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Rhéal Éloi Fortin

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
Bloc Québécois

Rivière-du-Nord
Quebec
Voting Attendance: 68%
Expenses Last Quarter: $105,330.31

Government Page

Context: House Hansard - 137 - Nov/29/22

Mr. Rhéal Fortin (Rivière-du-Nord, BQ)

Nov/29/22 2:59:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is precisely the precedent that the father of the Emergencies Act, former minister Perrin Beatty, was concerned about. When he appeared before the committee, he said that once the act has been used for the first time, the temptation will be to use it for other crises. He recalled that he had consciously included the specific criteria that must be met in order to counteract the arbitrariness and abuses that the old War Measures Act allowed for. The Liberals flouted these criteria when they invoked the act. Can the minister tell us what will prevent any future governments from using it arbitrarily to suspend individual freedoms?

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Context: House Hansard - 157 - Feb/9/23

Mr. Rhéal Fortin (Rivière-du-Nord, BQ)

Feb/9/23 12:44:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. He is a passionate man who, in my opinion, respects the rights and freedoms of individuals and peoples. I have two questions for him. First, am I to understand from his speech that he supports the Constitution Act, 1982, except for section 33? Second, does he believe that the same reasoning should apply to all peoples of the world; in other words, that all peoples, including in Sri Lanka, where he is from, should be free to decide on certain laws, but only on the condition that they abide by certain dictates of the United Kingdom, for example?

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Context: House Hansard - 157 - Feb/9/23

Mr. Rhéal Fortin

Feb/9/23 12:16:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the answer is short and sweet: yes. The Supreme Court said it, and I will say it again: yes. Decisions by the provinces do not concern the federal government, as long as those decisions are legal. The courts will overturn legislation or not based on a broad range of criteria, a series of conditions that legislation must respect. However, their compliance or non-compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms falls under section 33, not under the federal government, which is not the arbiter of the values, interests and decisions made by the legislative assemblies.

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Context: House Hansard - 137 - Nov/29/22

Mr. Rhéal Fortin (Rivière-du-Nord, BQ)

Nov/29/22 2:58:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in a Radio-Canada interview on Sunday about the invocation of the Emergencies Act, the Minister of Public Safety defended himself, stating that the act has some shortcomings and needs to be updated. That was a candid admission that his government knew it had not met the threshold for invoking the act, but did so anyway. In a country governed by the rule of law, the end does not justify the means. Do the Liberals acknowledge and take responsibility for the fact that the precedent they set now authorizes any future government to suspend individual freedoms as it sees fit?

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Context: House Hansard - 136 - Nov/28/22

Mr. Rhéal Fortin (Rivière-du-Nord, BQ)

Nov/28/22 2:39:11 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, if the legal opinion fully vindicated the Liberals, they would have printed out hundreds of copies and distributed them to the media. The Liberals saw those legal opinions. They read the act, they saw that they did not meet the threshold to invoke the act, but they invoked it anyway. It was precisely to prevent this kind of thing that there was a shift from the old War Measures Act to the Emergencies Act. It was supposed to prevent any government from saying, “Just watch me”, and arbitrarily suspending individual freedoms. Does the government realize that, in doing so, it has set a dangerous precedent?

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Member of Parliament

Rhéal Éloi Fortin