Pierre Dionne Labelle

[Champlain Bridge, November 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Maurice Richard is a larger-than-life hero. No one would deny the importance of honouring his memory in some way or another.

However, with his heavy-handed approach, the minister has already managed to get the Richard family all worked up. The main problem here is that the minister is putting the cart before the horse.

Even though nothing has been settled, the question of a toll is still up in the air and the contractor has not even been chosen, the minister is already picking out his tie for the big day. In their haste, the Conservatives are about to trample on the memory of Samuel de Champlain.

Not only was Champlain the founder of Quebec City, he is the father of New France. For a long time, he was the only one who believed in establishing a French colony in North America, come hell or high water. To try to erase Champlain from our collective memory is to trivialize the contributions of francophones to the development of North America.

The Conservatives are showing very little regard for francophones, Quebeckers and their symbols. The Conservatives have not changed, and the mess they have made of the Champlain Bridge project is proof. They always have a lackey somewhere to try to get us to swallow anything.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, October 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the surplus in the employment insurance fund. Premiums were frozen at $1.88 per $100 even though they should be $1.65 per $100. That has a negative impact and will eliminate 2,000 jobs.

The Conservatives froze premiums and are bringing in a credit that will create 200 jobs at a cost of $500,000 each.

Do they realize how little sense that approach makes? Can they see that the people pushing for these measures have no clue and no managerial competence?

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, October 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the Liberal member giving the Liberal vision for the use of the employment insurance fund.

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for the NDP, we believe that this money belongs to the unemployed. I invite him to read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's response. He even suggested other ways to use the EI surplus, but only to help the unemployed.

With the $3 billion surplus, we could have expanded the program to 130,000 additional workers, which would have increased the percentage of workers with access to employment insurance from 39.5% to 51%. At present, only 39% of workers have access to employment insurance.

We could also have reduced the number of hours required to be eligible for benefits. That would have been a good move. We could have increased workers' benefits. Instead of paying them 55% of their salary, we would have had the means to pay them 68% of their salary. However, the government prefers to pay other bills with this money.

Unemployed workers' money belongs to them.

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 2, October 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, before us today is Bill C-43, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on February 11, 2014.

This is yet another mammoth bill. It is 450 pages long and contains 400 clauses that affect more than a dozen laws. Clearly, the opposition is not deluded about the future of this bill. As with the bills before it, the debate on this bill is already subject to a time allocation motion. This is the 80th time the government has used this tactic, and in the end this bill will pass very quickly, just as the others did.

When Bill C-38 was introduced, we moved 500 amendments because the 600-page bill contained dozens of laws. I remember quite well that the government did not accept any of those amendments. We know what is going to happen with the bill before us.

To set the stage, I would like to quote from a National Post editorial about a previous omnibus bill.

Not only does this make a mockery of the confidence convention, shielding bills that would otherwise be defeatable [in the House]...We’ve no idea whether MPs supported or opposed any particular bill in the bunch, only that they voted for the legislation that contained them. There is no common thread that runs between them, no overarching principle; they represent...a sort of compulsory buffet.

The government was trying to get us to pass its legislative agenda in one fell swoop, and that is the case again today.

Among the measures included in this bill is the proposal to deny social assistance to refugee claimants, an idea that was brought forward by a backbencher on the other side of the House. The bill also includes hiring credits for small businesses.

I could list all of the laws affected by this bill, but I will stop at those two. We cannot look at this bill without looking at the overall context of the Conservative administration.

Is the economy doing better since the Conservatives came to power? Every week, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance throws some figures at us: 1 million jobs here; 400,000 jobs there; 300,000 unemployed workers here; 200,000 unemployed workers there. People no longer know which figures are true and which have been manipulated.

I looked into whether the economy was doing better in my riding and whether families were better off and people were less poor. On October 17, I participated in the Nuit des sans-abri. I do not know whether my colleagues opposite participate in this event. It involves spending one night with the homeless and talking to them about their lives for 24 hours. I have been doing this for 10 years. I spent the night with them again this year, and I did not notice that there were fewer homeless people. On the contrary, there were more.

However, I did notice that the organizations that work with the homeless suffered budget cuts this year, including an organization that focuses on getting homeless youth into the job market and back to school. This organization lost $400,000 in funding from the skills link program, a federal program that is supposed to support social integration.

Just today, the CBC mentioned a report by the Canadian Observatory on Homelessness stating that the $2 billion currently being invested in social and affordable housing in Canada is not enough to meet the needs of the 35,000 people who sleep on the streets every day or the 235,000 who sleep on the streets every year.

According to the think tank, the government needs to invest $1.7 billion more in affordable housing per year to eliminate homelessness in Canada. It would cost each Canadian $0.88 a week to ensure that people are not sleeping in the streets and to make ours a society where a degree of social justice reigns. At the same time, for every $10 invested in social and affordable housing, we save $21 in health care costs because people who end up in the streets eventually end up in hospital with serious health needs. That is a huge cost for society.

