44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 31, 2023 10:00AM
- Oct/31/23 4:21:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, many people may be surprised to know that my riding includes the French Quarter in Edmonton. It has a huge francophone community.
I know that this member will not be surprised because he has helped me practise my French many times, and I have told him all about my community. For me, the biggest strength we have is that there are communities across the country that are francophone, and they can incorporate the francophone immigration numbers we want to have. My concern, of course, is that we do not have the housing, and the cost of living is very extraordinary.
Does he not agree that, if we stopped the profiteering of big corporations and fixed some of those other problems, we would be able to take in more of these francophone immigrants, who I think make our community so much richer across the country, not just in Quebec?
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- Oct/31/23 4:22:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague. As my mother used to say, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. They may very well want to change this or that, but unfortunately that generally never goes anywhere.
The federal government has been dragging its feet for years when it comes to paying its fair share of health care funding to Quebec and the other provinces. It continues to be very stingy, but if it paid a bit more then maybe we could indeed integrate more people.
I was listening to our Liberal colleagues during the entire debate tell us that it was important to have immigrants to fill the labour needs in Canada. Sure, but essentially what employers are looking for is cheap labour. According to a report by the UN special rapporteur in charge of investigating this situation in Canada, too much immigration is “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery”.
I will read an excerpt from the study entitled, “The Economics of Canadian Immigration Levels” from the University of Waterloo. According to the study, the purpose of the federal government's recent trends to accept more low-skill workers is to allow businesses to reduce payroll and have profits that exceed the simple difference between the immigrant employee's salary and the native employee's salary considering the increase in overall production.
We are welcoming cheap labour. That is not what I would call successful integration.
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- Oct/31/23 4:24:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on October 11, in Val-Morin and Mont-Laurier, I welcomed my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert as part of his tour across Quebec on housing and homelessness. The situation is the same in both the northern and southern parts of Laurentides—Labelle. The current housing crisis is a national emergency.
In Val-Morin this evening, after the first snow hit our region on Monday, one person will still be sleeping in the forest. In Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, the drop-in shelter, which has had to change location many times, is resuming service for the winter. In Rivière-Rouge, people will be sleeping on the streets tonight. In Mont-Laurier, resources are unable to keep up with the demand, and we all know the repercussions of that. The current situation is critical. Today, October 31, 2023, we are unable to house our people properly. We need to show some humanity.
The situation in Laurentides—Labelle is no better than elsewhere. Along with the RCMs of La Rivière-du-Nord and Pays-d'en-Haut, the Laurentides RCM ranks near the bottom when it comes to the state of the rental market in Quebec. It is 91st out of 98. That is not insignificant.
The vacancy rate in the Laurentides RCM is close to 0%. I am not talking 5%; I am talking almost 0%. Rents there have gone up more than in most of Quebec. The problem is made worse by the shortage of social housing, affordable housing, community housing, co-ops and not-for-profits. Greater housing supply could help ease pressure on the rental market, which is exacerbating the crisis. There is simply not enough housing, and everyone knows it.
The region's entire rental ecosystem is broken. The mayor of Val‑David, which is also in Laurentides—Labelle, told me that she hired a new engineer for the municipality. The new employee spent weeks looking and ultimately had to turn the job offer down because he could not find a place to live. Despite making good money, he could not leave his home and find a new home in Val‑David. If an engineer has a hard time finding a place to stay, even just a temporary base from which to keep looking, what about the rest of the population?
I will give another example. Last week in Mont‑Laurier, I met the rector of the Université du Québec en Abitibi‑Témiscamingue, Vincent Rousson. He told me that the university is working on a plan with the Laurentides health and social services agency, the Upper Laurentians school services centre, the Cégep de Mont-Laurier and the Zone Emploi organization in the Antoine‑Labelle RCM. Just imagine the consortium. Their goal is to build housing in Mont-Laurier to house students, new workers and immigrants. They want to provide a roof to those who choose to contribute to the development of the Upper Laurentians.
In light of everything I just said, I have a question for the House and I hope to get an answer in the five minutes of questions and comments that I am given.
How can we have successful, human-centred immigration if the only numbers taken into consideration are the ones in the column tallying people who choose to come and settle in Quebec? We also need to consider the services column, where there are already acute issues. How can we have an immigration policy that takes into account the current reality of Quebec and Canada as well as immigrants' needs?
