44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 26, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/26/23 11:39:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I cannot believe I am hearing my Liberal and Bloc colleagues in the House talking about a Government of Canada ATM.
The Government of Canada is not an ATM. It is not an ATM for infrastructure, or for any of its services. It is not a cash machine. We are talking about taxpayers' money.
The Liberal government has never been able to balance a single budget. Now it is trying to lecture us about the infrastructure bank, this great big apparatus that hands money over to Liberal friends. Worst of all, the Bloc Québécois supports it. The party said as much earlier: It supported it in committee and wonders why this is being reintroduced here.
The Bloc Québécois not only supports the Canada Infrastructure Bank, it supports carbon taxes, which mean Quebeckers will pay even more for their gas.
Why is the Bloc Québécois so supportive of the Liberal government?
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- Oct/26/23 2:09:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this Liberal government's incompetent financial management, they are foisting two carbon taxes on us, backed by the Bloc Québécois, which wants to drastically increase the carbon tax.
More and more Quebeckers are struggling to make ends meet. Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly. More and more Quebeckers are forced to sleep in their cars. Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly. More and more Quebeckers are forced to turn to food banks. Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly. More and more Quebeckers are forced to make tough choices in order to pay the mortgage on their house. Voting for the Bloc Québécois is costly.
Inflation has hit Quebec the hardest over the last four months. The Bloc Québécois supports the Liberal government twice on the carbon tax. Let us not be lulled into complacency by the Bloc Québécois anymore, but let us worry about the Bloc Québécois, which is refusing to hear from the RCMP commissioner at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics by voting again with the Liberal-NDP government.
Quebeckers want a chance to choose a new prime minister, but the Bloc Québécois is holding up the return to common sense.
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- Oct/26/23 2:25:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the media is reporting that one in 10 Quebeckers are using food banks each month. That is more than 870,000 people. It is 2023. That is the situation after eight years of Liberal governance and inflationary spending. It is like the ArriveCAN app, which cost $54 million and is currently under investigation by the RCMP.
Who is going to stand up for Quebeckers who are struggling to put food on the table? It is certainly not the Bloc Québécois, which wants to drastically increase the tax on gas and groceries.
Will the Prime Minister give up his inflationary spending so that Quebeckers can put food on the table?
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- Oct/26/23 2:26:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, here is another major problem. According to a Nanos survey, 28% of mortgagees in Quebec will have to renew their contracts within a year and a half, and 79% say they are worried about their upcoming renewal. More than one-third of Quebeckers cite rising interest rates as the main reason for their financial concerns. After eight years under this Prime Minister, Quebeckers are worried about ending up on the street.
Will the Prime Minister finally stop wasting taxpayers' money and start curbing inflation and rising interest rates?
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- Oct/26/23 2:27:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what Quebeckers are afraid of is Conservatives. Conservatives go to bed thinking about cuts and wake up thinking about austerity. What Quebeckers are afraid of is cuts to housing, services for seniors, services for families and child care. There is nothing scarier than a Conservative government.
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- Oct/26/23 2:44:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what the member is talking about is 18 days during the holidays, but 250,000 businesses are going to go bankrupt. The government is not only unwilling to let them defer payments, but it is also unwilling to speak to them directly.
That is not what being financially responsible looks like. That is not what being flexible looks like. That is not what it means to deliver for Quebeckers. Our economy has the most SMEs. Our entrepreneurs are worried. Our people are the ones the Liberals are abandoning. No government in the world would let 250,000 businesses close without doing something.
When will the Liberals finally take action?
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- Oct/26/23 2:49:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of this government, one in 10 Quebeckers turns to food banks every month. Usage at a food bank in my riding, Moisson Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, is 58% higher than it was a year ago.
Our people can no longer feed themselves because of inflation and excessively high taxes, yet the Bloc Québécois is supporting the Liberals' carbon tax 2, which applies in Quebec. Voting for the Bloc is costly.
