- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Bloc Québécois
- Trois-Rivières
- Quebec
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Madam Speaker, I wish to inform you that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean.
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- Feb/6/23 4:31:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean.
Today's debate is a passionate one. People clearly feel strongly about this issue. I will start off with a quote from a French author I really like: “'Bad' people are not the ones who do the most evil in this world. Rather, it is the incompetent, the negligent and the gullible. 'Bad' people would be powerless without so many 'good' people.”
My question is, who are the good people, and who are the bad? Philosophically, I think only fools judge without knowing, but there are times when it is important not to appear foolish. The McKinsey saga has been quite the roller coaster ride, with surprises around every corner: contracts that were never tendered, a contract with a 2100 end date and no registry of lobbyists entry.
There is so much here that arouses suspicion. Like it or not, even in good faith, there are reasons for mistrust, yet the government's actions should inspire confidence. In this case, this much doubt adds up to mistrust.
It is not unusual to do business with a consultant. I myself was a consultant for 25 years. There are even valid reasons for doing so. I will outline three, or actually four, if incompetence is involved.
First, when there is an immediate lack of expertise and no time to develop it in-house, one must seek that expertise externally. That transfer of expertise is valuable.
Second, when facing a unique situation that will not be repeated, one might look for a band-aid, a temporary solution. That is valid.
Third, when a certain level of expertise is lacking, a consultant can provide it for a limited time. That is valid.
These three reasons are valid. There are no other reasons to use a consultant, except for incompetence, the fourth reason I mentioned earlier.
The example of the Business Development Bank of Canada was mentioned earlier. That astounds me. A new president and CEO was appointed on August 10. She was not just anyone. She was a former Canadian ambassador to France and Monaco, who had previously worked at the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal and at Sun Life. She had quite a resumé. She did what all political appointees do. She asked McKinsey what she should do.
Honestly, I thought that the expertise came with the appointment. I thought that was part of the package. It turns out that it is not. I think the requirement for being president of the Business Development Bank of Canada is to be able to contact McKinsey. At least that is what it seems like. It seems that contacting McKinsey is a natural reflex for this government.
However, no one elected McKinsey. We are talking about private sector people from a bona fide company who are developing public policy for the government. If McKinsey is involved it is a done deal. McKinsey has earned a reputation over the years with an admittedly excellent research system. This research system was often built on pro bono assignments on the backs of other people, which is a special kind of hoodwinkery.
I wonder: What is McKinsey doing? This firm cannot know more than everyone else about everything, at all times, everywhere in the world. That would be astonishing. The only other explanation is that McKinsey is God or the Holy Spirit, pick one.
One thing is certain, McKinsey has made itself indispensable to many. The opioid crisis in the United States was mentioned earlier, but I will not go there.
Last fall I met with leaders of the French Senate when I was staying in Paris. They presented me their report, which I could show you, were it not so astoundingly thick. The French Senate showed that McKinsey was setting up shop with weak leaders.
They work pro bono. They do not register with the lobbyist registry. In fact, they found the loophole in the rules that allows them to circumvent the spirit of the code. Then they take charge of creating public policies that advance a vision of the world, the vision of McKinsey, an unelected organization.
It is ironic because, by subcontracting certain responsibilities, the government has somewhat privatized Privy Council. That is problematic because McKinsey is not accountable to Canadians, and that is not ideal. The Senate of France spent dozens of meetings questioning people. All they discovered was that automatically resorting to that organization was not a sound practice.
Of course, over the years, the obsession with balancing the budget resulted in the public service losing certain strengths. That said, the three reasons mentioned earlier remain valid. However, they still came to the conclusion that there had to be transparency around contracting and that information should be published about the list of suppliers, the nature of the contracts and their cost as well as accountability regarding what happened, what they did and the outcome. That was one of the recommendations. They also recommended that there be better oversight of the use of consulting companies and that their code of ethics be enhanced.
If I may say so, the ethical rules of consulting firms can sometimes be scary. In fact, a consultant's first commandment is to make sure that the contract is profitable for the consultant. The second commandment is to make sure that the contract is renewed. As for the third commandment, see number one.
I will say it again: Hiring a consultant is not the issue. However, it is extremely unethical to contract out public policies to unelected officials who suggest the terms—terms which, if we are to believe what we have learned, no one was able to challenge. Whole swaths of public policy have been subcontracted to McKinsey without any accountability, for McKinsey or the government.