Behind those numbers are real people. Are we providing a dignified welcome and respecting human life by bringing people here, only to have many of them sleeping on the streets? Is it a compassionate policy to dangle the prospect of a better future when the reality is that, as my colleague said earlier, support services are unable to keep up with demand? Is it responsible for us to craft an image of openness on the backs of citizens who have made the difficult and sometimes heartbreaking choice to leave everything behind in their country to make a life elsewhere and who, once off the plane, realize that it is really not what they thought it would be?
The answer is no. It is not responsible. It is not altruistic. It is not dignified. It is certainly not a compassionate policy.
The reason I am speaking today is that I truly believe in a successful immigration policy. To me, a successful immigration policy is one that can take care of the people we welcome with open arms. One thing we tend to forget in all these debates about immigration is the immigrants themselves. They are the ones who choose to come and live their best, most fulfilling lives here. They are the ones who choose to contribute to Quebec's development. They are the ones who choose to leave the land of their birth in search of a better future, yet, more often than not, they wind up being used, and I find that utterly appalling.
I would like to quote from Immanuel Kant. We all know this one, but I urge everyone to listen closely: “So act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” That quote is central to this debate. We must never stray from absolute respect. We owe people human dignity, which means never using portrayals of them as a means to our own ends.
The government must reinvest in social and community housing. All surplus federal properties must be reused for the development of social, community and very affordable housing. To help stem the housing crisis, we need to reform the home ownership system and take into account the different realities of Quebec households and the most diverse family situations. It is essential that the federal government financially realign the various programs and colours of the national housing strategy to create an acquisition fund.
Since I am running out of time, I simply want to say that it is urgent that Quebec receive its fair share of funding from the federal homelessness programs, with no strings attached. Above all, it is important that the government and the parties in this House understand Quebec's distinctiveness and that the Government of Canada respect the integration capacity of Quebec, its regions, its cities and its organizations.
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- Oct/31/23 4:34:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we think in terms of the targets and the numbers, we all recognize just how important it is overall, in all regions of the country. That is why we see such a very strong effort toward putting together something on which the provinces, territories and different stakeholders, whether they be from labour, business or others, can all come together at some point so we will be in a position to present the targets that will be coming out tomorrow.
The motion seems to suggest that we should be doing consulting. The consulting has been done. I am wondering whether the member could provide her thoughts about how programs such as the provincial nominee program have been a real benefit in terms of their direct provincial input, much like what the Province of Quebec has.
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- Oct/31/23 4:35:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if consultations were held, then where are the results? Why is it that all the provinces and Quebec are unanimously asking to be consulted so that they can tell the government how many people they are able to welcome appropriately? From what I understand, the government is going to have to hold a second round of consultations to get new numbers since the reality may have changed. I do not know when the consultations were held. Perhaps it was five or 10 years ago. However, we are talking about what is happening now, and we want answers.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pontiac.
I think immigrants are poems in Quebec. I will come back to that a little later. Quebec is a welcoming society, much more welcoming than its government's words and actions might sometimes imply.
According to a Leger poll conducted in May 2023, which is consistent with the figures quoted by my hon. colleague earlier, roughly 20% of Quebeckers think we should welcome more or far more immigrants, as opposed to 17% elsewhere in Canada. This highlights a rather interesting fact about public opinion in Quebec. I would go so far as to say that Quebec could serve as an example to a number of countries that are facing far less significant demographic challenges, but that have strong reactions to immigrants. The U.S. of the last few years obviously comes to mind.
For quite some time, Quebec has extended a generous, and sometimes very charitable, welcome towards those who have come from abroad and who are very often in a desperate state. In particular, I am thinking of the Irish people who arrived in Montreal in the 19th century, suffering from disease, most notably typhus.
By the way, I would like to draw attention to my friend Scott Phelan, who, along with Fergus Keyes and many others too numerous to name, is working hard at the Montreal Irish Monument Park Foundation to redevelop the area around the famous Black Rock, which sits on a median in between the four lanes of Bridge Street, at the foot of the Victoria Bridge. This rock marks the burial place of 6,000 Irish people who fled the Great Famine of 1847 and had typhus, as I mentioned. Their graves were discovered in 1859 by workers building the Victoria Bridge, who were themselves Irish.
