- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Subcommittee on Review of Parliament’s involvement with associations and recognized Interparliamentary groups
Deputy whip of the Bloc Québécois
Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
- Bloc Québécois
- Manicouagan
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $175,049.14
- Government Page
- Feb/9/23 3:41:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as my colleague said earlier, the Bloc Québécois is asking the House today to recognize a fact by asking “[t]hat the House remind the government that it is solely up to Quebec and the provinces to decide on the use of the notwithstanding clause.”
Acknowledging a fact seems like a no-brainer. That said, history, even very recent history, reminds us that we should take nothing for granted. Nothing is ever a given.
This is serious. Think, for example, of Morgentaler reading the bills from the member for Yorkton—Melville, of Pythagoras learning of the Flat Earth Society, of John Locke hearing the Prime Minister of Canada exclaim on January 23, 2023, that he is going to intervene in the Supreme Court case involving Bill 21, right down to tagging the use of the notwithstanding clause. No, nothing is ever a given and no right is a given.
The Bloc Québécois knows this and is watching out for Quebeckers, and even for the provinces and territories in this case. We want to reiterate that it is imperative that the House unanimously reaffirm that Quebec alone must decide when it should use the notwithstanding clause.
Does the Prime Minister really know Quebec? Does he even know the history of Quebec? I have my doubts, most of the time. To know Quebec is to love it, not fear it or coerce it.
Does the Prime Minister remember the people of Quebec who have slowly but surely distanced themselves from the church and its robes? Does he remember the long journey Quebeckers have taken to achieve the full separation of church and state? Does he remember the night of the long knives? Does he recall that Quebec never signed the Constitution of 1982? Does he realize that perhaps, for Quebec, the notwithstanding clause is like a tiny bit of sugar in a glass of poison hemlock? I truly and sincerely do not think so.
To know Quebec is to recognize how enamoured it is with equality and freedom. It is to recognize that Quebec's biggest source of faith is intelligence and reason. It is to know that Quebec believes in the sovereignty of the state and that if it is subordinate to anyone, it can only be to itself, to the Quebec people.
The gods, whoever they may be, do not belong in the affairs of the state. They may be in the bedroom, in the kitchen, in the car, in the street, or in the church, mosque or synagogue, in a book or in our thoughts. They are certainly not here in the House or in the robe of any Supreme Court justices, who do not make the laws.
Imagine for a moment what it means to a Quebecker like me, who knows and remembers her history, to theoretically be the subject of a monarch—a monarch who is the head of the Anglican Church, no less—and to sit in a Parliament where MPs ask the Christian god to legitimize their duties and their votes on a daily basis. As an elected representative, I answer to the people, not to gods.
Imagine, too, what it means to a Quebecker like me to hear the fear, arrogance, disdain and intolerance in the Prime Minister's articulation of the fundamentally dishonest and misleading stereotype of a xenophobic or even racist Quebec where freedom and equality are but mirages. As an elected representative, I answer to the people, not to myself.
The Prime Minister's outsized attack on Bill 21 is a violent attack on the people of Quebec, for what is violence if not one party imposing its will on another by force? Violence and democracy are two sides of the same coin.
Speaking of outsized, what is the elephant in the room here? What is this terrifying Bill 21 that gives the Prime Minister the green light to go ballistic on Quebec sovereignty, its national assembly and the will of the Quebec nation?
The law simply prohibits the wearing of religious symbols by state employees in a position of coercive authority, as well as teachers in the public school system, while grandfathering in those already in their positions on March 27, 2019, the day before the bill was introduced.
Bill 21 marks the separation of state and religious powers. It guarantees freedom and equality for all. Freedom of conscience remains. We must always keep in mind that we, as elected officials, are accountable to the people and I, as a Bloc Québécois MP, to my National Assembly.
I was listening this morning to the member for Outremont. In a nutshell, she said that using section 133, the notwithstanding clause, was not consistent with section 33. That was her concern. She is worried that the notwithstanding clause is a notwithstanding clause. I do not think the government intends to open up the Constitution, but what I am hearing is that there is a concern that Quebec is Quebec.
