- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- May/30/24 11:51:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was an entertaining speech, to say the least.
I grew up on a farm in rural Saskatchewan. The Bloc largely represents rural Quebec. My family's personal vehicles would usually have a combined amount of about 115,000 kilometres a year on two vehicles. That did not include our farm vehicles, farm machinery and all the other stuff.
If we wanted to go on a family vacation to Jasper National Park, it was 1,000 kilometres from my place to get there. If I wanted to stay in my home province and go to Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan, for example, that was 650 kilometres from where I grew up. Even if we wanted to just go camping at the landing where we would always go, it was about 250 kilometres to get there. Those who live in rural Canada have to drive a long way to get places.
I know they say that they do not pay the carbon tax, but there is still a federal tax and GST. Would the members of the Bloc not at least agree that the federal tax and the GST being removed for the summer would be a good idea?
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- Dec/7/23 11:44:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I hope the member is at least willing to admit that Quebeckers are disproportionately impacted by the carbon tax. The carbon tax is applied on the trains that go to Quebec, the carbon tax is applied on trucks and semis that transport goods into Quebec and that gets passed on to consumers in Quebec. They are, in fact, paying the carbon tax.
I am wondering if the member opposite would acknowledge, at the very least, that Quebeckers are getting a bad deal by this federally imposed carbon tax. Even though it is not imposed in Quebec, Quebeckers still have to pay for the damages without the rebate from the government.
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- Nov/23/23 4:55:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, maybe there are other measures the member would like to see the government take on that would be beneficial to his constituents in Quebec. Does he want to speak a bit more about what could be done to further enhance competition rather than just simply having a lazy government stealing other parties' bills?
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- Feb/9/23 11:45:48 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague finished his speech by saying that this issue is bigger than Quebec, and he is absolutely right. What he is failing to acknowledge or address is that this issue of the use of the notwithstanding clause quite often stems from the Prime Minister.
The use of the notwithstanding clause has spiked since 2017, and the common denominator is the very divisive Prime Minister, yet this member continues to prop the Prime Minister up. I am wondering if the member, at any point in time, will withdraw his support for this tired and corrupt Liberal government so we can address the issues affecting Canadians.
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- Feb/7/23 12:35:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are disadvantaging the province of Quebec. It is not receiving the rebate, as my colleague referred to in the previous question, but it is paying the carbon tax indirectly on goods that are being shipped into Quebec and being sold. It is paying for the cost of the carbon tax, yet it is not realizing the rebate that the Liberals are saying is going to make this whole entire program revenue-neutral.
I am just wondering if my colleague would like to talk a little more about some of his constituents who are having to absorb these costs but are being disadvantaged by the Liberal government.
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Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. We talk about our local news media or our local papers, and maybe someone is fortunate enough to have a local TV station. The local news media that is present in Quebec is obviously going to provide the local news and perspective for Quebec, and the local news media in Saskatchewan is going to provide our perspective, but when we see a bill like this, it is not going to boost and enrich the ability of the organizations to do what they are going to do. We are hearing the government say it is absolutely going to do that, but the reality is we always see that it is our small towns and our rural and remote communities that have people who have a diminished voice in this country. They are the ones who are always the first to lose out. They are the first ones to be eliminated because of decisions like this that are made.
We need to support and promote our small-town papers and our small-town TV and radio stations. The bill would not do that.
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- Oct/24/22 12:16:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Mr. Speaker, there is a very important role for the provinces to play. Certainly, we can see that the environment in Quebec is much different from the environment in Saskatchewan. A policy that may work in Quebec probably will not work in Saskatchewan, and one that works in Saskatchewan might not work in Quebec.
I think when the government tries to take a one-size-fits-all approach, it does not work. We need to have policy that works with the provinces and not against them. I would like to see the government taking a better approach that enables the provinces to be the masters of their own domain.
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Madam Speaker, I think the decision to do what they have done with adding and subtracting seats has to do with population. I think that is a big factor that goes into it.
The bill seeks to make sure that Quebec does not lose its seats. In effect, it creates a floor of ridings across the country, with redistribution increasing seats in areas where the population has grown at a more rapid rate. I think it was something put in place by the Stephen Harper government. It has a good legacy there, and so I look forward to seeing what the new ridings they come up with would be and how that is going to impact the distribution of seats in the future as well.
