- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Louis-Saint-Laurent
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $128,105.00
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to see you and all my colleagues in the House again, especially the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord. I greatly appreciate his contribution to the public debate based on his experience as a lawyer and parliamentarian for nearly eight years. We will soon be celebrating this anniversary.
My colleague spoke at length about the official opposition, and so I would like to set the record straight. The first Liberal carbon tax, with the support of the Bloc Québécois, gave the federal government the power to impose a price on carbon for the first tax. The hon. member also forgot that the second Liberal carbon tax, which his party supports, would also be imposed in Quebec and, more importantly, drastically increased. Those are his colleague's very words. As a third point, let us not forget that the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of legislation that gives the federal government veto power for a few hydroelectric projects, for example, those that Quebec could have.
Let us talk about the bill itself. Reference was made to last year's famous G‑4 amendment on firearms, which was hundreds of pages long and covered several dozen hunting weapons. I would like to ask the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord to tell us who, on November 24, 2022, said, “I almost get the impression that the definition in G‑4 was written by the Bloc Québécois. I know that's not the case…but I must say that it meets the Bloc's expectations.”
Who gave this enthusiastic support to amendment G‑4?
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- Jun/7/22 9:06:25 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-4
Madam Speaker, I should let you know that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
I want to start by congratulating my colleague from Kings—Hants on his French. He delivered half his speech in French earlier, and it was really impressive. I want to congratulate him and encourage all my colleagues to learn the second official language. By “second official language”, I do not mean that French is the second official language, but it is the second language of an English speaker. In my case, English is my country's second official language. I just wanted to make that clear.
We are here to talk about budget items and votes for various departments, including Justice Canada. As we all know, my colleague from Fundy Royal moved a motion about that department. As a result, we are talking about judicial processes, the administration of justice in Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada and decisions that affect everyone.
More specifically, I want to talk about a decision handed down a few weeks ago that had broad repercussions across the country, especially in the region where I am from, Quebec City. The Supreme Court of Canada struck down a law on consecutive sentencing that had been duly passed by this Parliament in 2011 and had been in force until the Supreme Court's ruling.
This decision is in connection with the Quebec City mosque tragedy that occurred on January 29, 2017. I will recap those sad events. Anyone who was directly or indirectly affected by this incident remembers exactly where they were when they heard the news. People were gathered at the mosque, united by their faith, their charity and the communion of spirit, when a crazed gunman, a nameless criminal, walked in and emptied his gun, killing six men at that mosque. Our thoughts are with the 19 injured worshippers who survived, and with the loved ones of the six people who lost their lives.
At the end of the trial, the Hon. François Huot, the trial judge, handed down a 40-year sentence, which might have surprised some people. As I was saying earlier, a law had been passed by Parliament allowing for cumulative sentences. A criminal who killed three people would be sentenced to three times 25 years.
I want to say that this is a Canadian law. All too often, I have heard people refer to it as a Conservative law. This law was passed by a Conservative government, but it was kept in place by the current government. To be more specific, the 2011 law was applied up until 2015 by the Conservative government, for more than three and a half years. However, this law remained in force from 2015 until the recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada, which is almost seven years. Therefore, this law was accepted and applied by the current Liberal government for almost twice as long as the previous Conservative government.
I wanted to clarify that because, as I was drafting this speech, I came across articles that described the law as a relic of the Harper era, as though that were a bad thing. God knows Canada sure had some good years when the Conservative government was running the country.
If the Liberals hated the law so much, all they had to do was set it aside and repeal it, just as they did in other cases. In fact, during this government's first months in power, the Hon. Rona Ambrose, our leader at the time, gave me the tremendous responsibility of being our party's labour critic. In that capacity, I spoke to Bill C‑4, which repealed two laws governing transparency and democracy in unions, laws that had been passed under the previous Conservative government. The duly elected Liberal government had made a campaign promise to repeal those two laws. Having won a majority, it introduced a bill and repealed them. However, the Liberal government chose to maintain the consecutive sentencing law that is still attributed to the Harper era.
Let us get back to the sequence of events. Justice François Huot pronounces a final guilty verdict and imposes a prison sentence of 40 years, in other words, 25 years plus 15 years. He rewrites Canada's cumulative sentencing law as he sees fit, noting that he was uncomfortable with the “25 years plus 25 years plus 25 years” approach. He says himself in his ruling that he adapted the law as he saw fit and imposed a sentence of 40 years. It was a fairly extensive document, 246 pages long. He also examined the case law in more than 195 countries.
The Court of Appeal was asked to review that ruling. It struck it down. The three judges found that this was a bad piece of legislation, that it was unconstitutional. In the end, the Supreme Court ruled against this law, saying that it was totally unfair, unconstitutional and ultimately—and I am paraphrasing here—had no place in the Canadian judicial process.