An interesting fact is that about 70,000 Irish immigrants arrived on the shores of the St. Lawrence in Montreal at a time when the population of the entire island was only 50,000.
Let me now speak about my own riding, located on the island of Montreal, the riding of Lac-Saint-Louis, in a region that is sometimes mocked here as the “West Island”, for example during the debates on Bill C-13. Singling out any region of Quebec for mockery is not worthy of Quebeckers and Quebec values.
I would like to take a moment to describe my riding of Lac-Saint-Louis. In terms of demographics, 71% of the population is bilingual, and about 42% of people have English as their mother tongue, while French is the mother tongue of about 22%. By the way, it is Premier Legault's home riding.
The riding is home to two CEGEPs, including the Gérald Godin CEGEP, which is an important hub of francophone Quebec culture. The CEGEP regularly hosts French-language music, theatre and film performances of the greatest variety and quality in its concert hall, named after Pauline Julien. As most Quebeckers know, Gérald Godin and Pauline Julien had a great love story that took place during an exciting time in the history of Quebec and Canada.
I would like to mention outstanding leadership of Annie Dorion, the director of the Salle Pauline-Julien. She has made this concert hall a true cultural jewel on the West Island. I would invite all hon. members to consult its events calendar and come for a visit.
Lac-Saint-Louis also has an English CEGEP, John Abbott College, where several House of Commons pages studied. This CEGEP is located in the heart of the Macdonald campus of McGill University, an internationally renowned academic institution. McGill University is unfortunately affected by the recent announcement about higher tuition fees for out-of-province students.
This announcement is part of an improvised and populist policy that is not justified. Why is the Quebec government afraid of the roughly 35,000 students who come to Quebec for post-secondary education, some of whom will choose to stay there for the long term because of their love for the French language and Quebec culture and who will use their brainpower to help advance the Quebec nation? What next? Will the Quebec government limit tourism?
The Bloc Québécois motion talks about the provinces' capacity to integrate immigrants, a very valid concern. However, the motion suggests that this capacity remains static, whereas we need to see things in real time. We must call on the provinces to work actively, hand in hand, particularly with professional bodies, to ensure greater capacity for newcomer integration in social services, health, education and the building trades, for example. This is needed in order to ensure Quebec has the workforce it needs to address the housing crisis, so that when we unfortunately have to go to the hospital, quality health care can be provided to us, or when parents have to send their child to school, there is a teacher at the front of the classroom.
I would like to come back to the very first sentence of my speech: “immigrants are poems in Quebec”. Who said that? It was Gérald Godin. According to an article published in Le Devoir on October 21, 2023, by Jonathan Livernois, a professor at Laval University, Gérald Godin had a “particular interest in economic immigrants”. I will again quote Professor Livernois, in reference to an interview with Minister Gérald Godin in January 1984 on the TV show Impacts, which some members will recall:
Robert Guy Scully spoke with his guest about undocumented immigrants, who at the time numbered between 50,000 and 200,000 in Canada. The host asked, “Do you think that rich countries, like Canada, will have to tighten their borders, perhaps even brutally, against poor countries?” Godin rejected the idea, believing on the contrary that mobility must not be curtailed and that we must take advantage of the extraordinary vitality of all those who move around the world, with or without documentation.
Mr. Livernois's article goes on to say:
These days, it is not uncommon to hear a premier on the campaign trail, when asked about integrating immigrants, blurt out that Quebeckers do not like violence and that we have to “make sure we keep things as they are”. During the same election campaign, an immigration minister can say that “80% of immigrants go to Montreal, do not work, do not speak French and do not subscribe to the values of Quebec society”.
That is quite the contrast.
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- Oct/31/23 4:48:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is funny to hear Gérald Godin being quoted. Did the member know that Godin also said, “The federal policy on French in Canada can generally be summarized as follows: strengthen French where it is on its last legs; remain passive where there are real chances for it to assert itself and weaken it where it is strong”?
It can be fun to quote Gérald Godin, just like the parish priests would quote the gospel to justify burning certain people. I also heard that Pauline Julien was locked up in October 1970 by the Canadian army. When we moved a motion for an apology for October 1970, how did the member vote? I do not remember.
In fact, what was the purpose of this intervention other than to blame the Government of Quebec?