When I took part in homelessness awareness night, I did not see fewer homeless people. I saw people who were having a hard time and needed organizations. I also saw organizations that had just had their funding cut. To me, that is just as important an economic indicator as the GDP.

I also want to talk about the number of people who use food banks. In my riding, many people do. Again, is the economy doing well? There are more and more people using food banks. If the economy were doing so well and the mammoth budget implementation bills that keep getting introduced provided something practical for ordinary Canadians, that number would go down.

On the contrary, the number increased by 25% between 2008 and 2013. That means that there are 25% more people in my riding using food banks. Often these people work part time for minimum wage. They are forced to use food banks to feed their children. That is what the economy looks like under the Conservatives, and I would dare say under the Liberals as well.

Currently, every month, 80,000 new people use food banks in Canada. In the measures proposed today and for some time now, I have not seen anything that would improve this economic indicator. Indeed, that is what it is.

I also want to talk about unemployment. Good jobs are rare, and not just since 2009. Since the crisis, we have lost a number of industry jobs, which have been replaced with part-time jobs.

I read the Parliamentary Budget Officer's response regarding employment insurance funding and the recent related measures. I am not sure whether my colleagues across the way read it, but I doubt it, because this document takes a hard look at the employment insurance situation and how the EI-funded hiring credit will cost us jobs. The EI premium freeze cost us jobs, and every job created will cost us $500,000.

I would like to congratulate the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I know that the Conservatives were not very fond of Mr. Page because he pointed out that purchasing the F-35s was foolish. Nor did they like the subsequent report on the sustainability of old age security, which actually is sustainable. They will surely not like this report.

The Prime Minister probably thought it was a good idea to replace the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I believe that he made a good decision when he appointed Mr. Fréchette, who is doing a great job. I encourage all parliamentarians to read this report. It is a fantastic document that shows that the Conservatives are poor public administrators and that they will have to be replaced sooner or later.

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, October 21st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the ministers responsible for the Francophonie in Quebec and Ontario are speaking out against the Conservative cuts to the CBC. Like us, they are unhappy about how these cuts are reducing French news coverage and threatening the survival of the French fact in Canada.

Nevertheless, the legislation is clear: the public broadcaster's mandate includes helping to promote the vitality of the French language and culture in Canada.

Will the Minister of Canadian Heritage finally recognize that these cuts are preventing the CBC from fulfilling its mandate and helping francophone minority communities?

[Business of Supply, October 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, too much oil is being currently moved on the St. Lawrence. Last week, Suncor announced the movement of 350,000 barrels from its facilities in Sorel, which poses an incredible and incalculable threat to ecosystems, not only in Cacouna, but also in every region along the St. Lawrence.

We need to find ways to move oil other than on the St. Lawrence because we cannot clean it up if there is a spill. There is currently no way to clean up the oil if it spills into the ice. Spills happen regularly. Our colleagues opposite pretend they do not. There are many oil spills in Canada, and there have been many in the St. Lawrence. If there were a major spill, and that does happen, we would not be equipped to deal with it. Only 5% to 15% of oil spilled into the St. Lawrence could be cleaned up. The rest would flow practically to the mouth of the tributaries, would pollute the entire gulf and would threaten the economy. Currently, the tourism industry generates $250 million annually in that region. The Conservatives are not going to threaten that income.

[Business of Supply, October 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has understood quite well. Quebeckers need to be given the opportunity to be supplied with Canadian oil and prevent transshipments and the transport of oil on the St. Lawrence. Indeed, if we started using oil from the oil sands heading to Montreal, we would no longer need tankers bringing oil from Algeria, Mexico and Venezuela. We would ensure a Canadian supply from Canada's natural resources.

[Business of Supply, October 9th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker,

In the beginning, it lay sleeping.... A gigantic mantle of pure ice awaiting the coming of the Earth's spring. Then, cataracts of water gushing forth from the glaciers, rolling towards the ocean, gouging in the northerly soil of the Americas the bed of a colossal river and the greatest estuary on the planet.

Freshwater whirlpools collide with the vast salt waters flowing from the Arctic, overwhelming. And then, the miracle. Life explodes, microscopic and luxuriant. Hosts of fish, mammals and birds. Season after season, tide after tide, the harvest is renewed. Drawn by the inexhaustible wealth of these waters, creation's bravest and best gather to feed and to bond.

Humpbacked, bowhead and blue swim alongside dolphins and giant turtles, salmon, smelt, halibut, infinite schools of herring and cod.... The river is a torrent of life.

“Magtogoek.” The mighty river. So named by the first peoples.

These are the lyrical opening passages of Frédéric Back's 1993 animated film masterpiece.

Oh, my beautiful river, my immense St. Lawrence, with your tidal flats, your crosscurrents, your bars, reefs and shoals, your villages like beads on a rosary along the coast still remember, in their foundations, the shaking from the cannonballs of conquest, in your mists and gusts, your shields, your funnelled winds, your fogs and your ice covers.

