- Member of Parliament
- Deputy House leader of the Bloc Québécois
- Bloc Québécois
- Saint-Jean
- Quebec
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $109,900.56
- Government Page
- May/9/24 1:00:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passionate and informative speech.
With their motion, we are hearing the Conservatives trying to convince us that their proposal will solve everything, that fentanyl will disappear overnight from the illicit drugs sold in the street, that drug addiction problems will be solved overnight and that the handful of treatment procedures they are suggesting will have a 100% success rate.
This leaves me with the impression that, at best, they are engaging in magical thinking, but at worst, and this is the impression I am getting, they are approaching a social issue from a purely partisan perspective and trying to score cheap political points off people's misery.
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- May/12/23 1:57:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Motion No. 79, moved by my colleague from Elmwood—Transcona, whom I thank, by the way, for his excellent speech.
Despite the fact that I still consider myself a young politician, perhaps less so in age than in years of experience, I feel that I have learned a lot about procedural matters during my three and a half years in office. I had the pleasure of participating in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, particularly when it came time to set up a hybrid Parliament during the pandemic. Although I stopped sitting regularly on the committee after that, I followed its work from a distance. Among that work was the study on proroguing Parliament during the summer of 2020. This was the first time that the government was required to justify its use of prorogation after the fact. As I will explain, this did not solve the problem of partisan use of prorogation.
Today's motion just happens to touch on the framework of prorogation, along with the definition of a vote of confidence. I want to quickly review these two aspects of the motion, which are in some ways intertwined.
With respect to prorogation, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs had the opportunity to read and analyze the “Report on the Government's Report to Parliament: August 2020 Prorogation—COVID-19 Pandemic” and produce its own report on that report. That report noted the various times in history when the government has used prorogation for what could be described as partisan purposes. I would like to take a moment to read part of that report. It is rather enlightening.
[In 1873,] Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Lord Dufferin when facing a loss of support in the House of Commons during a political scandal that would be dubbed the Pacific scandal. The Committee heard that the 1873 prorogation ended a committee inquiry into the matter but that the controversy over the scandal resumed during the subsequent parliamentary session. Sir John resigned a few weeks after Parliament resumed.
[More recently, in 2002,] Prime Minister Jean Chrétien requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Adrienne Clarkson at a time when details were emerging of a political scandal that would be dubbed the sponsorship scandal. The prorogation prevented a report from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts on the sponsorship scandal from being presented in the House.
[One year later, in 2003,] Mr. Chrétien prorogued Parliament until February 2004. This delayed the tabling of the Auditor General’s report on the sponsorship scandal, which was due to be tabled that November, until after Mr. Chrétien left office.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Michaëlle Jean in December 2008. The prorogation occurred at a time when a global financial crisis had recently begun. However, the prorogation also enabled the government to postpone a non-confidence vote in the House that was being sought by the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party, who had proposed a coalition, and the Bloc Québécois, who had agreed to support the coalition under a supply and confidence agreement. It was noted that the Governor General granted the request for prorogation but only after several hours of reflection. By the time the House resumed sitting in January 2009, the opposition coalition had collapsed. One witness referred to these circumstances as being driven by a breakdown in good governance within the Liberal caucus.
[En 2010,] Prime Minister Harper requested and received a prorogation from Governor General Michaëlle Jean, from January 2010 to March 2010. The reason for the three-month duration of the prorogation was to allow Parliament to recess for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. However, the prorogation also postponed the examination by the House of Commons Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan into alleged mistreatment of Afghan detainees while in custody.
The 2020 prorogation was no exception to the list of prorogations that were requested for partisan purposes. Although the government invoked the pandemic as a reason, in the eyes of several witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, there was some doubt about that justification. The fact that the government was mired in the WE scandal, that the prorogation lasted for a long time, five weeks, and that the government's report was biased, led the committee to conclude that reforms around the prorogation of the House and votes of confidence needed to be clarified.
Essentially, while the legislative change in 2017 was intended to make the use of prorogation more transparent after the fact, the goal was not met. In a way, the purpose of Motion No. 79 is to make the use of prorogation transparent upstream instead of downstream, after the fact, when it is too late. Essentially, Motion No. 79 would allow, prior to a prorogation of the House and after the Prime Minister expresses an intention to recommend such a prorogation, a motion of confidence to be moved, in which case the motion should meet a range of criteria.
