Bill C-11 (Historical)

Online Streaming Act

An Act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other Acts

This enactment amends the Broadcasting Act to, among other things,
(a) add online undertakings — undertakings for the transmission or retransmission of programs over the Internet — as a distinct class of broadcasting undertakings;
(b) specify that the Act does not apply in respect of programs uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by a user of the service, unless the programs are prescribed by regulation;
(c) update the broadcasting policy for Canada set out in section 3 of the Act by, among other things, providing that the Canadian broadcasting system should
(i) serve the needs and interests of all Canadians, including Canadians from Black or other racialized communities and Canadians of diverse ethnocultural backgrounds, socio-economic statuses, abilities and disabilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and ages, and
(ii) provide opportunities to Indigenous persons, programming that reflects Indigenous cultures and that is in Indigenous languages, and programming that is accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities;
(d) enhance the vitality of official language minority communities in Canada and foster the full recognition and use of both English and French in Canadian society, including by supporting the production and broadcasting of original programs in both languages;
(e) specify that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the “Commission”) must regulate and supervise the Canadian broadcasting system in a manner that
(i) takes into account the different characteristics of English, French and Indigenous language broadcasting and the different conditions under which broadcasting undertakings that provide English, French or Indigenous language programming operate,
(ii) takes into account, among other things, the nature and diversity of the services provided by broadcasting undertakings,
(iii) ensures that any broadcasting undertaking that cannot make maximum or predominant use of Canadian creative and other human resources in the creation, production and presentation of programming contributes to those Canadian resources in an equitable manner,
(iv) promotes innovation and is readily adaptable toscientific and technological change,
(v) facilitates the provision to Canadians of Canadian programs in both official languages, including those created and produced by official language minority communities in Canada, as well as Canadian programs in Indigenous languages,
(vi) facilitates the provision of programs that are accessible without barriers to persons with disabilities,
(vii) facilitates the provision to Canadians of programs created and produced by members of Black or other racialized communities,
(viii) protects the privacy of individuals who aremembers of the audience of programs broadcast, and
(ix) takes into account the variety of broadcasting undertakings to which the Act applies and avoids imposing obligations on any class of broadcasting undertakings if that imposition will not contribute in a material manner to the implementation of the broadcasting policy;
(f) amend the procedure relating to the issuance by the Governor in Council of policy directions to the Commission;
(g) replace the Commission’s power to impose conditions on a licence with a power to make orders imposing conditions on the carrying on of broadcasting undertakings;
(h) provide the Commission with the power to require that persons carrying on broadcasting undertakings make expenditures to support the Canadian broadcasting system;
(i) authorize the Commission to provide information to the Minister responsible for that Act, the Chief Statistician of Canada and the Commissioner of Competition, and set out in that Act a process by which a person who submits certain types of information to the Commission may designate the information as confidential;
(j) amend the procedure by which the Governor in Council may, under section 28 of that Act, set aside a decision of the Commission to issue, amend or renew a licence or refer such a decision back to the Commission for reconsideration and hearing;
(k) specify that a person shall not carry on a broadcasting undertaking, other than an online undertaking, unless they do so in accordance with a licence or they are exempt from the requirement to hold a licence;
(l) harmonize the punishments for offences under Part II of that Act and clarify that a due diligence defence applies to the existing offences set out in that Act; and
(m) allow for the imposition of administrative monetary penalties for violations of certain provisions of that Act or of the Accessible Canada Act .
The enactment also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.

Bill C-18—Time Allocation Motion

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is a very important question. I want to thank my colleague for his work on this bill and the overall work of the government. He is a key member of the government team.

Sometimes, it is necessary to use time allocation. With this official opposition, it may be used more, because they like to filibuster. The opposition likes to play with the tools it has to hurt our democracy.

Bill C-11 is an amazing bill that is asking the streamers that we all love, such as Disney, Netflix and others, to contribute to Canadian culture, which is a good thing. Normally we would all agree on this. I know the NDP agrees. I know the Bloc agrees. The Conservatives are not too sure. That bill spent more time in the Senate than any other bill in the history of this country, because it was blocked by Conservative senators under the order of the leader of the Conservative Party. That is totally unacceptable.

The Conservatives are trying to do the same thing on Bill C-18, with the budget and other bills. They are hurting our democracy.

Bill C-42—Time Allocation Motion

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for this opportunity to speak to this closure motion. It is very disappointing, yet nothing new, that we are seeing this from government, since it has consistently used every opportunity it can, in coordination with its coalition partners, to silence not only members of the House but also the Canadians they represent.