In my mind, McKinsey is not the enemy. In some ways, I am more concerned about government management. Public enterprise fulfilled a request. However, what concerns us in the reports is the lack of transparency. Why was this done without tenders, for example? There may be good reason. We need to find out.
This feels a bit like subcontracting the nation-state, and that scares me. It scares me because McKinsey, which does business all over the world with all kinds of countries, with China as with the United States, with Russia as with Ukraine, becomes, in a sense, a supranational government. Basically, McKinsey has more data than most governments on both sides, but McKinsey was not elected. We need to be very clear about that.
When a government cannot even develop its own policies, there is a name for that. It is called incompetence. I think the government before us today is a tired government that cannot even be bothered to govern anymore.
The Liberal government wanted a majority, but it does not have one. Personally, I would have liked to be an artist, but I am not. Maybe I should ask McKinsey what it takes to be an artist. They could help me. The Liberals need to try to rise above partisanship and act like a government.
I will close by telling the House about an adage that, as an ethicist, I have lived by all these years, and it has to do with light and darkness. It goes something like this: Any action that needs darkness to succeed is probably more unethical than an action that can stand the light. In the case of McKinsey, I have realized that darkness is at play.
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- Nov/15/22 5:17:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for sharing his time with me. That was very kind of him.
Voters did not elect a majority government. Had they wanted to, they would have done so in 2019 or 2021, but they did not. They chose a minority government. However, the current false, hybrid, patchwork majority is an unholy alliance resulting from the NDP's renunciation of its fundamental values in exchange for a promise.
I have some advice for my NDP friends. They should be aware that all of the promises this government makes are for the future, which is understandable, but of course it makes them in the conditional form, never in the present tense. It is important to be aware of that because there is a good chance that many of these promises will end up in the graveyard of good intentions.
An intention is a promise that is not strong enough to be achieved. An intention is basically a false promise. When someone says that they had good intentions, their intentions were not good enough because they never resulted in action.
Government Business No. 22 is what I would describe as a rogue motion. It is a hold-up of democracy.
The motion shows that the current government does not like to govern with an involved Parliament. To avoid having to do so, it does not hesitate to violate the spirit of the rules of the House. Let us not forget that these rules are the culmination of the past wisdom of previous governments. Government Business No. 22 is detrimental to the legitimacy of the government.
Some claim that Parliament is currently ungovernable. Ungovernable, no, unpleasant maybe, but not ungovernable. The government has introduced 36 bills, 19 of which have gone through every stage, 16 of those received royal assent and three are at the Senate; seven bills are being studied at committee, 10 others are at second reading, and so on. Thirty-six bills is not bad. It is not ungovernable. Things might not be going at the pace that some would like. That may be unpleasant.
Why does the government want to muzzle the opposition? It claims this is urgent. Urgency is a convenient pretext. Philosophically speaking, urgency does not exist. It is simply a characteristic that individuals choose to assign to an event. Urgency does not exist.
Here, the person who chose to assign that characteristic to the event is the Leader of the Government. Urgency is subjective, not objective. Urgency is something that is decided, it is our own view. The Bloc Québécois does not agree with this subjectivity.
Subjectivity is about the subject, it is about the individual examining something. The thing I am examining is an object. It is said to be objective. Clearly, depending on where I am in relation to the object, it will have one hue rather than another. It is an interpretation, not the truth. Therefore, urgency does not exist. The only justification that I can see for Government Business No. 22 is an open devotion to ignoring the Standing Orders. The motion will prevent members from discussing issues together because not everyone will be there. Ultimately, having discussions together is the very essence of parliaments.
Government Business No. 22 will force us to give monologues and not have dialogue, and yet, dialogue is the only way to build an objective and not a subjective argument. I will repeat that this motion is a hold-up of the House and its activities. Why are they doing this? Why are they moving a motion such as this?
Everyone here knows that there is no point in asking “how” without asking “why”, so I have to ask, why? The only valid answer I have found in my heart of hearts and in consultation with my eminent colleagues is that the government prefers to govern in absentia, as they say in Latin, leaving members to fill the void in the evenings, at the whims of the government House leader and another party's House leader, I might add. I cannot imagine who the leader of the other party will be, but that mystery should be solved soon.
