44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 21, 2023 10:00AM
Mr. Speaker, as my colleague knows, I have a great deal of respect for him.
Last month, here in the House, he said, “Our party's objective is not to take money away from the CBC”. However, his leader was quite clear about his contempt for our public broadcaster, even going so far as to beg Elon Musk to ridicule CBC/Radio-Canada.
Will the member opposite from Quebec, who was a Radio-Canada journalist himself, continue to support his leader, who wants to cut funding to CBC/Radio-Canada?
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- Apr/21/23 11:05:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Gatineau Olympiques in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League for reaching the semi-finals in the Gilles Courteau Trophy playoffs. That is bad news for MPs from the Quebec City area, as the Remparts de Québec are bound to lose.
I want to highlight the passion and commitment of the players, coaches, host families, sponsors and supporters who backed the team throughout the season at the new Slush Puppie Centre in Gatineau.
All members and everyone in the Outaouais are pulling for them.
Go, Olympiques, Go!
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- Apr/21/23 11:15:37 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is Earth Day, a day for people to come together and take action for the future of our planet and our future generations.
It is an opportunity to individually commit and recommit to joining forces in the fight against climate change. More importantly, it is an opportunity to put pressure on governments, starting with Ottawa. Although the federal government is saying that we need to accelerate the transition of our economy by supporting workers, it is continuing to fund oil activities in its budget this spring. At a time when we urgently need to fast-track the fight against climate change, this government is investing in future oil exploration in the Arctic.
On Earth Day, let us make Ottawa understand that climate change is not a business opportunity. On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I encourage everyone to join the protests that are being held in Montreal, Quebec City, Joliette, Sherbrooke, Trois-Rivières, Chicoutimi, Rouyn, Rimouski and Baie-Comeau.
Ensuring our future means investing our energy in climate action, not investing in the energy stakeholders of the past.
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- Apr/21/23 11:27:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Air Canada is abandoning Quebec's regions and it is high time the federal government got involved. Even the Alouette aluminum smelter back home, the largest in America, has written to Air Canada because its lax attitude is threatening the company's operations. Air Canada is currently cancelling one out of five flights to Sept‑Îles and not a single flight leaves Baie‑Comeau anymore.
Air Canada abandoned the regions long ago, and the federal government has been condoning it for too long. What will Ottawa do to ensure that the regions have reliable and accessible air service?
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- Apr/21/23 12:02:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this week, we learned that the 2027 Canada Games will take place in Quebec City. That is excellent news for our beautiful province and the sports community.
This not-to-be-missed sporting event provides many athletes with their first opportunity to participate in a high-level competition in a very friendly environment.
Can the Minister of Sport tell us more about the government's efforts to make events like this one possible?
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- Apr/21/23 12:03:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Pontiac for her question.
I want to join her in congratulating Quebec City for being chosen to host the next Canada Winter Games in 2027, 60 years after hosting the inaugural event.
It is a wonderful tribute to Quebec City for the Canada Games to return to its birthplace. The event will also generate major economic spinoffs for the region.
We will continue to work with our partners to give our young athletes unique opportunities to excel and reach their full potential in a safe, healthy and inclusive sports environment.
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Mr. Speaker, I heard my hon. colleague cover a wide range of issues in his speech. I did hear him ask why the Volkswagen plant that was announced today is not in Quebec and why it is in Ontario. As a member of Parliament from the province of Ontario, I am quite happy that the plant is located in Ontario, but as a Canadian, I would equally support it if the plant were located in Quebec or Alberta or any other province. Is the member not aware that the decision as to where the plant will be located is made by the company in question after consultations and discussions with the relevant province?
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois wants to make sure that Quebec gets its fair share. When Ottawa decided to save the auto industry with $10 billion in 2008, we noted that Quebec did not receive the equivalent. When Ottawa decided to save Muskrat Falls with $10 billion, we noted that Quebec did not get the equivalent. When the Liberals chose to buy the pipeline in western Canada for tens of billions of dollars, we noted that Quebec did not get its share. We want to make sure that Quebec gets its share.
Quebec specializes in green energy and the green economy, that is, the economy of the future. Quebec had all the expertise it needed to have a successful battery plant, but that was not how it played out. To add insult to injury, it was the minister from Shawinigan who made this announcement with great fanfare in Montreal to say that the plant would not be in Montreal or the surrounding region, but in St. Thomas, Ontario. Good for them.
Could Quebec get some of these structural investments to develop its economy? The proof remains to be seen, unfortunately.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his moving speech on what are certainly very important topics.
Obviously, the issue in question is not covered in Bill C‑47 and I am not really familiar with it, even though I think it is of the utmost importance.
