- 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/10/24 11:52:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, for 117 days, the federal government has been ignoring its civilian employees at Quebec's military bases, who are on strike. The government cannot ignore them anymore, because their representatives from Saint‑Jean, Bagotville and Valcartier are here today.
They are here to ask why Quebeckers have the lowest salaries in Canada, why Quebeckers are treated like second-class workers and why the Liberals have been ignoring them for 117 days now.
Will the government standardize the pay scale and stop discriminating against Quebec defence employees?
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- Feb/29/24 2:26:42 p.m.
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I will say it again, Mr. Speaker: Quebec knows what is good for Quebec.
We know that French is not only our official language, but it is also our common language and we need to protect it. We know that gender equality is non-negotiable, just like we know that the best way to protect religion is for the state not to have any. That is what Bill 21 is all about. There is a general consensus on that in Quebec.
Will the Liberals, who say they do not like to bicker, commit to not going against the will of Quebeckers on Bill 21?
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- Feb/29/24 2:25:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Quebec Court of Appeal has just handed down its ruling on the state secularism law, Bill 21. There is a fair bit of consensus in Quebec on this legislation. Quebeckers want a clear separation of church and state, which is what the law guarantees.
Now that the Quebec Court of Appeal has rendered its decision, it is clear that the next step will be the Supreme Court. We saw it with Bill 101, and we will see it again with Bill 21.
What we are asking Ottawa is simple: Can it stay out of it, either directly or indirectly, because Quebec knows what is good for Quebec?
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- Feb/8/24 11:16:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the minister for his speech.
When the Bloc Québécois raised the issue of Quebec's intake and integration capacity, we were accused of being armchair quarterbacks. Even if we let that slide, there is still a recent survey that found that most Canadians and Quebeckers believe that Canada is unable to integrate newcomers properly and that its intake capacity is insufficient. I hope that the minister will not call the Canadians and Quebeckers who answered the survey names.
I would like to hear what the minister has to say about the public calls for Canada to review its process, because right now it is not working. Can he respond to the substance of this question?
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- Dec/14/23 2:16:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, members of Parliament and all of the staff of the House are preparing to finally leave Parliament Hill for the holidays. However, for many Quebeckers, this will not be a time to rest and celebrate. Instead, they will be working hard, far from their families, just because their employer cannot do without them.
In addition to these nurses, truckers and service workers, there are also essential volunteers. I am talking about hundreds of designated drivers for Operation Red Nose, people who volunteer at our food banks and soup kitchens, and all those who give of their time so that seniors will have a nice Christmas or so that the most disadvantaged members of our society can at least have a Christmas. It is the dedication of all of these Christmas angels that enables all of us to have a happy holiday season.
On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I want to sincerely thank them. I hope that they all have the merriest Christmas possible under the circumstances and a very happy new year filled with good health and prosperity.
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- Nov/20/23 3:01:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we already knew that the Liberals were considering excluding Bombardier and Quebec's expertise and awarding Boeing an $8‑billion sole-source contract to build military aircraft, but now the Americans are putting the pressure on. The U.S. ambassador has written to a number of Liberal ministers to ask them to oppose a competition.
I would like to remind the Liberals that they work for their constituents, not for Washington. They owe it to Quebeckers and Canadians to make sure they are buying the best aircraft by letting Bombardier compete. Will they finally launch a competition?
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- May/12/23 11:26:02 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to believe the Liberals when they say that they did not take a page from the Century Initiative, because their immigration targets are identical. However, we will give them the benefit of the doubt. We do not yet know the Liberal targets starting in 2026. Perhaps they will not copy the Century Initiative targets after 2025.
Can they promise Quebeckers that their target starting in 2026 will be lower than the Century Initiative target of 500,000 per year, or, on the contrary, will their silence be confirmation that they are indeed copying the Century Initiative?