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- Oct/31/23 4:49:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is not about blaming the Government of Quebec, even though I think that the Quebec government could well adopt an attitude that is more in line with Gérald Godin's remarks. That is basically what I was trying to say.
The article that I quoted was published in Le Devoir, not the Gazette. It was written by a Quebec academic, obviously. Incidentally, I attended a really nice show at Place des Arts called La Renarde, sur les traces de Pauline Julien, featuring the songs of Pauline Julien. I highly recommend it.
What I wanted to do in my speech was point out that Gérald Godin was a great humanitarian and that his words still have value today, although perhaps not all of them, since the member mentioned quite a few other quotes.
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- Oct/31/23 4:52:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Laurentides—Labelle put her finger on one aspect of the problem, one resource that is fundamental, and that is to have a roof over our head. The federal government just signed an agreement with Quebec, for example, for monies for housing.
Housing is fundamental, and that is why we have put in place a national housing strategy, which I think now totals almost $80 billion. It is also why we have taken other steps to encourage higher density housing, especially around public transit hubs. There is a lot to do by both the provinces and the federal government.
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- Oct/31/23 5:03:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier, during the question and comment period following the speech by my colleague from Montarville, the member for Pontiac said that Quebec is a society with a good integration capacity, and she gave the example of a family that she and her family welcomed and who integrated very well. That example is a bit like saying there is no racism in Quebec because I have a Black friend and things are going very well for him. That is a flimsy argument, especially since our colleague from Pontiac comes from a region where francization of new arrivals is the most difficult and where results are among the worst in Quebec. I think we need to take a step back and look at the big picture. It is about the infrastructure that is needed to properly welcome newcomers, including the health and education systems.
I would like my colleague to slightly adjust the example she gave earlier by simply telling us if she thinks we already have all the necessary resources in health and education infrastructures to welcome as many newcomers as the government is proposing.
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- Oct/31/23 5:06:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague.
We need skilled immigrants like doctors and nurses. It is in our best interest to do our best to help all decision-makers speed up credential recognition. I know that in Quebec, for example, individuals need to be recognized by the Collège des médecins du Québec. Obviously, we need to speed up the process.
In my riding, this has resulted in a number doctors and nurses being welcomed, but I agree with my colleague that we can all do more.
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- Oct/31/23 5:08:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be happy to share my time with my friend the member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
I will read the motion again to refocus the debate, but also the intention behind this Bloc Québécois opposition day.
The motion reads as follows:
That the House call on the government to review its immigration targets starting in 2024, after consultation with Quebec, the provinces and territories, based on their integration capacity, particularly in terms of housing, health care, education, French language training and transportation infrastructure, all with a view to successful immigration.
I insist on the last point, because I hear a lot of speeches, debates and questions that are somewhat aimed at some very specific aspects of immigration in general. However, the Bloc Québécois wants to debate and make the House of Commons understand that a piecemeal approach is not appropriate and it is not a matter of having, for example, more doctors to treat people. This is not so much what we need as new hospitals altogether.
Back home in Drummondville, the hospital is outdated and crumbling in many ways. It is not just about a staff shortage. There is also a lack of infrastructure. It is not a problem that can be identified, addressed or resolved by saying that things went well in one area, we managed to bring in a doctor from Algeria and just like that we have services in one specialty or another.
We have to think about Quebec as a whole, Canada as a whole when we talk about immigration. We have to be serious in this debate, which is extremely serious. We are talking about human beings, people who are going to settle in our country, in our communities. They are going to integrate. They will enrich our communities whether in Quebec or in one of Canada's provinces or in the territories.
Successful immigration, since that is what we are talking about today, means turning “them” into “us”, welcoming strangers and making them members of the family. Successful immigration does not mean strictly bringing in additional labour, but bringing more citizens to Quebec and Canada with all the characteristics that define citizenship.
We are talking, for example, about sharing a common language, common values. Newcomers participate in our society and in its growth. They enhance our culture. Newcomers are changed by their membership in their host society, just like the host society itself is changed and improved by their arrival.
We cannot think of immigration from a strictly economic perspective. It goes beyond money. Think about children playing in the park in the summertime and families of all origins who come to sing at the Quebec City summer festival, stuff their faces at the poutine festival in Drummondville, and participate in traditional and square dances at the Village Québécois d'Antan at Christmas time. Think about the artists from other countries who settled in Quebec and who combine their culture of origin with ours to create something new and beautiful. All of those things go beyond money.