It will have to be tabled with four days' notice and to be signed by 20 members of the House representing more than one recognized party, which removes some of the partisanship from the initiative.
To avoid abuse, there are safeguards in place. Only one such motion can be placed on notice per supply period and only one can be sponsored or signed by the same member of the House in a session of a Parliament. The text of the motion can either be, “That the House has lost confidence in the government” or “That the House has confidence in the government”. Both are quite clear and unambiguous. It cannot be amended. The time of the debate is limited to a maximum of one ordinary sitting day and a maximum of 20 minutes per member and 10 minutes for questions and answers. Consequently, no stalling tactics are possible. Once the four days have passed after notice was given, the motion takes precedence over all other business of the House. It is debated and then voted on.
Linking prorogation to a confidence vote will hopefully make a government that wants to use it not only think twice about the risk of being defeated and triggering a general election, but also consider whether it has the grounds to seek prorogation with the assent of other parties in the House.
We must remember that the prorogation of a session puts an end to all the business of Parliament, with some exceptions. Every committee, with the exception of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, stops its work when prorogation occurs.
Every time there is a partisan prorogation, it is the taxpayers, the citizens, who pay the price, since many bills that affect their daily life die on the Order Paper.
In a political context where we can expect more and more governments to be elected with a minority, making prorogation increasingly likely, Motion No. 79 provides a framework that is entirely justified and welcome.
As for the confidence vote aspect, how does a confidence vote work? How do we define what constitutes a confidence vote?
Actually, it is not always particularly clear. I would refer members to what the parliamentary website tells us. Currently, matters of confidence are regulated by constitutional convention. The website states:
As the confidence convention is an unwritten parliamentary practice, it is not always clear what constitutes a question of confidence. Motions that clearly state that the House of Commons has lost confidence in the government, motions concerning the government’s budgetary policy, motions for the granting of supply, motions in relation to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne, and motions the government clearly identifies as questions of confidence are usually recognized as such.
This convention is subject to interpretation, so some uncertainty needs to be cleared up in terms of the definition of “vote of confidence”. That is what Motion No. 79 seeks to do.
Professor Hugo Cyr had this to say to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs:
It is essential to understand that it is up to the House of Commons itself to determine whether it gives and maintains its confidence in the government. There is sometimes confusion in this respect, as prime ministers sometimes state that a vote on a particular bill or issue will be a confidence vote.
This undue pressure on parliamentarians could be considered a form of blackmail, and that has no place in a democracy. The government should never be able to hold an opposition responsible for defeating a government, for example, on an issue that should never have been a matter of confidence.
For all these reasons, both with respect to prorogation and the framework for votes of confidence, I commend the work of the member for Elmwood—Transcona on Motion No. 79. It lines up with the recommendations the Bloc Québécois made during the drafting of the report on the prorogation of the summer of 2020.
I hope, despite what I just heard in the last two speeches in the House, that Motion No. 79 will receive the support of the House.
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- May/4/23 11:27:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the answer is no but, in any case, I do not think the question is that relevant given the debate today.
The questions I am hearing from all sides concerning specific members just lead me to reiterate that this debate is becoming far too partisan, which serves no one, and certainly not democracy. That is why I urge all members to vote for the motion, because the main thing it is calling for is a transparent and independent public inquiry. That will allows us to move forward rather than get stuck in partisan politics and to address pressing problems that, if this continues, may not be resolved by the time the next election comes around.
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- May/4/23 11:25:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I said, I do not claim to be inside the government's head, nor do I wish to be.
That said, I will reiterate what I said at the beginning of my speech: The longer this drags on, the dirtier it gets and the more it becomes a partisan issue, when that is not what democracy should be. The longer the House continues to refuse to hold an independent public inquiry, the longer we will be embroiled in he-said-she-said debates, instead of putting measures in place to prevent foreign interference in the future. Unfortunately, we are mired in secrecy and innuendo, and the longer we delay creating an independent public commission, the more likely we are to descend into partisan squabbling, which, unfortunately, will not get anyone anywhere.
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- May/4/23 11:14:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
I will not keep the members on tenterhooks any longer: The Bloc Québécois will be supporting today's motion from the Conservatives.