Will the Liberals and their Bloc buddies show some common sense and axe the carbon tax?
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- Oct/26/23 2:52:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, people should be able to feed themselves and their children. That is a basic need. Right now, thousands of people are no longer able to do that.
Every month, 872,000 Quebeckers access food banks. That is one in 10 people. The Minister of Industry's spineless approach is pathetic. Grovelling before grocery CEOs and begging them to stabilize prices is not going to work. That is why the NDP is bringing the CEOs of the big grocery chains back before MPs so we can keep them accountable.
Will the Liberals force grocery stores to act, or will they just keep sending up prayers?
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Mr. Speaker, the question in the House today is whether the Bloc Québécois will protect Quebec sovereignty and support the Conservative amendment, which will keep regional representation in cabinet rather than leaving it all in the hands of a single minister. Imagine if a minister from British Columbia could make a decision for the Quebec nation without cabinet members from Quebec having any say in it.
The Bloc Québécois should vote with the Conservatives in favour of this amendment to protect sovereignty, not just for Quebeckers, but for all of Canada.
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Madam Speaker, a year ago, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, of which I am a member, began a study on foreign election interference. We received more than 70 witnesses and sat in committee for more than 100 hours. I personally questioned the government more than 30 times. I spoke with ministers, experts, academics, specialists, intelligence officers. This ended in a public, independent commission of inquiry. Quebeckers are now aware of the challenges of foreign interference. People may be wondering where I am going with this. I am getting to that. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics tabled a report on foreign interference and all the threats to the integrity of institutions. The Bloc Québécois even said it would introduce a bill to ensure that a foreign agent registry is implemented.
None of this could have happened without the whistle-blower who dared to report the situation. This information was reported in The Globe and Mail by a journalist, and we started looking into it. That is why the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs had so much time and energy. We took action, and we are still taking action. It is therefore with great interest that I rise this evening to speak to Bill C-290, the public sector integrity act.
I will give an example that my colleague from Mirabel mentioned, but I am going to take the liberty of digging a little deeper. Who here remembers the 1995 referendum? I do, because it was my first time voting. The Liberal government of the day spent lavishly out of fear of losing the election. In 1995, a whistle-blower blew the doors off what came to be known as the sponsorship scandal. Nearly every day, there were new revelations in the media about the political interference in the way this program was managed and how $250 million in public funds was squandered. That led the then auditor general to produce a devastating report in 2003.
Once again, it was a federal government official who made the courageous choice to disclose the federal government's actions to journalist Daniel Leblanc. The exact same thing happened recently, and once again I would like to acknowledge the public servants who have the common good at heart, who have chosen a career in public service and who dared to take action.
It was in the aftermath of the sponsorship scandal that the government of the day introduced the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act. I would like to qualify that. My colleague mentioned just one country earlier, but there are 20 others. I will quickly name a few of them. Canada ranks behind Bangladesh, Rwanda, Botswana, Pakistan and the Cayman Islands. The government must take action. We have to do better.
Since then, the government has chosen to ignore this issue. As a responsible party, the Bloc Québécois is thinking about the people who contribute to the common good and who make democracy possible, for example. That is why we introduced this bill, and I commend my colleague from Mirabel. This week, on Tuesday to be exact, the Minister of National Defence told me, word for word, that it is a good thing the opposition is there to bring pressure. He can rest assured that we are going to put pressure on the government. We need to take action, and we are going to get it done. I am convinced of that.
In 2017, the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates considered this legislation, but that was more than five years ago. Nothing has happened since then. There was the study my colleague mentioned. There are also six major challenges that we need to review, and this needs to pass.
I will end my speech with the following statement. When a public servant takes their courage in both hands and decides to report wrongdoing to help get the situation sorted out, the current process does not really make it possible to get to the bottom of the matter and expose or fix the problems.
This bill is of the utmost importance. I invite my colleagues to support Bill C-290.
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