set up a wind turbine project. It has been so devalued.
What would it take? First, we need commitments and principles. This bill turns the process upside down and says that workers are going to be trained. It does not begin with what needs to come first. There is no commitment and there are no principles and no targets. It proposes solutions to a problem that has not been defined. Kafka himself could not have come up with this.
Next, we need a collaborative approach. They forget sometimes, but we are in a federation. There are provinces and municipalities. There are ecosystems in the labour market. There are communities, regions, workers, unions, employers, chambers of commerce and investors. There needs to be consultation. The democratic and civic process in the communities needs to be respected, but that is not covered in the bill. The bill provides that committees will submit reports, and it is not quite clear what will be done with those reports. We know that endless reports are issued here, and we know where they end up. They end up in a place where no one reads them. That is what will happen.
Once we have done all that, then we need measures to achieve the objectives. We need to think of the workers, the communities and the first nations communities. That is not happening at all. The provincial jurisdictions will need to be respected. There will need to be requirements for the planning and production of sectoral reports that cannot solely be the federal government's responsibility.
Labour law is under provincial jurisdiction. The workforce in Quebec has been under Quebec's jurisdiction since the 1990s. Everyone knows that. There are agreements, there is funding. It has not always been easy, but we have those things today. That is not reflected in the bill.
My take on this bill is that I do not doubt the intentions behind it, although given that the title completely eliminates the concept of the just transition, one can doubt the government's intentions. However, the whole thing feels improvised to me. The bill does not define a problem, yet it tries to find solutions. It is funny how the Liberals think a report is the solution to everything.
Since being elected, I have been bewildered to learn that committees work to submit reports to the government, and we vote on motions, but the government never reads them. Why, then, would it read the reports that are going to be produced under this bill? That is not plausible. That is where things stand.
The worst part is that the bill speaks to the government's utter ignorance, whether deliberate or not—if it is deliberate, then that is even worse—of Quebec's regional realities and Quebec's labour market. It is a bit like what happened with the early childhood centres. We are way ahead when it comes to skills training and collaboration on skills training. It seems like the federal government always waits 30, 40, 20 or 15 years. It dilly-dallies before eventually saying that Quebec is right and that it will try to push the other provinces to follow Quebec's example. That is precisely what is going on here. There will need to be asymmetry.
In the 1990s, Quebec voiced its demands on workplace skills training. In the 1990s, there were discussions about professional training, which led to federal transfers to Quebec for workplace skills training. This bill is on skills training, but Quebec does that, and it is good at it. If results matter, then the government should be consulting Quebec.
On June 22, 1995, the National Assembly passed the Act to Foster the Development of Manpower Training. Since then, Quebec has been in charge of workplace training. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, this reform is based on partnerships. In 1997, Quebec created the Commission des partenaires du marché du travail. This labour market partners commission repatriated active employment measures from the federal government to Quebec, and are working together to find innovative solutions, not just in green energy, but in all sectors, because every region of Quebec is different. Who are these people? The group brings together employers, employees, labourers, the education sector, universities, vocational training schools, community organizations and economic and social ministries that are familiar with Quebec's realities. It is working. Ottawa needs to stop ignoring that.
When we have immigration files in our ridings, we wait months for labour market surveys for each immigration file when those labour market studies have already been done in each region and in each sector. They are meant to determine what the needs are, what the needs will be in the future, how to plan and how to do things better. By deliberately ignoring Quebec with this bill, the government is saying that it does not want to do better. If Quebeckers want things to be better, they can vote for the Bloc Québécois, because we always defend Quebec's jurisdictions.
What should we do with this bill? We are thinking about it. It is not easy, but maybe something can be done with it. We are thinking it over. For starters, the government needs to listen to these concerns. It needs to consult Quebec. When we asked officials in committee if they consulted Quebec, they said it did not occur to them to do so. They turned red as ripe tomatoes, much like the tomatoes grown in my riding, which are redder than those grown elsewhere. When money is being allocated to implementing the strategies in the bill, Quebec will have to get its fair share. Negotiating labour agreements has never been easy.
Moreover, the government has to honour the Paris Agreement. It also has to honour the COP26 just transition declaration. The generally accepted term in the international community is “just transition”, which emphasizes the importance of making the energy transition and doing so in a way that serves everyone now, in all provinces and all communities, as well as future generations. As for the bill's title, my mouth dried out by the time I finished saying it. That is because someone is trying to hide something.
I think there is a lot of work to be done, and I invite all parties to take the blinders off and really consider Quebec's reality and its institutions. If objectives and achieving those objectives is so important, the government should take a step back and consult the Quebec government.
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- Dec/8/22 2:38:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that the federal government subsidizes the oil industry, but so does the Canadian banking sector.
In two years, the Royal Bank of Canada's investments in oil rose from $19 billion to $39 billion. That is a lot of money. It more than doubled its investments in two years.
If the government was truly committed to fighting climate change, it would do two things. It would make it harder to obtain funding for polluting energies and it would provide incentives for investing in renewable energy. It has done neither.
What is the government waiting for? Will it take action only when there is not one drop of oil left to siphon?
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- Dec/8/22 2:37:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, urged banks to join the fight against climate change. He wants them to do one simple thing: Come up with verifiable plans for a swift transition to renewable energy.
Meanwhile, Canada's big banks are among the top 20 fossil fuel backers in the world. A lot of oil money comes from Canadian banks.
Will the government implement measures to encourage banks, our banks, to focus on renewable energy?
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