Today I have listened to people speak the whole day. I have heard speeches by members of Parliament who do not know you, my river, in the heart of the valley of valleys where my nation lives, my mighty river, the artery that is vital to Quebec’s development.

While I listened to them, I told myself that they have closed their eyes to Quebec’s soul, and the soul of Quebeckers. There are no Quebeckers who at some point in their lives have not gone to admire the aquatic ballet performed by whales off the coast of Cacouna or Tadoussac. There are no Quebeckers who have not admired the flowing maritime beauty in the Lower St. Lawrence and the Saguenay fjord. The St. Lawrence is a precious and fragile legacy that Quebeckers want to safeguard for the generations to come. It is a unique and magnificent river, but a river at risk, a river that is choking, a river that has been polluted, mistreated and plundered, a river in need of oxygen and in dire need of love.

Of all the paths I have taken in my life, the road along the St. Lawrence River is the most beautiful and the most evocative. When I reach Île Verte, my present meets my past and all the generations who watched me grow up come to mind.

In the middle of the river, facing Tadoussac, at the slack water, the current never takes long to turn. The currents at the mouth of the Saguenay can reach 7 knots at the ebb tide. When the St. Lawrence tides turn, the water runs back up the current and rushes into the clear tributaries: the majestic Saguenay, the Sault-à-la-Puce, the Sainte-Anne-du-Nord, the l'Ombrette, the Gouffre, the Malbaie, the Sud and the Loup, the Escoumins and the Sault-au-Mouton, the Cèdres and Sault-au-Cochon, the Betsiamites and Papinachois, the Outardes and Manicouagan, the Franquelin and Godbout, the Trois-Pistoles, the Rimouski, the Mitis and the salmon-filled Matane.

The St. Lawrence is a great liquid lung that breathes water.

Today, the threat to the belugas' reproduction off Cacouna from the construction of a supertanker terminal port is only a prologue to a much broader issue—that of the environmental protection of the St. Lawrence, its tributaries, its marine life, and the coastal life and economic activity of an entire region.

What is the oil industry proposing, in fact? What are they offering us? To impose the burden of a long-standing and unimaginable threat over this fragile, unique and irreplaceable ecosystem against a few dozen jobs.

Accepting this offer would be like selling our soul for a mess of pottage, especially since the means we have today to respond to an oil spill in the St. Lawrence and in the Gulf are pitiful. According to a panel of experts, the resources available to us today would enable us to recover only between 5% and 15% of the oil that might spill into the St. Lawrence.

Every year, there are no fewer than 82 150,000-tonne ships, one every four days, sailing up the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the estuary to supply the Ultramar refinery in Lévis. This is in addition to the 10,000 commercial ships that make their way along the St. Lawrence river channel annually.

We have been told that the project would triple the number of supertankers that sail from the St. Lawrence estuary to the oil-importing countries. There are already too many hazardous materials on the St. Lawrence. What would remain of this mythical river after a major oil spill? What would be the impact of 150,000 barrels of oil spilling over the waters and the ice of the St. Lawrence and spreading for kilometres through its tributaries? And who would then go spend their vacation in the Charlevoix, in Tadoussac, Trois-Pistoles or Bergeronne, to look at a black tide full of dead seagulls, belugas and whales? Who would go fishing in the St. Lawrence estuary or in the salmon rivers polluted by an oil spill?

We will save the belugas because they must be saved. They will become the very symbol of this government’s pro-oil stance and its defeat in the coming elections. Like the canaries that miners carried into the mines with them to warn them of danger, the belugas are warning us today that our development strategy is hazardous to our health.

Only an NDP government under the leadership of the member for Outremont will be able to reverse the trend and ensure that Canada will develop in a way that is respectful of the environment.

I have listened the whole day today to our opponents claiming that we are against development. We are not against development; we are in favour of sustainable development, as part of a sustainable approach, in favour of development where projects are approved by the communities, projects that safeguard natural resources for the generations to come—everything that this project is not.

This project threatens the most fragile ecosystem in Quebec, and it is not Canadian oil companies that are going to threaten this ecosystem. We are going to protect the St. Lawrence estuary, and the flowing waters of its rivers and tributaries. This is why we have tabled this motion to prevent the construction of a port terminal in Cacouna.

[Canada-Korea Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, September 30th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we are talking about the Canada-Korea agreement. The NDP leader has considerable experience from decades as a provincial minister and in government and the public service. We can trust him to develop trade and economic policies for Canada. The Conservative government is tired and corrupt. The NDP is ready to work at finding real solutions to the real problems facing Canadian families.

Does my esteemed colleague agree that this introduction shows that the NDP is a good party?

[Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, September 26th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague opposite. Does he feel that this bill will criminalize someone who is severely disabled, has no sex life and calls on an escort?