As we know, when things drag, they tend to pick up dirt, and right now everything is turning into a crisis. The longer this drags on, the more likely it is that we will have to face two risks that are coming our way.
First, as the public hears different information about allegations of foreign interference, there is a growing risk that the public will lose confidence in democracy, in its institutions and in the work of members of Parliament.
Second, the more time that goes by without meaningful action being taken, the greater the risk that an election will be called and that, for the third time running, there will be foreign interference in an election because the right legislative measures have not been put in place to fight it.
The motion before the House today has four main points calling on the government to create a foreign agent registry, establish a national public inquiry, close down the People's Republic of China run police stations, and expel all of the diplomats responsible for these affronts to Canadian democracy. I will address all of these points, but not necessarily in that order.
I will begin with the point that the Bloc Québécois sees as the most important. We were actually the first to recommend it. I am talking about establishing an independent public inquiry. We want to make one main point or one key request. The person in charge of this inquiry must be appointed by all parties represented in the House. We have been calling for an independent public inquiry since February 28.
That was two months ago. I cannot believe that, in two months' time, the four parties, representing the entire Canadian population, have not been able to agree on the right person to appoint to lead a public inquiry, someone who is not part of the Prime Minister's inner circle, family or friends.
We have been asking for this inquiry for a long time, and, above all, we want to ensure that the person leading this inquiry is non-partisan and impartial so that the public will have confidence in the recommendations resulting from this inquiry. We hope that this inquiry will be launched.
If information is handled behind closed doors during this inquiry, the public must have confidence that this is being done for valid national security reasons, not for the benefit of a party that wants to hide certain information. That is why it is important to have a commissioner, judge, or commission chair who is impartial. If the information is not disclosed and must be handled behind closed doors, the public will have confidence that it is for non-partisan reasons.
It has been argued on a number of occasions that holding an independent public inquiry in an open and transparent manner could compromise the work of national security institutions by revealing sources or investigative techniques. We could trust this future commissioner to determine what needs to be done behind closed doors.
We in the Bloc Québécois are not alone in calling for an independent public inquiry. Jean‑Pierre Kingsley, a former chief electoral officer for Elections Canada, said in March on Radio‑Canada, “Canadians need to know what happened. Until there is a public inquiry, information will come out in dribs and drabs and people are going to pay the price for that”.
The fact that this is dragging on and no meaningful action is being taken is another problem. The information is being reported haphazardly, which could jeopardize some investigations and certain sources.
In addition to recommending an independent public inquiry and the appointment of an impartial chair to lead the inquiry, the Bloc Québécois recommended overhauling the Inquiries Act to ensure that future chairs of public inquiries are appointed by consensus in the House.
The motion also calls for the creation of a foreign agent registry. In our opinion, we need to go much further than the simple creation of a foreign agent registry. We need to bring in legislative measures to help address interference. That is something people have long been calling for. In November 2020, the House adopted a motion to implement mechanisms with a lot more teeth to tackle foreign interference.
Once again, unfortunately, it took a crisis and media attention for the government to start moving. About a month ago, the government finally announced that consultations would be held about creating a registry.
In addition to creating a registry, we need much broader legislation to tackle interference. One of the things we learned in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is that there are legislative gaps. Often, information comes in and it is clear there has been interference, but it cannot be addressed because there is no legislative leverage to do so.
Information is also coming in dribs and drabs. National campaign managers have said that information passed between intelligence agencies is a one-way street. Parties give information to the intelligence agencies but get little or nothing in return. Even if someone is given information, there is no avenue for a party to take action and address this interference.
As for a registry, both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP have been calling for one. Will it solve everything? No. However, it is one of the tools that would, in conjunction with other tools, help us move in the right direction.
Some people are saying that this kind of registry could inadvertently target members of Canada's Chinese community, but I think such a claim is purely hypothetical. There is no definite indication that members of the Chinese Canadian community would be targeted. Besides, when it comes to foreign agents, members of the Chinese Canadian diaspora are the ones paying the price. They are the ones enduring threats and harassment from foreign agents. All things considered, setting up a registry is the best option, precisely to protect members of the Chinese Canadian diaspora.
