Official Languages  Mr. Speaker, we have an expression in Quebec that goes, “je ne peux rien lui faire qu'il ne se fera pas lui-même”. In other words, he is his own worst enemy and keeps digging himself into a deeper hole. It has gotten to the point where he is doubling down and continues to endorse comments that make absolutely no sense by trying to do something that he is not particularly good at.

Official Languages  Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are having a hard enough time as it is convincing people that they are committed to the French language. I will spare them the trouble of claiming it is part of their culture. At the very least, the Prime Minister should take responsibility for one of his members uttering such a vulgar slur about our national language.

Official Languages  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is so oblivious to the political cost of his last response. Failing to ensure that the member resigns as chair of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, or APF, when he refuses to apologize for his remarks and when he thinks that protecting French is an extremist position, is a personal endorsement from the Prime Minister himself of the contempt voiced.

Justice  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister sees fit to challenge, through the person of Ms. Elghawaby, a law passed by the Quebec National Assembly and to create a law for a minority within a minority, who, I would point out, asked for no such thing. It is a religious law. I respect the Muslim community at least as much as the Prime Minister does, but is he building bridges by creating privileges or by creating divisions?

Justice  Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers want this law, and the money they have put into the Liberals' staggering deficit is going to pay for a Supreme Court challenge to a law that they want. In short, can he rein in Ms. Elghawaby, tell her to stop attacking Quebec and respect the right that Quebeckers have to live in a society with a secular state?

Diversity and Inclusion  Mr. Speaker, I am reassured. I have not been sleeping well for some time now. I am going to be able to return the signs to the printers and cancel the bus. The NDP is voting with the Liberals in favour of the budget. That being said, the Bloc Québécois is voting against it. Let me read something from Amira Elghawaby: We are committed to upholding the values of religious freedom...and equality that are imbedded in our constitution and are at the heart of our democracy.

Diversity and Inclusion  Mr. Speaker, you have been too generous with the Ritalin. We are definitely talking about different sorts of bridges. I am talking about the bridges Ms. Elghawaby is supposed to be creating between communities. As Guy Rocher used to say, one person's privilege is another's injustice.

Intergovernmental Relations  Mr. Speaker, let us pray that the Prime Minister will remain with us on this Tuesday. The Prime Minister said he was working hand in hand with the provinces and that his main concern was ensuring that everyone received good services from the Canadian government for people across the country.

Intergovernmental Relations  Mr. Speaker, I understand that there was less time to prepare, but yesterday, the Conservatives, Liberals and even the NDP—I say “even” because it kind of goes together—voted against an amendment from the Bloc Québécois that said that the budget was okay, because we are not bad sports, but that the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces need to be respected.

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on showing some common sense. If the Chair wants more questions, we are ready to ask plenty of them. It is clear that from firearms buy-back programs to the Phoenix pay system, issuing visas, McKinsey and GC Strategies, the government's management is very chaotic.

Intergovernmental Relations  Mr. Speaker, we will talk about “hand in hand with the provinces” in a bit. In the meantime, after some Pinocchio-like nonsense, the Conservatives are now voting with the Liberals. They are both obsessed with encroaching on provincial jurisdictions. Despite a request from all premiers—so much for “hand in hand”—the Liberals and Conservatives are voting against a motion on respecting Quebec's jurisdictions.

Guy Rocher  Mr. Speaker, next Saturday is Guy Rocher's 100th birthday. Guy Rocher is one of the great intellectuals of the Quiet Revolution and, because of his own personal journey, an icon of secularism in Quebec. His century of wisdom is worth celebrating. He is one of the little-known fathers of our education system, having played a key role in the mystical Parent commission and in the creation of the largest university in Quebec and Canada, the Université du Québec network and the extraordinary CEGEP system, which is unique to Quebec.

Intergovernmental Relations  Mr. Speaker, if you have 10 minutes, I would ask you to explain to the Prime Minister what purpose the opposition serves in Parliament, especially since it comes so naturally to a Quebecker. The Prime Minister is interfering in all of Quebec's jurisdictions, and yet the Liberals think it is outrageous for Quebec to want to use a tiny piece of the Constitution, the notwithstanding clause, to protect its own jurisdictions.

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, I refuse to believe that the Prime Minister is working hand in hand with Quebec. On the contrary, I believe he has his hand in Quebeckers' pockets. He is blatantly abusing the fiscal imbalance. He is blatantly abusing his spending power. Furthermore, he is racking up an appalling deficit that Quebeckers will be paying off for a long time to come simply to save his government's skin, and his own skin, in the next election.

The Budget  Mr. Speaker, with his budget, the Prime Minister is recognizing that the issues that are really important to Canadians fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. Therefore, he is shamelessly using the fiscal imbalance, thanks to which he has a lot more money than he should, while Quebec and the provinces have less.