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- May/12/23 11:24:56 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard to follow the Liberals when it comes to the Century Initiative and their goal of increasing the Canadian population to 100 million people. They say they reject the initiative, and yet they refuse to support our motion to reject the initiative. They say they deny the initiative's target of 500,000 people per year, and yet their own target for 2025 is 500,000 people. The Liberals say they are shutting the door on the Century Initiative, but in reality they are keeping it wide open and doing exactly as it says.
Do they take Quebeckers for fools?
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- Mar/10/23 11:25:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the minister was really pushing it when he told the media that this was an opportunity, that this was good news for Quebeckers. I think we can all agree that no one here is in favour of any type of billing, but we need to remember that Quebec needed $6 billion in new investments just to begin repairing our health care system. The federal government gave Quebec just $1 billion, one-sixth of what it needed, and now it is announcing an additional $41 million in cuts.
I repeat: Who in the House is heartless enough to think that making cuts to health care right now is good news?
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Madam Speaker, according to Statistics Canada, the use of French in the workplace is declining in Quebec. One in five Quebeckers cannot work in French; also, 32% of Montrealers and 35% of Gatineau residents work primarily in English.
We will not stand for the federal government, despite being fully aware of these numbers, enacting Bill C‑13 to protect English in the workplace by allowing federally regulated companies to keep ignoring the Charter of the French Language.
French is in decline and English is on the rise. How can the minister deny that we are witnessing the anglicization of Quebec?
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- Nov/4/22 11:27:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, immigration is a blessing. However, based on the new thresholds they announced, the Liberals are completely out of touch with Quebec's situation. It seems they have forgotten that Quebeckers must provide all the services newcomers may expect such as housing, health, education and, above all, francization. In short, everything that helps people integrate.
Why are the Liberals so intent on Quebec exceeding its capacity for integration or, failing that, losing its political weight?
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- Nov/1/22 2:15:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, René Lévesque left us 35 years ago.
Quebec owes René Lévesque and the Parti Québécois so much, including the nationalization of electricity, the Charter of the French Language, agricultural zoning, automobile insurance, the immigration agreement, the environment department and so much more.
More than any of these achievements, his main contribution, his greatest contribution, was that he made us Quebeckers. Before René Lévesque, we were French Canadians. Thanks to him, and to women and men like him, we have become Quebeckers. That is his greatest and most beautiful legacy. That is why Félix Leclerc described him as the liberator of the people.
René Lévesque was born 100 years ago. He left us 35 years ago. Sovereignists and federalists alike are in his debt, and we are all his heirs, because René Lévesque was something like a great man.
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- Oct/5/22 2:21:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Andrée Ferretti, a staunch separatist from start to finish, passed away on Thursday.
On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I want to offer my condolences to her children Lucia and Vincent, and her immediate family and friends.
Born Andrée Bertrand in a working-class neighbourhood in Montreal, Andrée Ferretti discovered very early a common thread that she would follow her entire life: freedom for the people of Quebec, which would lead her to join the Rassemblement pour l'indépendance nationale in 1963, then fight her entire life to make Quebec a country; the freedom of words, discovered alongside Miron, Aquin and so many others, developed in her novels, her essays and her articles; freedom for workers, doubly exploited as labour and as Quebeckers; and freedom for women, in politics and anywhere else.
Named patriot of the year in 1979, Andrée Ferretti also made a name for herself by winning several literary awards.
Today we bid a final farewell to Andrée Ferretti, separatist, writer, activist and free woman.
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- Sep/23/22 11:27:24 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers are worried about the future. Hundreds of thousands of people across Quebec are marching on the streets to remind the government about the principles of the former minister of the environment and climate change, who at the time wanted to divest from fossil fuels.
This government continues to support the oil industry, however. Over the past year, it approved the new Bay du Nord development project and it continues to subsidize oil companies every chance it gets. The government set aside $2.5 billion for this industry in the last budget.
When will the government finally learn that we need to hit the breaks on fossil fuels, not step on the gas?
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Madam Speaker, while Quebec is in the midst of debating Bill 96, Ottawa is trying to thwart one of the bill's main measures.