One can disagree with a law, even a law that has been upheld by the Liberal government. However, there is a reality when it comes to crime, when it comes to murder, or what we call mass murder. I dislike that expression, but there is no doubt what it means: a compulsive killer emptying a gun on innocent victims. We have seen it too many times in our country. Once is one time too many. Having been through the mosque attack—I knew some of the people—I say we must think of the victims. This is about more than just the court case, the robes and the Supreme Court. It is about more than the legal process and the courts. We are talking about men and women who are suffering.
I would like to read an article by Dominique Lelièvre that was published in the Journal de Québec on Friday, May 27, just a few hours after the Supreme Court decision. The author quotes survivors and victims' loved ones:
Orphans of the Sainte-Foy mosque may pass their father's killer on the streets of Quebec City 20 years from now, laments the Muslim community, which is disappointed in the Supreme Court's decision....
“In our opinion, this ruling does not consider the magnitude of the atrocity and the scourge of mass killings proliferating in North America, nor does it recognize the hateful, Islamophobic and racist nature of the crime,” said Mohamed Labidi, president of the organization [the CCIQ], at the mosque on Sainte-Foy Road where six worshippers were brutally gunned down in January 2017.
“Although we are disappointed in this decision by the highest court in the land, it does enable us to close this legal chapter. Now we want to focus on the future.”
What troubles the survivors and the victims' loved ones most is that the children of these victims might one day encounter the murderer.
“That is the biggest fear of the victims' families. The Parole Board might delay his release and take this into account, but that's our real fear, that the orphans who will become men and women will come face to face with their father's killer when he is free,” said Mr. Labidi. He vowed to stand by these children when the time comes....
When contacted by Le Journal, Aymen Derbali, a father who was left severely disabled after miraculously surviving being shot seven times during the attack, said that he “respects” the court's decision, although he was “very disappointed” in the ruling.
“What worries me as a citizen is that this encourages future criminals to commit mass murder, since the sentence would be the same,” he said.
All the same, this decision was the culmination of a long saga that will help him close this painful chapter of his life. He wants to dedicate all of his energy to his family, to his children's future and to his humanitarian aid projects.
“I'm turning the page. I started this process a little while ago, but with this decision... Finally, there was a decision. The law will be enforced the same way across Canada,” he said with a sigh.
...
Boufeldja Benabdallah, the co-founder of the CCIQ, suggested that the court did not sufficiently account for the pain experienced by the victims' loved ones, compared to the offender's right to rehabilitation.
“The Supreme Court made a purely legal observation that, in our opinion, did not take into account the humanity of these families. It took into account the humanity of a murderer who will have to be rehabilitated later on.... Today, it feels like the balance has been upset,” he said.
Now that all the legal appeals have been exhausted, he says that he wants to do something worthwhile by continuing to advocate for communal harmony, which he says has grown immensely in the past five years, like a healing balm on the scars of the tragedy.
People did not just come the day after the attack but reached out to us over the past five years, and we too made the effort to reach out to them.
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- May/10/22 11:39:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, the House leader for the official opposition, for his very informative speech on parliamentary procedure, which is what we are talking about today.
Today we are debating a change to Standing Order 30 from the Standing Orders of the House of Commons. This standing order, which has been around since 1927, provides for the Speaker to read a four-sentence prayer. This has been a tradition in the House since 1877.
Yesterday I timed how long it takes to read the prayer. It took exactly 28 seconds. If I stumbled in reading it, it took 31 seconds. That is what we are debating today.
Allow me to give a little context.
Right before the doors open to visitors coming into the House of Commons and before the debates start being broadcast on TV, the Speaker enters the House and sits in the chair. The discussions happen in camera. The Speaker reads a prayer that, as I just pointed out, lasts about 30 seconds. The prayer is then followed by a moment of reflection. That is the tradition. Once that is done, the doors are opened.
I have been present for this procedure hundreds of times. I cannot recall anyone ever taking issue with it. The House reflects the Canadian mosaic in all its glory. We have people who are atheists and others who are Christian, Muslim or of any other faith. I do not recall anyone ever feeling uncomfortable during that ceremony. That is how I see this.
I have focused my attention on two aspects of the Bloc Québécois approach. The Bloc Québécois is suggesting that we abolish prayer and replace it with a moment of reflection. That would be like running headlong into an open door to try to open it. We already have a moment of reflection. The Bloc Québécois is suggesting that we replace something with something that we already have. It is not exactly a minor factor in the equation.
The other factor is that changing the Standing Orders of the House of Commons usually has to be done through the committee of the office of parliamentary operations, which meets once a week and is made up of all of the House leaders, the whips, the security teams and the Speaker. This committee meets in camera to debate certain proposals and traditionally makes decisions by consensus. This is a well-established standard procedure.
I am not saying that the Bloc Québécois is going against the rules. On the contrary, the Bloc has the right to do what it wants on its opposition day, but I will get back to that later.