Of course, as parliamentarians, it is our job to sit. I am not arguing that. Our work is planned so that we can put forward our respective points of view. Sittings cannot be improvised at the whim of the government House leader. In 1982, the House adopted the principle of a sessional calendar. It cannot be flouted at every sitting. Government Business No. 22 allows the government to do indirectly what it cannot do directly.
Those are very wise philosophical words. I do not remember who said that; it could have been Plato, Aristotle or Martin Champoux. I am sorry, I should have said the member for Drummond.
Anyway, Motion No. 22 is an unethical decision based on the interest of one, not all. Motion No. 22 disregards the public interest by cutting off debate rather than enabling dialogue. The purpose of a parliament is to bring people together, to foster dialogue, to be constructive. Motion No. 22 says no to all that.
I listened to the member for Kingston and the Islands' passionate speech, and I look forward to hearing members opposite defend the indefensible, because Motion No. 22 is indefensible.
I will end there. I am happy to answer questions.
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- Nov/1/22 10:58:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I begin, I would like to wash the member for Kingston and the Islands' mouth out with soap since I have had enough of his constant lack of respect.
I will begin by saluting my constituents in Trois-Rivières.
I will be sharing my time with the member for Terrebonne if she gets here in the next 10 minutes.
The worst obligation for a prince, may be—
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- Feb/19/22 12:09:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles.
I am against invoking the Emergencies Act.
I commend the work of the police officers, who have shown remarkable composure and professionalism. I hope this illegal occupation will end without violence.
Many protesters have made the reasonable choice to leave. However, a fractious group is still refusing to go home. It is possible they are extremists. They are the ones who came to occupy, not to protest. It is to be expected that they will be difficult to remove, but none of this justifies using the Emergencies Act.
To invoke and enforce the act, two things must first be demonstrated. First, that there is a dangerous and urgent situation. Second, that it is impossible to deal with the situation under existing laws. I do not believe this to be the case.
Faced with such a situation, I think it is important to distinguish between an exception, in other words, something that only occurs once and will not reoccur, and a precedent, which is something that is expected to happen again. I do not think we should make a precedent out of an exceptional situation.
I personally believe that invoking the Emergencies Act is the direct result of a terrible lack of vision and leadership. With that in mind, the question that remains is this: How did we get to where we are today?
We all knew that the truckers were coming. We all knew that, once they were here, it would be difficult to remove them. Did all of us really know that? No. The Prime Minister said that the right to protest was important, and I agree. I also agree that everyone should be able to express themselves freely. That was before the protest became an occupation.
Throughout the first week of the occupation, the Prime Minister was quick to lecture us, saying that he could not direct the police, that the police had to submit their requests and that it was the police's job to control the situation. That is why the police chief asked for 1,800 additional officers, but he got only a few dozen. That is when the occupation became really entrenched. Was it a lack of vision on the part of the Prime Minister, carelessness, flippancy or a lack of leadership? Who knows.
To understand the situation—and I propose that we discuss it in order to explain it—it is worth noting that this ill-advised decision is a logical extension of previous decisions, which were all equally clumsy.
The current Liberal government was elected in 2015 on promises for a better future, one where transparency would be a priority and where Canada would reclaim its place on the international stage. That was in 2015, and the Liberals were saying that Canada was back.
It was definitely a breath of fresh air and there was hope for better days. The Prime Minister met with world leaders and graced the front pages of celebrity magazines. The whole world admired his youthful good looks and colourful socks.
Hope appealed to Canadians, but all was not well. In January 2017, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner began an investigation into the Trudeau family's vacation on the Aga Khan's private island, and that investigation resulted in a reprimand from the commissioner.
It was the first time a prime minister had been reprimanded by a Conflict of Interest and Ethics commissioner. The first Trudeau report, because there would be others, was shameful for a prime minister—
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Mr. Speaker, I am seeking unanimous consent to share my time with my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert.
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- Feb/1/22 5:55:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Drummond.
Many people have said that the throne speech was a compilation of platitudes, an short collection of empty words designed to appeal to hardcore Liberal converts, the ones who will get behind anything. It has been said that say the throne speech contains commitments, promises. Let us be clear. The word “promise” comes from Latin. The prefix “pro-” means “forward” and the verb “mittere” means “send forward”. I do not think that is the case here.
