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Marilène Gill

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

May/7/24 12:22:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I surely mentioned it at some point, perhaps at the end of my speech. I will be sharing my time with the member for Jonquière. I could have shared it with the member for Winnipeg North, but I decided to go with the member for Jonquière. I was talking about something that I have mentioned here in the House on many occasions in recent years: The government's lack of vision, which makes the government feel obligated to work in areas that do not fall under its own jurisdiction and to neglect its own duties in favour of other things. That is having an impact on the ground. As members of Parliament, we talk with people in our ridings. These are often very informal discussions. People ask us questions in good faith, as sometimes happens in the House. They ask us what the legacy of this government, which has been in office for three consecutive terms, will be. They often mention 2017 and the Cannabis Act. Apart from that, I want to more formally ask this question: What kind of legacy will the Liberals leave after all those years in office or even with this budget? For me, that is what is still missing from this budget. Obviously, the budget contains several measures. There are 650 pages of measures. That is a lot of measures. At the same time, as many have said, we get the impression that the budget is all over the place. Let me get back to the thrust of the budget. Is there anything in there that provides direction, some orientation? It talks about the future and vision. The fact is that the future presupposes a vision and vice versa. There is nothing like that in the budget. There is also the issue of government responsibilities. I would like to point out that it is the same thing when we discuss certain bills in the House, for example defence bills. We do not talk about that often. We could also mention fisheries and oceans and international trade. They too are absent. There is little to no trace of these issues in the speeches and bills in the House. In short, everything under federal jurisdiction is missing. I said I was surprised, but I was actually shocked. I said that the government went further than it usually goes. The government can spend because it collects more money than it needs to fulfill its responsibilities. If it is not working on its own areas of responsibility, maybe that is because it has too much money. As a result, it spends in Quebec and provincial jurisdictions. This time there is no unconditional opting out. There are conditions. For example, Quebec will not be able to get money from the federal government to manage its own areas of jurisdiction. The Prime Minister even criticized the provinces, Quebec and elected municipal officials. He is playing king. The analogy may be shaky, but it is still an analogy. The Prime Minister decides for everyone. He is the only one with sound judgment and good ideas. He can do the job of everyone working at their own level of government. Everyone knows that I would rather have only two levels, the municipal and Quebec. I am truly shocked. Obviously, I will be voting against the budget implementation bill. I would also like to comment on the budget’s title. I mentioned earlier that the budget’s measures are all over the place. The budget’s title mentions fairness for every generation. That is one way of putting together measures that are neither cohesive nor coherent. It does not stand up. However, we in the Bloc continue to hammer home that we oppose discrimination against seniors. It would have been easy to include a provision in the budget stipulating that all seniors, even those under the age of 75, would receive the same old age security increase. That is not the case right now. They talk about fairness. I agree, it is a praiseworthy concept. To be sure, we want every generation to have pretty much the same opportunities, but this is phony. It is phony because I believe that what seniors in my region want is to no longer be discriminated against. What is being proposed still discriminates against them. Therefore, in my view, the objective of abolishing all intergenerational inequities is not being met. This point is very important for the Bloc Québécois and for seniors. We are speaking up for our people. The same goes for young people when it comes to fossil fuels. Who will bear the brunt of climate change and rising temperatures? That would be our young people, including those who live in my region. I could speak for my riding, and I know young people well—I have several at home, as a matter of fact. As for climate change, young people think it makes no sense at all to buy a pipeline and spend billions of dollars on a form of energy that we should have replaced yesterday, never mind today. I do not want to be told about equality of opportunity. The industrial development of the past two centuries has brought us to an absolutely untenable place. What the government is doing makes no sense at all. They are speeding up rather than applying the brakes. There is no equity here. I would also talk about regional equity. Yes, there is a generational element, but there are disparities throughout the territory. There are some members here, even from other parties, who spoke about it a bit earlier. For example, my colleague from Nunavut spoke about the north. I represent a rural riding rich in natural resources. Most of the time, I am unable to travel home. I have to drive 10, 15, 20 or even 30 hours to get somewhere where I get on a snowmobile or some other form of transportation to get home. It is nearly impossible to get there. These are northern regions and we are not really talking about fishing. I am talking about a resource-rich region, of course. We have the mining sector, which is very rich, but fishery workers are often people who struggle to make ends meet. There are many examples. I mentioned six, I believe. There is also the issue of nutrition north Canada. There were discussions about food. There were already problems with costs. It is all well and good to talk about inflation or food banks, but when it comes to the Lower North Shore, when it comes to Shefferville, that is a whole different story. That too needs improvement. I could give many, many examples like that. As for employment insurance, it is the same thing. If we are talking about equity, we should think about what that means for the regions as well. I heard the parliamentary secretary talk about the whole issue of rural regions, but that is not going to cut it. What the government is offering does not correspond to what the people in my riding want. I think it is unfortunate when parties decide to govern based not on their duties, but on their interests, particularly their electoral interests. There are several measures in this budget that are not ready to be implemented. These are really measures that will be implemented after 2025, in other words, after the next election. Again, I will be voting against the bill. Maybe I do have something in common with the government after all, because I too would like one government to be responsible for every jurisdiction, but I want it to be the government of an independent Quebec.

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Context: House Hansard - 80 - Jun/2/22

Mrs. Marilène Gill

Jun/2/22 5:23:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry. My question was misunderstood, so I did not get the right answer. Perhaps I could clarify. I was not talking about question period as a whole. My question was about when members of the governing party ask their own government questions.

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SoVote

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

Marilène Gill