As my colleague, the House leader for the official opposition, mentioned earlier, the proper course of action is to debate this topic in the appropriate forum, every week that the committee meets. The committee of the office of parliamentary operations favours consensus and lets all political parties express their opinion. The Bloc Québécois decided to do things differently.
In my opinion, there are two somewhat surprising points of view. First, I find it surprising that the Bloc Québécois chose to use such a procedure, since this decision should be made by consensus. Second, it suggests replacing the prayer with a moment of reflection, when there already is one. I find that a little surprising.
There is something even more surprising, though. I have had the great privilege of being in politics, of having been elected to represent the people of Louis-Saint-Laurent, for almost seven years. Before that, I was an member of Quebec's National Assembly. Since I was also a journalist, I have been following political news for years. I can honestly say that no one has ever mentioned the prayer in the House of Commons to me. Some people may be concerned about it, and I certainly do not want to trivialize their concerns. In my 35 or 40 years of following politics, as a journalist and an elected member, I have never had anyone tell me that there was something wrong with saying a prayer in the House of Commons. That never happened, but that does not mean it is wrong to consider the matter. Now, the Bloc Québécois has introduced a motion.
However, there is one concern we hear about often. In my opinion, the one thing all Canadians are concerned about is inflation. Everyone is affected by it.
I would have liked to see a motion moved by the hon. member for Mirabel, who is an influential Bloc Québécois recruit from the last election and a major asset for his team. We could have debated concerns about inflation, problems caused by inflation and solutions proposed by the Bloc Québécois, but that is not what happened. Rather than talking about inflation with a motion moved by the hon. member for Mirabel, we are talking about prayer in the House of Commons.
We could have been discussing housing prices, which are continuing to skyrocket and which are a concern for Canadians. Young people do not have access to the dream we have all had in our lives, the privilege we had to be able to purchase a property when it was affordable. That time has passed. What solutions would the Bloc, the governing party, the official opposition and the NDP have proposed? We could have debated the subject all day, but instead we are talking about the 28-second prayer in the House of Commons.
We could have been talking about the carbon tax or the surging gas prices. Today, Quebeckers woke up to the news that gas prices are now over $2 a litre. Who would have believed it? The hon. member for Joliette has been sitting in the House since 2015 and is doing a good job. He could have raised this issue, and we could have debated it today. However, the hon. member for Joliette cannot talk about the cost of gas or inflation, despite that fact that he is a financial expert, because today we are talking about prayer in the House of Commons.
We could have discussed the 76th day of the war in Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Our Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs travelled to Kyiv this week, so it is a topical subject. We all want this war to end but, unfortunately, the ogre in the Kremlin has decided to continue attacking Ukrainians. We could have debated that in the House, but instead, the Bloc decided to talk about the 28-second prayer that is recited in the House of Commons.
The hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean has asked dozens of genuinely interesting questions about Ukraine, specifically about how to get refugees to Canada. He has been asking these questions non-stop for weeks and weeks. The Bloc could have taken the opportunity today to dedicate its entire opposition day to addressing the topic that the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean has brought up from every angle since the very start. Instead, we are talking about the prayer.
We could have addressed this issue but, unfortunately for the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean and for the entire House of Commons, we did not. It would have given us an opportunity to explain how the government mishandled the issue. Are my colleagues aware that, yesterday, Newfoundland received Ukrainian refugees who landed here in Canada, in Newfoundland, thanks to the government of that province? The federal government is dragging its feet when it comes to letting refugees in, as the hon. Bloc Québécois member for Lac-Saint-Jean brings up every day, but Newfoundland managed. It would have been interesting to hear the Bloc Québécois talk about that all day, but instead we are talking about prayer in the House of Commons.
There is not one member of Parliament in Canada right now whose riding office is not being flooded with calls from constituents having problems with their passports. We are constantly asking questions about it here in the House, and we talk about specific cases in each of our ridings. That is a topic we could have discussed, as we did yesterday, when we brought up the problems with ArriveCAN that are affecting Canadians with travel plans.
The tourist season is almost upon us. Tourism is important in my region in Quebec City. ArriveCAN has to be flexible and ready for all Canadians, but that is not the case. That is a topic we could have discussed, but, unfortunately, we will not be discussing it today.
Interestingly, yesterday during question period, two members rose, namely the Bloc Québécois whip and the hon. member for La Pointe-de-l’Île. They asked questions about anglicization and the evidence that the French language is in danger. We could have debated that today in the House, but the Bloc decided otherwise.
What about the hot topic that is sadly affecting young people in some regions of Quebec, namely gun violence? Yesterday during question period, the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord raised the issue because there had been a shooting in the Laval region. There was another shooting yesterday in Villeray. That is a topic that the hon. member for Rivière-du-Nord, a veteran MP who has served since 2015, could very well have raised in the House for debate, so that we could get to the bottom of the issue and suggest ways to improve the situation. Instead, the Bloc decided to talk about something else entirely. That is its choice.
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