However, the federal government sees things differently. Its immigration targets are based solely on economic considerations. By way of evidence, just look at the infamous Century Initiative, whose targets the government copied.
Dominic Barton from McKenzie was clear when he presented his initiative. It was designed based on economic growth only. Integration capacity, French language training, the integration of newcomers, none of that was important. It was ignored, set aside.
I would think that a plan to increase the Canadian population to 100 million people by 2100 deserves to be thought out, deserves a public debate. It seems to me that this should not be decided behind closed doors by consulting engineering firms and a few advisors with ties to the Prime Minister's Office, but instead debated openly with absolute transparency and an attentive ear. However, the government, who gave billions of dollars to this firm, took the McKenzie targets and made them its own.
Do we have housing for newcomers? That is not important, the newcomers will build their own housing. The government said so. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship clearly said that the newcomers would build their homes themselves. Picture them at customs being offered a small load of two-by-fours, some insulation and a few shingles. If they need a hammer, one will be provided to them. Honestly.
We may want to demonstrate the fact that immigrants will help solve the labour shortage, but with arguments like this, I would be a little embarrassed. The Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship took the liberty of answering a question from the member for Saint-Jean by saying that the Bloc Québécois's thinking is foolish, or something like that.
Are we able to provide newcomers with the services they will need? They will provide those services to themselves, because we will be welcoming care workers, nurses and carpenters. They will work in day care and they will build their own houses, as if by magic. Regardless of what they want to do, we will decide that they will do all that. They will come here and be straight-out independent, as my son would say. That is a bad joke.
There are immigrants coming to this country. They are not temporary foreign workers, but immigrants with dreams and aspirations. They want to be teachers or have some land to farm, or even teach philosophy—although we could debate that as well. They want to sell cars, be members of the National Assembly or the House of Commons and participate in the democratic life of their new country. They have their own aspirations. No one should develop a century-long immigration policy based on the lack of staff in a hospital at a specific time. We must think long term.
The Bloc Québécois believes that immigration targets must reflect our integration capacity. The Bloc believes that Quebec and the provinces are the ones who know best what this capacity is. How many newcomers can be accommodated, given the current housing stock? How many additional classrooms will be needed to accommodate new students in our schools? How many French teachers will Quebec need to integrate those who do not speak French? I will point out, and I will do so as often as necessary, that French is the only official and common language of Quebec.
These are legitimate and necessary questions, which unfortunately were not taken into consideration at McKinsey's Toronto offices. Over there, they think in terms of numbers rather than people.
Quebec is a welcoming society. No one doubts that. No one questions that, or at least I hope not. We welcome those who want to join us with open arms. It is a privilege to welcome people who want to make their lives here, who want to build a common future. We see this as more than a numbers game. We are going to take in 500,000, said the Liberals. When we asked them how they will manage to do that, they told us that we are anti-immigration.
We want immigration to work, and we want those who come here to be happy, or at least happy enough to want to make their home here. Taking into account French training, access to housing, health care, schools and child care is not being anti-immigration. It is being considerate. It is wanting immigration to succeed, both for those who join us, and for us. I believe that ignoring these factors is very careless.
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- Oct/31/23 5:17:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was very interested in the member's expanding definition of immigration and the benefits of immigration across Canada, not just for Quebec.
I was thinking of the timeline of immigration. When my grandfather came in 1920, he had zero dollars and zero prospects that showed on his immigration card. Within a generation, there were teachers and engineers in our family, people working in different sectors. Sometimes it takes a few generations to get the benefits of the investments we are making today. Could the hon. member comment on how immigration is a long-term strategy for the country and is not just to address the current issues?
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- Oct/31/23 5:18:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question. He raises a good point.
There was a time when our cities were not overcrowded and we did not have major housing problems. The current crisis is extremely worrisome. There was a time when taking care of people was not nearly as difficult. Our health care systems in Quebec and the rest of Canada were robust enough to take people in, but that is no longer the case.
When people immigrated here 30, 40, 50 or 60 years ago, the situation was not the same as it is today. Above all, we did not take in as many newcomers at the time as we plan to going forward. We had the necessary infrastructure to welcome those many people. That is no longer the case.