If we really think about it, the throne speech only contains three things: first, old news; second, silences; and third, repetitions.
With respect to the “old news”, the throne speech confirms that the Liberal government plans to continue interfering with areas under provincial jurisdiction, such as housing, police reform, mental health, natural resource management, and the prevention of violence against women.
Now, let us talk about the “silences”. There is a deafening silence when it comes to health transfers, the transition to green finance, EI reform, seniors, agriculture, and many other issues.
Now to the third point, the “repetitions”: unacceptable immigration delays, access to clean drinking water in indigenous communities, international aid, making web giants pay their fair share, and so on. I could go on because the list of recycled, unkept promises is infinite, but life is short, so I will stop there.
The throne speech talks about bilingualism and foreign policy. Since I have just 10 minutes, I am going to talk about two issues, both of which qualify as “old news” or “repetitions”: the French language, and the absence of a clear foreign policy direction.
With respect to the French language, the throne speech is a step backward. It creates the illusion of aspiring to equality for English and French, but all it really offers in return is institutional bilingualism. The proposed means are not commensurate with the stated ends. French and English can never be of equal importance. A mere eight million francophones are up against 400 million anglophones.
When it comes to the preservation of French, real equality for the two languages is just wishful thinking. It will take asymmetrical measures to restore equity. I want to make it clear that “equity” is not the same thing as “equality”. Equality means “everyone is the same” or “the same thing for everyone”, whereas equity means everyone gets their due. Equity means adjusting symmetry so that both languages can take on their rightful importance. That is not going to happen overnight.
As the Bloc Québécois critic for the international francophonie, I can assure my colleagues that French and the francophonie are doing well around the world. It is projected that French will be spoken by 700 million people around the world by 2050. If the Liberal government's current momentum is any indication, it will not have much to do with it.
In order to move things forward, I have proposed that the Jeux de la francophonie be held in my riding of Trois‑Rivières. The games will bring delegations from 50 participating countries and nearly 5,000 participants and supporters to Trois‑Rivières. These people will do more for the French language during the games than the half measures proposed in the throne speech.
Perhaps the Prime Minister has forgotten, but French is an identity, a culture, a way of life and a way of seeing things. This way of seeing things is an asset, and we must not squander it.
It would be better to protect the French language than to repeat yet another intention. Do my colleagues know what an intention is? It means being about to do something, but not having done it yet. Rather than intentions, we would like results. If the Liberal government is unable to take real action on the French language, it should let Quebec do it for itself, by not opposing its initiatives.
Next, I want to talk about Canada's foreign policy or, I should say, its lack of foreign policy. When it comes to diplomacy and global affairs, time and consistency are key to building lasting ties that allow us to expand our influence and wield that soft power on the international stage. I get nostalgic thinking back to a time when Canada was seen as a key player, a country that would be called upon to settle disputes or provide unique perspectives or solutions. I remember when Canada had a foreign policy.
I will remind members of the Quebec Conference in 1943. That was a long time ago, but the conference brought together Churchill, President Roosevelt and his French counterpart in Quebec City. Some of the decisions made at that conference changed the course of history. Canada did change the course of history with the Iraq war, but since then there has been nothing. I remember when Canada did not choose new foreign affairs ministers based on polls or personal preferences. Diplomacy takes time; it requires consistency and perseverance. Diplomacy calls for long-term commitment and proven action, not just talk or a show of intentions. I may sound wistful, but I also remember a time when Canada made foreign policy decisions without first looking to the United States. I remember a time before Canada decided to simply copy the Americans instead of thinking for itself. I remember a time when Canadian prime ministers knew and understood that they could make their own decisions. I remember a time when Canada had a vision for its foreign policy and clear objectives.
Many challenges lie ahead in 2022, including China and Huawei, Ukraine, international immigration, humanitarian crises, American protectionism, and so on. The throne speech does not address any of those troubling issues, but maybe that is my fault. I expected too much of the throne speech, but I guess that was about nostalgia for a bygone era. In the Speech from the Throne, I would have liked to see the Liberal government outline a direction for its actions, a path to follow, a way forward; instead, it was just empty rhetoric.
I do not want to end on a sour note, so I will say this: I can only applaud the throne speech, but with no hands.
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