In closing I would say that the notwithstanding clause is a place for the Quebec nation in the Constitution of Canada, a document that René Lévesque never signed. It is a place to wrest a little freedom for Quebec. I think that is hyperbole. It is a little freedom for its identity, for its essence. Quebec is granted permission to exist using an exception.
By asking these judges to stifle the notwithstanding clause, the Prime Minister intends to stifle Quebec. Why is it that the only way the Prime Minister can be Canadian is to viciously attack Quebec? No nation has the right to dictate to another nation what it should be. Quebec has its values. Quebec is secular. The notwithstanding clause does not by any means allow Quebec enough room for its existence. No one can dictate to me the kind of person I should be. I am for state secularism. I am a Quebecker. I am a separatist, and my bags have been packed for a long time now.
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- May/10/22 10:53:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I could go on at length about that with my colleague from Saint‑Hyacinthe—Bagot.
It seems clear to me that there is bias in the thought process, despite what one of my colleagues said earlier. Some say that it makes no difference to have a prayer at the beginning of the sitting. However, as I briefly explained, it is clear that the responsibility for our decisions comes from God, according to the text of the prayer. Our own ideas are being taken over by an ideology, a system of values or a deistic belief system. Some also talked about the issue of abortion.
I cannot see myself telling Quebeckers from Manicouagan, whom I represent, that it is an Anglican Christian god who makes the decisions—
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- May/10/22 10:51:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question.
I believe that such important issues should be raised and debated in the House, and that everyone should have an opportunity to contribute to the debate. As parliamentarians, we are here to debate. Let us give everyone the opportunity to express their opinion, if I may echo what a colleague just whispered in my ear. That is the intent behind this motion.
We must be able to debate these matters before the general public. That is what they expect of us. If there are others in the House who share our view that freedom of conscience is very important, let us have that debate together.
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- May/10/22 10:50:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, at no point did I mention the Reign of Terror, if that is what my colleague is suggesting.
As I said earlier, I am passionate about both history and knowledge. Naturally I would love to have a conversation with him and very humbly share what I know about the historical period during which humanity achieved democracy. Great Britain is not the only place where peoples have fought for freedom and representation.
We have been told repeatedly that this subject is of no interest to the House of Commons and that other subjects are more deserving of our attention. However, as my colleague from Drummond said, opposition days give us a chance to do other things and explore other topics.
My colleague's enthusiasm indicates that this subject is likely to inspire debate. I very much look forward to hearing what he has to say about it. Perhaps he will speak today.
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- May/10/22 10:39:27 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my first love as a student, as a teacher and even as a child was literature. In a way, literature was my alma mater.
Through literature I perceived—or glimpsed, to be more accurate—the letters themselves, because letters both voluntarily and involuntarily encompass all of human knowledge.
That may be why I have always had a grateful admiration for and insatiable curiosity about the 18th century, and in particular the 18th century in France: That was the century of Enlightenment in England and the Erklärung in Germany. It was the century of reason, knowledge and intelligence.
The Enlightenment was the century of encyclopedias and rational dictionary of the sciences, arts and trades, the century of philosophers, of Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, the century that cried loud and clear, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”.
It was the century of man guided by the light of the spirit, of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, but also of woman and the citizen with Olympe de Gouges, the century of democracy, access to knowledge, science, the ideal of progress, of tolerance and humanism, of equality. It was the century of the French Revolution, as well as the American Revolution.
It was a century of emancipation. It was the century that began the long separation of church and state in France. After the French Revolution, in little more than a century, people had to win the fight for the right to govern themselves by taking power from those they peered up at from below. That century marked the dawn of the people.
These men and women left us a great legacy. That all men, not God, decide for all men. This is the legacy that gives me the legitimate right to stand here today, before the members of the House of Commons, to represent some 100,000 citizens in the riding of Manicouagan.