The responsible thing to do would be to resolve this issue first. Let us ensure that we have the infrastructure, that we have the means to fulfill our ambitions, and that what we have here is enough to properly welcome the people who choose to come and settle here.
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- Oct/31/23 5:21:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to ask my colleague why the debate on numbers is so taboo. The ministries are responsible for determining integration capacity. I think the operative word here is “capacity”.
A Quebec government minister in a previous legislature talked about taking in fewer immigrants but taking better care of them. This idea would be a reasonable topic for debate. Why is everyone so quick to hurl epithets at us?
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- Oct/31/23 5:23:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my learned colleague from Drummond for his very clear presentation. I would also like to thank him for repeating the motion, because I was just about to do so. It is easy to see that we share some ideas and that we belong to the same party.
We are also serious about wanting to bring the debate back to the forefront at the end of the day. A lot of things have been said throughout the day and, at some point, things have gotten off track. It is important to remember what we are working on. I will not reread the entire motion because the member for Drummond has already done so. However, we are basically saying that immigration thresholds need to be reviewed in consultation with Quebec and the provinces to ensure successful immigration.
What we are talking about today is successful immigration. We are not saying that we do not want immigration. On the contrary, all the members of our party who have spoken today have said that. They spoke about ensuring success for these people.
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of people leaving their homeland. Even if someone leaves with their immediate family, they are leaving behind their extended family, their friends, and their birthplace. Just think of the emotion that wells up when you see the house where you grew up.
I am from Senneterre, in Abitibi. It is a long way from where I live now. I do not go back often, but every time that I pass through Senneterre, in Abitibi, I stop in front of the house. The last time I was there, I even went to chat with the new owner. I did not dare ask if I could come in, but I certainly would have liked to see the place again, which seemed so huge at the time; looking at it now, it is actually quite small. Perspective changes with time.
I digress a bit, but I am talking about the sense of belonging and the emotional connection that people can have with physical places. When people give that up, they have good reasons. Most of the time, they are not doing it for themselves, because they know it will not be easy. They are leaving behind a legacy, wealth they have accumulated and physical places that may mean a lot to them. They often do it for the next generation, telling themselves that however difficult it may be, their child will have a better future in Quebec or Canada.
We therefore have a responsibility to welcome them properly. That is what we are saying today. We are talking about human beings, respect and richness. We are talking about people. We all hope that immigrants arriving in Quebec and Canada will be workers, of course. However, that is not all they are. They are citizens. We want them to integrate into society, to participate alongside us and to enrich our collective experience.
Quebec is one of the most diverse societies in the world. This not said often enough in the House. It has incredible richness, built on the contributions of people who have arrived over generations. We also have to think about the people who were there before the first Europeans arrived, and I am talking here about first nations. Fortunately, we have begun to catch up on this, although when it comes to reconciliation, we have a lot of work to do.
We must tap into and preserve Quebec's richness by working with immigrants. We can think of the waves of Irish immigration, of the British and others, all those people who came here. Over the generations, we have mixed, blended and shared our cultural heritage.
This is what we want in Quebec. That is basically the big difference between Canadian multiculturalism and Quebec interculturalism. We want to accept individuals with their own rich heritage, but we want to live with them, not next to them, each in their own ghetto. It is amazing how different our perception can be.
I would like to tell you about something I felt today. I was hurt a few times today when I heard some government members remind Bloc Québécois members that Canada needs immigration. Of course we need immigration. We never said we did not need immigration. We have been saying all day that we need immigration. We want to take care of immigrants and we want to treat them as equals.
It is there throughout today's entire debate. We want to do things properly, in fact. That is something that the Liberal government has a very hard time doing. We have a government that makes fine announcements, for good optics, but does not meet expectations two times out of three.
They will say that Canada is a great welcoming country and then invite everyone to come. When people arrive, they will have nowhere to stay and they will end up in the street. However, there will be no talk of that in the next announcement. What they say is that we are wonderfully welcoming and generous.
We truly want to be wonderfully welcoming and generous, but for that we need to do things properly. First, we need to work as a team, which is hard for the Liberal government. They need to consult the provinces and Quebec and think about the different levels of government who will have to take care of these people.