Ottawa's Bill C‑13 would prevent Quebec from applying the Charter of the French Language to federally regulated businesses. We need to protect the French language in Quebec, yet Ottawa is protecting the English language at work. On top of that, the Liberals are in a rush. They just moved closure on Bill C‑13 to limit debate as much as possible.
Is this because they are afraid Quebeckers will rally against this bill, which does not protect the right language in Quebec?
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- Apr/1/22 11:27:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the future fighter jet agreement is a losing proposition for Quebec's aerospace industry.
If the government buys F‑35s, there is no guarantee that our businesses will be doing maintenance and upgrades. Even so, Quebeckers will pick up a quarter of the $19‑billion tab.
The Department of National Defence will have to compensate Quebec, and one way to do that will be through the new drone program, an area in which Quebec excels.
Given that choosing F‑35s could weaken our industry, will the federal government finally implement the national aerospace policy that the industry has been demanding for ages?
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- Mar/1/22 12:09:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I am scolded for forgetting to inform you, I would like to say that I intend to share my time with my esteemed and excellent colleague from Jonquière.
With respect to today’s motion, I will be very honest and start with a confession. Initially, I wondered why it would not be normal that Quebec would lose a seat, since it seemed logical to me, given our smaller demographic weight. That was what I first thought, instinctively. However, at some point, we start asking ourselves questions and digging a bit deeper, and that is exactly what these debates in the House are for.
I wondered why it would be justifiable for Quebec to demand a number of seats that is not equivalent to its demographic weight. The first observation we can make is that, basically, the formula used to calculate the number of seats in Quebec is not purely mathematical. There are three examples of this.
First, there is the senatorial clause. This clause ensures that no province will have fewer members of Parliament than senators. It ensures four seats for Prince Edward Island even though, technically, because of its population, it should have only one.
Second, there is a grandfather clause in the current formula that ensures that no province can have fewer members after a future redistribution than it had in 1985, which is why the Maritimes and Saskatchewan have kept their seats.
Third, there is a clause for the territories that allows each of them one MP even though, technically, the total population of the territories would warrant only one MP for all of them combined.
Since we are already working outside the scope of a purely mathematical framework, we are wondering whether there is a clause that would allow Quebec to claim a number of seats that is not equivalent to its demographic weight. The answer is no, and that is precisely the problem we are trying to remedy today.
Some may be wondering why we are doing this. Our history books show that, when Canada was created, it had two founding peoples. Last October, we marked the very sad anniversary of the creation of Canada's multiculturalism policy in 1971. In somewhat more recent history, the government started dismissing the notion of founding peoples, which had given Quebec some preeminence, and replaced it with Canada's much-touted multiculturalism. Biculturalism was shoved aside by multiculturalism, which muddied the waters and suddenly made Quebec a little less prominent on the map of Canada.
Since history always repeats itself to some extent, in 1995, Jean Chrétien's government recognized that Quebec was a distinct society. We are not sure why, but it may have had something to do with the fact that Canada nearly lost a referendum a few months earlier. All of a sudden, Quebec was being recognized as a distinct society. The Bloc Québécois's response was that this was just a mirage. I would like to quote what Lucien Bouchard said in debate the day this resolution was adopted. He said, and I quote:
...from Meech 1 to Meech 2 and from Meech 2 to Charlottetown, Quebec was always offered less and less. Maybe they offered a little less each time because they were tired by their previous effort....How can the Prime Minister think that Quebecers will be pleased to hear him say that he recognizes the fact that they are a distinct society? How can he think that this will make us, Quebecers, happy? We certainly know that we are a distinct society and we have known it for quite some time. What we want is the means to make our own decisions, to plan Quebec's future based on our differences. That is what we want, but we are not getting it. There is nothing to that effect in the resolution.