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Madam Speaker, when we look at the political balance in this country, where ridings are and where new ridings are going to be popping up, we see there have been a few more seats added to the west.
We need to make sure that we do the due diligence to a bill like this. I am all for working together to get bills passed, to get the bills done, but I do not think we should be rushing through a bill like this. This is a very important bill. I think my colleagues from Quebec would agree that this a very important bill and a very timely bill. Having seen some provinces get their redistribution maps, and not every province has so far, I think there is a lot more to be done before we rush through passing a bill such as this.
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Madam Speaker, this bill is most likely going to end up in committee, so I would like the member to elaborate on what she would like to see happen to the bill in committee. What impact is it going to have on the French language for Quebec?
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Madam Speaker, being a member from Saskatchewan, I do not think it would be appropriate for me to comment on things that are happening in the province of Quebec. I do not think we want people from Saskatchewan telling Quebec what it should be doing within its own jurisdiction, so I will leave making comments about Quebec to the members from Quebec because I think that is more appropriate.
In the community of Gravelbourg, we have many great francophone businesses. For example, there is a bookstore there that is distinctly francophone. If people want to purchase a great piece of French literature, they can go there and purchase it. I have gone through that business myself. It is a great business. It has a lot of great literature that promotes the French language in Saskatchewan.
In Saskatchewan, there are many communities and businesses where the French language is not just surviving but thriving. They are doing a great job of promoting the culture that has enabled communities to be tied to Quebec. They are not just purely of Catholic heritage; they are part of the grand scheme of things. Gravelbourg, Lafleche, Ponteix and many of the other communities in my riding are doing a great job of preserving the French language and French heritage—
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Madam Speaker, even though we are discussing a government bill to amend the Official Languages Act, I do not think my colleagues, or the interpreters for that matter, would like to hear me using this time to practice my French, so forgive me if I spend the entire 10 minutes here with members today speaking in English. I will save that for another day.
When discussing our two official languages in Canada, it is important to first acknowledge the role each of them has had to play in our history, and they continue to actively shape our national culture. This is not only true for Quebec in the past, the present or, quite frankly, the future, as we go forward from here tonight.
There is a lot of French heritage across the entire country. To this day, we will find francophone communities in the Atlantic provinces, in Ontario, in Manitoba and even across western Canada. In fact, right in my riding of Cypress Hills—Grasslands, we have several distinctly francophone communities, and I am going to spend a few minutes tonight talking about those communities, if members will indulge me.
I will start with the great community of Gravelbourg in my riding. It has a great Catholic heritage with the Church of St. Philomena, which became the Cathedral of St. Philomena on July 27, 1930. It was later renamed Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral in 1965. The construction began in 1918, and the Most Reverend O.E. Mathieu, Archbishop of Regina, presided at the blessing ceremony on November 5, 1919. The architect, however, and this is important to know for the context of the speech here tonight, was the one and only J.E. Fortin of Montreal.
On December 14, 1918, le Collège catholique de Gravelbourg opened its doors to its first students. This college is the oldest institution that still operates in Gravelbourg. In 1976, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate handed over the direction of the college to the francophonie of Saskatchewan.
This college has been a very important piece in my life. I played many volleyball matches at Collège Mathieu when I was growing up in the great community of Frontier. We travelled there multiple times to play. It is a great, beautiful school right in the middle of the Prairies, and pays a great homage to the French heritage that belongs to the community of Gravelbourg. The people are very proud of that community, and as a representative for the area, I, for one, am very proud of the great heritage that is represented there.
I also want to point out the great community of Lafleche, Saskatchewan. Lafleche is named after Louis-François Richer Laflèche, a Roman Catholic missionary to Rupert’s Land from 1844 to 1856, who also happened to be the bishop of Trois-Rivières, Quebec, from 1867 to 1898.
Members may be starting to sense a theme here of the great French heritage imported through the Catholic church from Quebec into Saskatchewan. However, there is one more community I want to talk about here tonight. There are more than three great communities, but I am going to focus on these three here tonight, because we have a limited amount of time in this debate.