Members will then understand my astonishment when, in fall 2015, more than three centuries after the French Revolution, when I was about to take my seat in the House, I heard the following words resound before the opening of the sitting:
Almighty God, we give thanks for the great blessings which have been bestowed on Canada and its citizens, including the gifts of freedom, opportunity and peace that we enjoy. We pray for our Sovereign, Queen Elizabeth, and the Governor General. Guide us in our deliberations as Members of Parliament, and strengthen us in our awareness of our duties and responsibilities as Members. Grant us wisdom, knowledge, and understanding to preserve the blessings of this country for the benefit of all and to make good laws and wise decisions. Amen.
I was being forced to pray to the Christian God. I looked around and almost everyone was doing the same, whether they were Christian or perhaps Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist, agnostic or atheist. I could not understand then, and I still cannot now, why Parliament should impose any faith, let alone its faith, on all parliamentarians, employees of the House and, by extrapolation, Quebeckers, of course, and Canadians, even if it is with the noblest of intentions, unless it is being done unconsciously. I felt the House of Commons was depriving me of my freedom of conscience.
Clearly, the Canadian Parliament has not yet finalized the divorce between church and state, which I believe is necessary, because every belief system carries with it its own sense of supremacy.
As a thinking being, capable of reasoning and blessed with freedom of conscience, the idea of relying on a higher power that has the ability to grant me “wisdom, knowledge and understanding” and that would be able to “guide me in my awareness of my duties and responsibilities” smacks of offloading my responsibility.
The blessings bestowed on Canada do not depend on some divine Christian will exercised through Christian members of Parliament.
The gifts Canada enjoys are preserved by the choices made by the representatives of the people, based on the will of the people. The government is responsible, and elected members are accountable.
I believe that this prayer obviously creates an insoluble conflict between freedom of conscience and empowerment, as well as between responsibility and accountability.
No one really believes something they are forced to believe. All they can do is pretend. No one takes part in a healthy debate if the conclusion relies on an intrinsic prior truth that they cannot understand. That is what this daily prayer symbolizes. These are essentially the two reasons that led me, on June 12, 2019, to try to table a motion on behalf of the Bloc Québécois to replace this prayer with a moment of reflection.
With all due respect for all religions, and in all humility, because I have no delusions of stealing heaven's fire like the mythological figure Prometheus, I have to say that taking part in a prayer that requires me to yield my freedom of conscience and reason to the invisible hands of a god, the Christian God, is something that is, in all good conscience, viscerally impossible.
To paraphrase Étienne de La Boétie, spiritual servitude can only be voluntary. I refuse to allow anyone to think for or through me. I refuse to have my thoughts dictated for me. I make my own choices, and I take responsibility.
My colleagues may have deduced that, in my opinion, religion is a private affair. Faith is a conscious and deliberate choice, and some people choose to adhere to the precepts and values of a theistic belief system in order to determine their existence, but that is a private and personal choice.
Faith is an individual decision, not a societal one. Beliefs cannot be imposed. Society cannot be forced to act according to imposed individual beliefs. The state must be neutral. It must be secular.
I will therefore not reveal to my colleagues what religion I belong to, whether or not I practise, whether I am an atheist or an agnostic, or what I think about the religion of the gods or of humankind. I will simply reiterate that I respect these belief systems. They all preach love, peace and sharing, and their core values have been shaping the world since the dawn of time. They are aimed at transcendence, and they are what separates us from the animals, along with our intelligence and our humanity.
In closing, this explains why I stand behind the curtain during the prayer. I believe I am not the only one to do so, whether out of respect for ourselves or for others, for our beliefs or our intellect, whether discreetly or perhaps even ostentatiously. Religion is private. Like me, it should remain behind the curtain, to be practised only in our homes and our places of worship.
Let us all, as parliamentarians, gather together in a genuine moment of free reflection during which some may choose to consult their conscience or God. When that happens, I will step into the House, and the House will step into the 21st century.
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