In 2006, it was déjà vu all over again. The Harper government recognized Quebec as a nation. I thought it might be fun to see what Wikipedia had to say about that, and indeed, there is a page on the subject. It is very interesting. At the top, it reads:
It is important to note that this motion is symbolic because it does not amend the Constitution Act, 1867, which states that Quebec is one of Canada's provinces. In addition, it was not endorsed by the Senate, the federal Parliament's second house. There has been very little interest in constitutional amendments since the failure of the Meech Lake accord, and politicians find themselves in a situation where all they can do is issue symbolic declarations.
I will expand on the symbolic nature of these recognitions shortly.
Just last June, the Bloc Québécois got the following motion passed in the House of Commons:
That the House agree that section 45 of the Constitution Act, 1982, grants Quebec and the provinces exclusive jurisdiction to amend their respective constitutions and acknowledge the will of Quebec to enshrine in its constitution that Quebeckers form a nation, that French is the only official language of Quebec and that it is also the common language of the Quebec nation.
Back then, we reiterated the importance of walking the talk. Being recognized as a nation is not the end of the story, and that is why we are moving today's motion.
I would like to make a brief aside on another subject. Quebec has had its own distinct character for some years on the issue of immigration. The two issues are intrinsically tied together. I will link them at the end of my speech. Quebec shares this jurisdiction with the federal government. Immigration is one of the jurisdictions that fall under both levels of government. For several years now, some of these powers have been decentralized. The first agreements that were signed, such as the Lang-Cloutier agreement in 1971 and the Andras-Bienvenue agreement in 1975, made changes that were more administrative in nature. However, an important first step was already being taken in the area of immigrant selection. For the first time, Canada was forced to consider Quebec's opinion with respect to each new applicant headed for its territory. A little later, in 1979, the Cullen-Couture agreement was signed. In this case, issues involving temporary immigration required discussions between the two levels of government, and that forced them to work together even more. The major breakthrough, when Quebec gained the power to choose a large part of its immigration intake, came from the Canada–Québec Accord relating to Immigration and Temporary Admission of Aliens, which was signed by Ms. McDougall and Ms. Gagnon-Tremblay in 1991 and is more commonly known as the Canada-Quebec accord. This document gives Quebec significant powers to welcome people who are able to work. As a result of the agreement, Quebec finally gained full control over the selection process for economic immigrants, as well as powers over integration and francization. In other words, Quebec can determine the entry volumes of these future permanent residents.
One of the reasons we are debating the issue before us today is because it relates to immigration issues, and this has an impact on Quebec's political weight. A few days ago, Paul Journet wrote an article entitled “Quebec is losing its influence”. We often debate immigration thresholds in Quebec. People say it should be between 40,000 and 50,000 immigrants. If we compare Quebec with what Canada is doing, we can see that there really is no comparison. Canada is talking about increasing the number of immigrants it will welcome to its territory from 280,000 to 430,000. Proportionately for Quebec, 40,000 or 50,000 immigrants out of 8.5 million inhabitants represents 5% of the population. For Canada, the threshold of 430,000 immigrants suggested by the Liberals out of 38 million people, minus Quebec's 8.5 million, represents about 1.4% of the population. Population growth due to immigration is three times faster in Quebec than in Canada. This is the result of a choice made by Quebec, which wants to ensure the proper francization and integration of its immigrants. English Canada does not face the same constraint, since English is a more internationally recognized and commonly used language. With that in mind, Quebec is justified in wanting to do something not about Canada's choice of immigration thresholds, but about the direct and indirect consequences that Canada's decisions may have on Quebec. That is exactly what the Bloc Québécois motion today is all about. In fact, when a decision by Canada has a negative impact, for example, if the immigration thresholds are increased and there are not enough resources, this has an impact in Quebec on the processing of our files. In this case, we would like to see more money allocated and more civil servants assigned to the processing of these files. It is the same scenario if it causes the demographic weight of Quebec to decrease. We want representation that is proportional to our special status, which is justified. It is not a whim; it is simply a matter of giving concrete expression to what it really means to be a nation.
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