The third one is the great community of Ponteix, Saskatchewan, and I just want to go over the history of it. The Paroisse Notre Dame D'Auvergne Parish was born of Father Albert-Marie Royer's dream of founding a parish that he would dedicate to the Virgin Mary. In 1907, after having studied the nature of the soil on several occasions, Father Royer made his choice on the land that runs along the Notukeu Creek in Saskatchewan, which seemed promising to him. It was a land without wood, but very fertile and easy to cultivate.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that this land also happens to fall within the Palliser Triangle, which was deemed not to be suitable for mankind to live within, yet here we are today. We have many great communities that live in within the Palliser Triangle. They happen to be feeding the world, not just Canada, and doing a great job of it.
It is also important to keep in mind something that I am sure most parties will agree with in this place. The French language, with its history and future in Canada, is much bigger than the Liberal Party, or any other political party for that matter, including the Bloc Québécois. There have already been, and there still are, Conservatives and members of many other parties who have participated in its history and supported its growth.
Besides transcending political parties and partisan interests, French Canada is also something that is much bigger than what governments try to do. That is why we have to make sure that the issue of official languages is handled in a careful way that gets the right balance, which is also why a member from Saskatchewan would be willing to speak to this important bill here tonight.
I will turn now to a general concern, which has already been raised by other members, including the great member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier in Quebec, who also serves as our Conservative shadow minister of official languages. It has to do with the minister and the department of heritage. There are some technical questions with how they should be involved with the implementation of these proposed changes. Along with those points, I want to bring up some broader context. There has been some confusion expressed and feedback, not only from the opposition, but also from other parts of society as well. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada was quoted on Radio Canada saying that they also have to wonder about the fact that the Department of Canadian Heritage retains a coordinating role in the implementation of the law when it has no authority over other federal institutions.
Ultimately, this minority Parliament needs to hold the federal government accountable. We need to make sure that any power we give to them is used responsibly for the good of Canadian francophones and that it will not somehow be used by the Liberals to promote their own partisan interests and political gain.
As always, I also want to make sure that we never miss the rural perspective on this issue. Our policy for official languages does not just impact a single region in the country, and I hope the experience of francophones who live outside of Quebec's biggest cities is considered.
Here is something that I came across in the summary of Bill C-13, which reads:
(l) enable the Commissioner of Official Languages to enter into compliance agreements and, in certain cases, to make orders; and
(m) enable the Commissioner of Official Languages to impose administrative monetary penalties on certain entities for non-compliance with certain provisions of Part IV of that Act.
It also makes a related amendment to the Department of Canadian Heritage Act.
Part 2 enacts the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, which, among other things, provides for rights and duties respecting the use of French as a language of service and a language of work in relation to federally regulated private businesses in Quebec and then, at a later date, in regions with a strong francophone presence. That Act also allows employees of federally regulated private businesses to make a complaint to the Commissioner of Official Languages with respect to rights and duties in relation to language of work and allows the Commissioner to refer the complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board in certain circumstances. It also provides that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for promoting those rights. Finally, Part 2 makes related amendments to the Canada Labour Code.
I find it interesting that this bill would allow for fines to be levied against a private business or a Crown corporation for not adhering to the act, up to a maximum of $25,000. I know that this is all in response to the pressure that the government is facing for Air Canada hiring an anglophone executive, and that would be a $25,000 fine for a corporation that is responsible for bringing in millions and millions of dollars of profit, but I wonder about the far-reaching consequences of having a knee-jerk reaction to this decision.
For example, I wonder if we were to go back through history, does that mean that, when it was still a federal program, it would have excluded or fined a PFRA pasture rider for simply not being bilingual. I also wonder about other federally regulated businesses in my riding.
What about, for example, Farm Credit Canada, which provides crucial financial services to farmers and ranchers? Over the last two years, we have heard many, many people talk about the impacts Farm Credit Canada has had on their farms. What is this act going to mean for people who do business in a very important industry such as agriculture? What is this legislation going to mean for a business like Farm Credit Canada? What about grain elevators and inland terminals, which happen to be federally regulated, that are responsible for the contracting and shipping of commodities to the coasts for processing or export to the world markets?
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