44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2024 10:00AM
- Jun/6/24 2:42:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said very clearly, we have invested $5.2 billion in Quebec since 2015. We have not asked for any accountability. Maybe Quebeckers need to ask more questions about this. It is also very, very, very clear that we are making an extra effort, and that is because the woman who was quoted in the newspaper article is right. We need to better coordinate the distribution of asylum seekers across Canada. That is what we are doing. I just wrapped up a meeting about this very issue half an hour ago.
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- Jun/6/24 2:47:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal cover-up is in full swing, and I have another example that proves it. The Parliamentary Budget Officer very clearly stated at the Standing Committee on Finance that the government has its own economic analysis of the carbon tax's impact, but he was told not to release it and not to refer to it. Worse still, the Bloc Québécois is dancing with the Liberals. It voted against our proposal to give Quebeckers some tax relief for their vacations.
When will the Prime Minister release his secret report on the carbon tax so that Canadians can know the truth?
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- Jun/6/24 3:04:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when I got into politics in 2015, it was the end of a decade of the Conservatives betraying Quebeckers' trust time and time again. They started by excluding the Davie shipyard from the national shipbuilding strategy, only to top it off by hiding behind the courts for 10 years to justify their inaction over the Quebec City bridge, when Stephen Harper was not going to Quebec City just to sneer at it, that is.
Now that we have corrected the injustice against the Davie shipyard and bought back the Quebec City bridge, could the Minister of Public Services and Procurement tell us how we are going to guarantee the sustainability of this unique part of our heritage for generations to come?
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Mr. Speaker, there is indeed a secret in the House, and that is the Conservative Party's true intentions when it comes to cuts. “Chop, chop, chop,” as my colleague from Gaspésie—Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine so aptly puts it. That party wants to cut social programs and the programs that are so dear to Quebeckers and Canadians: women's rights, the right to abortion, the right to contraception. The Conservatives want to scrap our government's dental care and pharmacare plans. The secret is the Conservative Party's hidden agenda, which will do great harm to all Canadians.
With our government's usual transparency, this evening we will proceed to report stage consideration of Bill C-20, an act establishing the public complaints and review commission and amending certain acts and statutory instruments, and Bill C-40, an act to amend the Criminal Code, to make consequential amendments to other acts and to repeal a regulation regarding miscarriage of justice reviews, also known as David and Joyce Milgaard's law.
Tomorrow, we will begin second reading of Bill C-63, an act to enact the online harms act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts.
I would like to inform the House that next Monday and Thursday shall be allotted days. On Tuesday, we will start report stage of Bill C-69, the budget implementation act. On Wednesday, we will deal with Bill C-70, concerning foreign interference, as per the special order adopted last Thursday. I wish all members and the House staff a good weekend.
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- Jun/6/24 5:58:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my Bloc Québécois colleague is making a not-so-subtle attack on the leader of my party regarding the gains we have made in pharmacare for people with diabetes and for women who want oral contraceptives. Soon, all of that can be negotiated with the provinces, at the time of their choosing, obviously.
I would like to remind the member that the Union des consommateurs, the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux, the Centrale des syndicats du Québec and the Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux are all calling for public universal pharmacare. It bears repeating that Quebec civil society is in favour of this approach, which is the best way of controlling and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. I would invite my Bloc Québécois colleague to read the Hoskins report, which provides a lot of insight on this issue.
I would like to commend my NDP colleague, the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, for his private member's bill, which will be a big help to Quebeckers and Canadians. I am going to talk about more than just concussions, which are a major health issue for many young athletes. Concussions are a real problem in many sports. I would obviously invite the sports federations to be diligent and responsible when it comes to these young people's equipment, training and games. Unfortunately, young Quebeckers, young Montrealers, are sometimes getting brain injuries.
Obviously, my NDP colleague's bill is not limited to concussions. It is a little-known fact that for every National Hockey League player who gets a concussion while playing hockey, over 5,500 women in Canada unfortunately experience the same type of injury as a result of domestic violence. I think it is worth pointing out that my colleague's initiative will help expand research, awareness and education on this particular scourge as well.
After reading up on brain injuries and this bill's noble objective of establishing and developing a national strategy to “improve brain injury awareness, prevention and treatment as well as the rehabilitation and recovery of persons living with a brain injury”, I can confirm that this affects a huge number of people.
More than 165,000 people suffer traumatic brain injury every year in Canada. It is not always visible. Sometimes it is not the result of an accident, shock, domestic violence or abuse. I was fascinated by the idea that brain injury is a silent epidemic, that it can happen at any time, at any age, that it can strike children, teens and adults. It is a much bigger problem than most people realize. Traumatic brain injuries are 44 times more common than spinal cord injuries, 30 times more common than breast cancer and 400 times more common than HIV-AIDS. This affects a lot of people.
This bill has an absolutely clear objective. It is important to note that this is being done collaboratively and in partnership with others. What my NDP colleague wants is for the federal Minister of Health, in consultation with representatives of the provincial governments, indigenous groups and relevant stakeholders, to develop this national strategy to support and improve awareness, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation and recovery for people living with a brain injury.
It is hard to argue against the virtues of this dialogue, this partnership, which is designed to identify best practices and pool research to find solutions together, that is, with the federal government, provinces, indigenous groups and the relevant associations all working together. A number of groups across Canada have been consulted and support this bill. In particular, the Regroupement des associations de personnes traumatisées craniocérébrales du Québec supports the idea of a national strategy championed by the federal government in partnership with the provinces. I would like to emphasize once again the importance of this private member's bill introduced by my NDP colleague.
I am not going to use up all my speaking time. That way, there will be some extra time for my colleagues who will be closing this debate in the next few minutes.
I would like to congratulate my colleague on his work. I hope that his bill will receive the support of all parliamentarians so that we can find solutions for everyone who has the misfortune of dealing with a brain injury.
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- Jun/6/24 7:47:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the nine commissioners who will be appointed to this commission will not be required to understand French. The member who gave the speech cast the deciding vote. How does he feel about the fact that he is the person responsible for the violation of the rights of Franco-Canadians and Quebeckers?
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- Jun/6/24 8:04:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it will take me more than 40 seconds to explain how discrimination against francophones has been going on for as long as Canada has existed. We were promised reconciliation and substantive equality. We were promised that institutional bilingualism would be the salvation of francophones.
The Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party are federalist parties that are stacked with and controlled by the anglophone majority. Sometimes they feel generous and toss Quebeckers and francophones a bone now and then. However, when the time comes for concrete action to establish substantive equality between the two official languages, then the bones stop coming and all attempts at appeasement end.
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