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Deputy House leader of the official opposition

Luc Berthold

  • Member of Parliament
  • Deputy House leader of the official opposition
  • Conservative
  • Mégantic—L'Érable
  • Quebec
  • Voting Attendance: 65%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $94,201.00

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 316 - May/23/24
Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)
  • May/23/24 5:10:34 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I do not have much time, but I will use all the time I have to speak to this motion. As I mentioned earlier, we will be supporting this motion. However, I would like to talk about the folks behind this motion, the Bloc Québécois. The Bloc Québécois claims to be a pro-independence party, but as we see today, and as we are seeing more and more, it is more of a pro-dependence party. The Bloc Québécois depends on the Liberal government for its very survival. Bloc members like the Liberals because they are just like them. They are like brothers. I concede that they are not twins and there are some differences between the two parties. The first, the Liberal Party of Canada, claims to be a federalist party, but it believes that the federation is an albatross and does not respect the autonomy of the provinces. The second, the Bloc Québécois, claims to be a pro-independence party, but it owes its survival to the Prime Minister, whom it supports in all his spending and taxes. The Bloc Québécois likes having a big, interventionist government in Ottawa. The Bloc Québécois votes against budgets and economic updates in principle, but it is quick to vote for this government's budgetary appropriations and the federal government's excessive spending. If we think about it, when a party always votes with the government on centralizing federal and Liberal government spending, it means that it also wants big government, a morbidly obese government. That is what the Bloc Québécois supports here, in Ottawa. As proof, I would mention the fact that, since he arrived in Parliament in 2019, the Bloc Québécois leader has voted in favour of 100% of the Liberal Prime Minister's budget allocations. That is not insignificant. He voted 205 times to authorize $500 billion in additional federal spending. In fact, $500 billion is almost equal to Quebec's entire GDP, as the leader of the Conservative Party mentioned this morning. That is half a trillion dollars. That is a whole lot of money. Here are some examples. The Bloc Québécois voted in favour of $20 million of the $60 million spent on the ArriveCAN app. It voted to increase the number of federal public servants by 110,000. It voted to help private companies, consultants, get increasingly large federal government contracts. Contracts went up from $10 billion to $20 billion. If we take the time to look closely, it is clear that the Liberal and Bloc Québécois ideologies are similar. What did this $500 billion of inflationary spending, which was supported by the Bloc Québécois, do? It increased inflation. It doubled the cost of housing. As a result, the dream of home ownership has drifted out of reach for young families, because the down payment for a house has become so high that it is no longer affordable, not to mention the interest rates for repaying the mortgage. It is becoming unaffordable for young families, all across the country. This is what happens when a party decides to always support the government. When it comes to real change, there is only one option for Quebeckers: the Conservatives' common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. As the leader of the Conservative Party and, I hope and believe, the future prime minister of Canada said today, “with a small federal government, we will let Quebeckers make their own decisions. They could decide to keep more money in their pockets or to give more money to their government in Quebec City.”
657 words
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  • Rabble!
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Context: House Hansard - 210 - Jun/9/23
Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)
  • Jun/9/23 11:37:49 a.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, since then, he has gotten caught in the Prime Minister's trap. Sacha Trudeau, Sheila Block, Valérie Gervais, Don Guy, Pierre-Elliott Trudeau, David Johnston, Frank Iacobucci, Morris Rosenberg, the MP for Don Valley North and a crisis management firm, all these people or organizations have connections to the Prime Minister. The problem is that they are all key actors in the play being staged by the Prime Minister in order to avoid launching an independent public inquiry into Beijing's interference. No one believes in Mr. Johnston's independence any more. When will the Prime Minister do the right thing, fire his friend Johnston and launch a real independent public inquiry?
118 words
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  • Rabble!
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