We talked about all sorts of things today, such as housing and infrastructure. There are even some political parties here who like blaming the municipalities, who are in no way accountable to this Parliament. Most of the time, they do not have money because the entire tax system should be reviewed. That is not our Parliament's jurisdiction.
Quebec is asking that this be reviewed and is asking to be consulted. Quebec is not saying that it no longer wants immigration. Quebec does want it, but it wants a better system. We want these individuals to be productive. In order for them to be productive, we have to start by recognizing their skills and giving them the opportunity to integrate into the society in which they arrive. What do we do if an immigrant arrives in Quebec and does not have access to French language training?
In my riding, Berthier—Maskinongé, which is 99% francophone, if I were to welcome an immigrant to Louiseville and did not teach him French, I would be a hypocrite. I would only be pretending to welcome him, likely only to make him work in a low-wage job in my company and exploit him. That is not what we want. Of course, we want him to work, but we want him to have a decent standard of living.
How many immigrants should we take in? Earlier, my colleague from Montarville talked about different thresholds that different political parties in Quebec came up with. I thought it was interesting that he did so, because perhaps it should be the Quebec National Assembly that decides on the number of immigrants.
That would require the federal government to take note. I have a hard time accepting a federal government that talks a big game about the number of immigrants to be taken in, and then turns around and tells the provinces that it is going to withhold money for social housing because it wants to impose such and such a condition, only to end up giving a tenth of what was requested.
The same can be said for health care. The government says that it is doing a lot for health care, and it makes speeches about health care, but it does not make the darn transfers to fund health care. Failing to address the requests of the provincial and Quebec governments is what I call contempt. It is contempt, pure and simple. These people know nothing about health care, but they are going to tell the provinces that they will not make the transfers. The provinces had unanimous demands, which we have reiterated here for months, but the government has not responded properly. This is unacceptable.
Today, the Bloc Québécois is calling for responsible action and foresight. We have to ask ourselves whether we have the housing. If we do not, or if we think that we will need more, then can we try to start building housing before taking in 100,000 people?
I am not saying to turn refugees away. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is quantified targets. Can we roll out housing? Doing so will require showing a bit more respect for the various levels of government and funding them properly. They need to stop being know-it-alls who do nothing. That is basically what I have been seeing here for the past four years: The government thinks that it knows everything, sees everything and has a hold on the truth, but it is not responsible for anything. That is what is happening here.
What we are asking the federal government to do is to talk with Quebec and the provinces, be reasonable, figure this out together and put the necessary resources into this integration.
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- Oct/31/23 5:34:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, of course it is not a bad thing that there is francophone immigration. However, that is not what we are talking about today. Whether immigration is francophone or anglophone, here is what we are putting on the table: Is the government prepared to consider reviewing its thresholds after consulting with Quebec and the provinces, to support integration?
Of course we always support francophone immigration. We will not engage in segregation. We welcome everyone. I think that if we welcome people to Quebec who do not speak French, then we have an obligation to provide them with the resources to learn the common and official language.
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- Oct/31/23 5:37:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech. There seems to be a rather cavalier attitude here when we talk about being responsible.
The government does not not talk about the decline of French in Quebec. A number of Liberals gave speeches, but we did not hear a word from them about that, even though it is a reality. The federal government's official languages program is essentially funding English. Federal institutions in Quebec basically operate in English and do not respect French.
What are my colleague's thoughts on that?
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- Oct/31/23 5:38:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will try to make this quick.
In my speech earlier, I spoke about contempt, and I think that is what this is. The member can call it a cavalier attitude if he wants to be nice, but I think that we can call it contempt. The government does whatever it wants and acts however it wants. It launches programs and makes promises to people and then, a month later, it tells them that there is no money for the program and that their request will not be considered. It is always the same story. That is what I wanted to point out in my speech.
Can we sit down with the provinces and Quebec, look at the situation, evaluate the available resources and do things right so that we have successful immigration?
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Foothills for his bill and his speech.
One of the primary objections to this bill in committee was that it acts as a sort of gag by preventing whistle-blowing when there is mistreatment and that there are not necessarily other ways to blow the whistle. In fact, there are. For example, the Quebec Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food deals with complaints. Complaints can be filed with the department, which will send an inspector. If anything problematic comes up, the department will know it.
I have a question for the member. Could he tell us what is being done in his province and speak to this objection to reassure people?
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