The Bloc Québécois wants Ottawa to ensure that health care services, including mental health services, will be fully funded. Ottawa's plan for supporting the health care plans of the provinces is inadequate and unacceptable, despite the extra $2 billion provided through Bill C‑46, which was passed on Wednesday. We are far from a done deal.
Ottawa offers direct services, including in health, for veterans and certain sectors. What is being done seems plainly insufficient. Of course, anything Ottawa does costs two and a half times more than the same service provided by Quebec.
If the federal government were responsible for delivering health care services, a public health care system would be completely out of reach.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from Manicouagan, and I commend her for all the work she does for the people she represents, including on the issue of employment insurance. Many people throughout Quebec and Canada, including her region, have seasonal jobs. The workers are not seasonal, the jobs are.
Do we collectively want to make use of the land? Do we want people to be able to live and work in their region and flourish there? If so, then we have an EI system that is truly dysfunctional right now. It has not been reformed, and the government has been pushing back the reform every year since 2015.
On top of all the problems, there is the issue of the spring gap. There are not enough weeks of benefits for a person living off seasonal employment to have income all year round. A pilot project was rolled out, but once again there is insecurity. This is being put off for another year.
Will it be enough? Will it be as usual? This is the government's way of doing things. We are a little relieved that this initiative has been extended for a year, because the alternative would have been terrible for our regions, even though the problem is far from being resolved. How much would it cost to reform an insurance system that is broken? It will be a major investment for everyone, especially with a possible recession looming.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge for getting government members to hear this. They need to hear from Canadians that they cannot keep sending $30 billion to overseas tax havens every year. Instead, they need to invest that money in health care and education, ensure that we have universal pharmacare, ensure that there is access to public education and ensure that every Canadian has a roof over their head at night and can put food on the table. They also need to transition to a clean energy economy. Liberals can do that if they close the loopholes, 30 billion dollars' worth a year. I thank my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge for telling the Liberals to come into the House.
I want to talk a bit about the dismal record of the Harper regime, because the member for Carleton, who is the new leader of the Conservative Party, basically seems to have a motto of “Elect me and I'll do even worse than Harper did.” I looked at what the Harper regime did over the course of that dismal decade. The overseas tax havens I talked about are largely the creation of the Harper regime. It put them into place, 30 billion dollars' worth, and now the Conservatives are saying they do not take responsibility for that.
What else did the Conservatives do? They forced people, manual labourers, to work longer. They basically deprived them of their pension. They ripped apart the environmental framework of this country; there is no doubt. They also ripped local offices away for veterans.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Peter Julian: Mr. Speaker, it is not a laughing matter when a veteran who is disabled has to travel hundreds of miles to get to a veterans office because the local offices have been closed. That is not something Conservatives should be laughing about at all.
That is what the record of the Harper government was: dismal and appalling. It put in place many of the cuts that we have seen, devastating the health care sector.
We reproach, of course, the Liberals for not closing all the loopholes so that we have the money to reinvest in health care. They are starting to do that slowly and grudgingly, but far short of what is actually required.
When we look at the Harper regime and the member for Carleton's pretension that he will do even worse than Steven Harper, I think Canadians have reason to be worried by his attacks on Radio Canada.
I have no idea why no Conservative member from Quebec has condemned these attacks on Radio-Canada.
CBC and Radio-Canada share sites and facilities across the country. It is absurd to say that they will dismantle the CBC but Radio-Canada will be protected. It is ridiculous, because these two organizations share their resources. If the CBC is abolished or dismantled, Radio-Canada will be dismantled.
Not one member of the Quebec Conservative caucus rose to say that they were against it. Why be elected as a francophone MP and serve in the Conservative caucus if they are not even capable of telling their leader that he is wrong, that he must stop this foolishness with CBC/Radio-Canada and he must stop threatening to crush CBC/Radio-Canada?
I hope that others will speak out, as did the member for Richmond—Arthabaska, who clearly understood how the extremism of the member for Carleton had to be called out. I certainly hope that at least one member of the Quebec Conservative caucus will rise.
That is what the member for Carleton is promising. He would do worse than Harper. He would cut more than Harper did. He would keep in place the privileges that billionaires get in this country and the massive transfer of wealth and tax dollars, more than $30 billion a year sent overseas, rather than investing in Canadians.
Of course, colleagues know what an NDP government would do. They have seen some signs of that with 25 members of Parliament under the leadership of the member for Burnaby South. What it would mean is investments in health care, investments in housing, investments in education and investments in our economy, as well as transitioning to a clean energy economy and cutting the privileges that, for far too long, the wealthy and Canada's most profitable corporations have enjoyed.
We would end those massive tax loopholes. We would end the gouging that Canadians are seeing in the telecom sector and the banking sector. We would make sure investments happen at the local level, and we would build a local green economy. Right across the country, we would build a Canada where everybody matters and where nobody is left behind.
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