The Conservatives also propose that we close down these police stations. The problem is that there seem to be some discrepancies concerning what is really going on. The Minister of Public Safety told us on April 27 that all the Chinese police stations operating in Canada had been shut down. However, the media reports that calls made to these offices and agencies, like the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal, suggest they are still operating.
All the elements presented today are interrelated. Any single recommendation in the Conservatives' motion would not have an impact in and of itself. It would only reach its full potential in conjunction with the other recommendations. If the police stations have not been closed, it is because the law does not allow it. That is why it is important to also create a foreign agent registry, which will allow us to have some control over these police stations.
I would also like to mention that the issue of police stations is somewhat limited. We must tackle other issues and appropriate legislation would make that possible. For example, there are all the issues with economic threats, threats to Chinese Canadians' families who are still in China or, for example, everything connected to honeytraps, an influence tactic whereby a woman seduces a member of the community and then threatens to inform the person's family.
With regard to the expulsion of diplomats, once again, something could have been done but was not. The Minister of Foreign Affairs said that it is difficult to expel foreign diplomats in the absence of sufficient evidence and that doing so would not be in keeping with the Vienna Convention. However, we know that the Vienna Convention allows for the expulsion of diplomats without any justification from the government, so this story about respecting or not respecting the Vienna Convention does not hold water. Former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint‑Jacques, and the former counsellor at the embassy, Charles Burton, both agree with the request and acknowledge that Canada does not have to provide an explanation for expelling diplomats, as the United States and Great Britain did when similar situations occurred there.
The fact that the government is saying that it will not expel diplomats sends the wrong message. It is as though the government is saying that they can continue with their threatening activities in Canada and that we will tolerate their intimidation.
Above all that, I would also like to reiterate the Bloc Québécois's suggestion, which could have perhaps been included in today's motion, and that is the creation of an independent office on interference. That office would not answer to the Prime Minister or the Minister of Public Safety. It would answer to the House, a bit like the Auditor General does. That office would also have the advantage of being able to work outside election periods because interference does not just happen during elections.
An office with the power to investigate, search and arrest and the ability to work with CSIS and the RCMP would cut down on foreign interference and restore public confidence. For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois supports today's Conservative Party recommendation in addition to the recommendations we have already made.
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- Feb/2/23 11:43:43 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think that is obvious. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia demonstrated that as well. It is the topic of many discussions.
When we talk about bail, we have to remember that a crime was committed. What we want to avoid is the commission of an offence in the first place, before we even begin to talk about bail.
Can we address the root of the problem, which is currently the proliferation of illegal guns? I think we are only scratching the surface of the problem in a rather partisan way. As a result we are avoiding the problem and that is where I have to point the finger at the government. There is truly a much bigger problem we need to be addressing and that is where we should be focusing all of our energy.
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- Dec/9/22 12:35:48 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to talk about a bunch of things that stand out from that question.
With regard to the review process referred to by the hon. member, one of the amendments adopted in committee was that, if the complaint is dismissed, the person who made the complaint should at least be informed of the reasons for dismissing it. This implies that a minimum of work must be done to explain why the complaint is not being pursued any further. This seems to have been a concern in the case my colleague mentioned.
As for partisan appointments, having a transparent committee to select judges is already a step in the right direction, in order to ensure that judges are not always Liberal leaning, for example. This is what we have unfortunately seen in the past with the “Liberalist”.
However, if we want to go a little further, there is one thing we must also consider: What happens to judges once they have completed their term on the bench? Many of them go to large firms, but others go to work for lobbies or for groups that are a little more partisan.
Perhaps we should also review the possibility for judges, at the end of their term, to work in the private sector in businesses, groups, companies that may be considered more politically oriented, for example?
There is work that could be done throughout a judge's life, from appointment to retirement, to ensure greater impartiality, generally speaking, and greater public confidence in the system.
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- Jun/16/22 11:52:39 a.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Madam Speaker, I will not miss any opportunity to say that Quebec is forward-thinking and is doing great things that we should emulate more often.
We need to have a much more transparent, non-partisan and depoliticized process. I will say it again, because this is key to having confidence in the justice system: The legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches must be kept separate, which is not the case with the “Liberalist”. This example is painfully obvious.
Since most of the judges who sit in Quebec are federally appointed superior court judges, efforts to ensure a non-partisan appointment process will have a particular impact on the routine workings of the courts.
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