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House Hansard - 316

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 23, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Mrs. Marie-France Lalonde (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, Lib.)
  • May/23/24 4:11:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the motion moved by the member for Jonquière, the Bloc Québécois critic for intergovernmental affairs, natural resources and energy. I would like to inform the House that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Cambridge. Our government has repeatedly demonstrated its commitment to working collaboratively with Quebec while recognizing its specificity in its priority areas. There are many examples of collaborative approaches our government successfully implemented in partnership with the Government of Quebec. These include child care, health care, housing, infrastructure and high-speed Internet. I will give a few concrete examples of the constant effort our government has made to work in collaboration with the Government of Quebec, in the interest of Quebec, and with the interests of Quebeckers at heart. My first example has to do with the early childhood sector. The signing of an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec for this sector provided for the allocation of nearly $6 billion between 2021 and 2026 to make improvements to Quebec's system. In that agreement, our government highlighted the trail-blazing nature of the Quebec government's reduced-contribution educational child care services program, created in 1997 for children under five. I was living in Gatineau at the time, where I had a daughter, and I was able to benefit from this extraordinary service for Quebeckers. Quebeckers are proud of their educational child care system and, as I said, they have every reason to be. In addition to using it as a model—and we have—to guide our efforts to implement a pan-Canadian early learning and child care system in all the other provinces and territories, our government is making a significant contribution to supporting and improving Quebec's system, and we are doing so through our investments. When it comes to our governments' responsibilities, citizens across the country expect action to be taken to address the current concerns we are facing. Let us talk about housing, which is an excellent example at the moment, and one that is very much ongoing, even in my community of Orleans, which I represent. As we all know, housing is one of the main concerns of young people and families across the country. It is in this context that our government has made unprecedented investments to reduce the number of Quebec households in need of housing. One of the ways we have achieved this is by financially supporting Quebec's initiatives to accelerate the construction of residential housing and meet Quebec's housing needs. As one concrete example, our government contributed $900 million to Quebec last year through the housing accelerator fund to expedite the construction of residential housing in Quebec. The Quebec government also invested $900 million, bringing the combined total value of the two governments' envelope to $1.8 billion in new funding available for housing construction. These investments are expected to directly create 8,000 new social and affordable housing units, 500 of which will be reserved for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. It is important to recognize that our two governments share common goals like reducing the number of Quebec households with housing needs. In order to come to an agreement, we showed flexibility, particularly by recognizing that Quebec has been administering projects with municipalities and other stakeholders through the Société d'habitation du Québec for nearly 50 years. How have we actually shown that we are flexible? The federal government granted Quebec a set level of funding based on its demographic weight in the Canadian population, and it did so with the Government of Quebec, not the municipalities, as is the case elsewhere in Canada. Among other things, the terms of the agreement ensured that the Government of Quebec could define the terms applicable to Quebec municipalities, with the goal shared by our government to remove development obstacles and build more housing faster by reducing construction times. The agreement between Canada and Quebec on the housing accelerator fund has been a success in Quebec. I would like to share another example of our commitment to work hand in hand with Quebec to recognize Quebec's forward-thinking contribution to addressing a number of public policy challenges. I would like to give the example of the Canada-Quebec agreement to address gender-based violence, which will provide $97.3 million for fiscal years 2023-24 to 2026-27. With this agreement, we recognized the key role that Quebec plays through its integrated government strategy to address sexual violence. By recognizing Quebec's level of commitment through its strategy, the federal and Quebec objectives came together to address sexual violence and domestic violence in order to meet the various needs of population groups who experience gender-based violence. The concerted efforts of our two governments have resulted in many collaborative agreements in which we recognized Quebec's specificity and its unique ways of doing things. Of those agreements, I would like to draw members' attention to the one on public safety and fighting the scourge of gun violence. Our government was able to count on Quebec's leadership, through its provincial police force especially, to bring together all of the stakeholders. So far, I have talked about the collaborative efforts that our government has made to respond to the challenges that Quebeckers, like other Canadians, are facing. I would also like to talk about how working with the Government of Quebec has given us opportunities to develop the economy and help Quebeckers prosper. I want to take the few minutes that I have left to talk about the major investments that the Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec made to support the development of the electric vehicle battery sector in Quebec. Thanks to joint investments from both governments, Canada has been able to attract major investors in battery materials processing and battery cell manufacturing. Take, for example, the $2.7-billion investment that led the Swedish company Northvolt to set up shop in Montérégie, Quebec. With Northvolt, governments and businesses have invested no less than $15 billion in Quebec's battery sector and that will create at least 6,000 jobs. I will give a few more examples because I still have a few minutes left. Let us also look at the federal government's investment in the GM‑POSCO battery materials manufacturing plant, which is estimated at $600 million, and our investment in the establishment of a copper foil manufacturing plant in Granby to create and maintain 200 highly skilled jobs. I could talk about this at length because we are looking to work together with the Quebec government, not cause bickering in the House of Commons. That is very important for me because, even though I currently represent the riding of Orléans and I am proud of it, I grew up in Gatineau, Quebec. My parents and many Gatineau residents have told me that having access to dental care has improved their quality of life. I know that people here in the House are always stubborn about areas of jurisdiction, but I can say that our government is working very well and very closely with the Government of Quebec to meet the objectives of Quebeckers and Canadians, to improve their quality of life, in an economic situation that is very difficult at the moment. I will conclude by saying that we will continue to be there for Quebeckers. We will continue to work in collaboration with the Quebec government. I am very proud to have given this speech today.
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Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Mr. Vance Badawey
  • May/23/24 9:19:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as members of Parliament, we were all elected by Canadians with the duty to improve their lives and make Canada a better and safer place. The issue of auto theft should not be partisan; at the end of the day, we are all here with a genuine wish to bring these crimes to an end. One way to do this is through collaboration. As we have seen, the federal government stood on Monday alongside police forces and municipalities. Can the minister share with us his thoughts on the importance of cross-partisan collaboration, in order to put an end to auto theft crimes?
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