We do not have enough time to present our opinions. I want to say that again for both English- and French-speaking Canadians because our debates are held in both official languages. Unfortunately, this process is not new to this House.

It is not surprising, unfortunately. We have seen this with a number of other bills. In addition to limiting speech, and we certainly know that we are going to have an opportunity to talk about the limitation of speech with Bill C-18 also coming forward in the House, we also see the limitation of democracy across the country, not only with foreign interference but also with Bill C-11.

The silencing of members of the House, as well as of Canadians, is nothing new, so I would like to say that it is very disappointing, especially as we go into the summer holidays. We are very limited in the amount of time that we have to have these important conversations for Canadians.

News Media Industry

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, our government will always be open to new solutions. We will always look at what more we can do and what we can do better.

However, when we introduced the Canadian journalism labour tax credit, the Conservatives were against it. When we created the Canada Media Fund for the regions, the Conservatives were against it. When we introduced Bill C‑11, the Conservatives were against it. When we introduced Bill C‑18, the Conservatives, again, were against it.

Do they understand that their actions have real consequences?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Minister of Canadian Heritage]

Mr. Speaker, my thoughts are with all those who have lost their jobs, and with their families. It is always worrisome when radio stations shut down and journalists lose their jobs. That is why we have been there from the start. We worked with the Bloc Québécois and the NDP to study Bill C‑11 and Bill C‑18, but the Conservatives did everything they could to delay the passage of those bills.

Do they finally understand that their actions have consequences?

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Mr. Speaker, 1,300 people learned yesterday that they would be losing their jobs at Bell Media. Six radio stations are going to stop broadcasting. When even a giant like Bell can no longer protect its media and newsrooms, the situation is dire. The entire news industry and the people who work in it are all under threat.

The Bloc Québécois is proud to have contributed to Bill C‑11 and Bill C‑18, two very important bills. However, I think the minister is beginning to realize, as I have, that this will probably not be enough.

In light of these new job losses, does the minister have anything to suggest in order to better protect the diversity of information?

Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Madam Speaker, unfortunately, the member for Vancouver Centre is incorrect. We had not proceeded to clause-by-clause until the Liberals brought in a guillotine motion in the House of Commons. To say that we were filibustering clause-by-clause is 100% inaccurate, so perhaps the member could refresh her memory, because that is not what happened. They came with a guillotine motion, literally in the dead of night, to force every clause through without debate or discussion. Every debate was debated in the dead of night.

To remind members who are wondering at home, the bill in question was Bill C-11. This was the Liberal effort to regulate the Internet and to try to force user-generated content to be subject to CRTC regulations. We all know that if we want something to be done poorly, we give it to the CRTC.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege and an honour to rise in this House, but I do so today on Government Business No. 26 with some degree of disappointment. There is disappointment because we are debating a motion that does not have the consensus of this House of Commons. It does not have the consensus of the recognized parties. The government and the government alone is trying to unilaterally change the accepted rules of this place without the consensus of all parties.

When provisions for hybrid Parliament were first introduced in this place, they were done so as a temporary measure so that members could participate in the proceedings of Parliament at a time when travelling and gathering in large groups were not permitted due to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. They were never considered a long-term change to how we conduct business as a House of Commons.

The proposed changes being debated today are not in the interests of Canada's Parliament. I am reminded of the words of a great Nova Scotian, one of the great parliamentarians of his generation, the Right Hon. Bob Stanfield, from Truro, Nova Scotia. I know the Speaker is a proud Nova Scotian. Bob Stanfield, in a memo to his caucus, focused on the importance of certain institutions, certain principles among parliamentarians, that we ought to hold dear. He wrote, “Not only is it unnecessary for political parties to disagree about everything, but some acceptance of common ground among the major parties is essential to an effective and stable democracy. For example, it is important to stability that all major parties agree on such matters as parliamentary responsible government and major aspects of our Constitution.”

In the past, that has been accepted. It has been accepted among all political parties and different political parties that when major changes are made to how we operate as a Parliament, as a House of Commons, it is done with a common understanding among parliamentarians. Indeed, during the Harper majority government, a process like this was led by then parliamentary secretary Tom Lukiwski, who ensured that the multiple major changes made to our Standing Orders were made with the consensus of all political parties at that time. That is the process that worked then, and that is the process that ought to work going forward.

I want to quote my friend and geographic neighbour, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills. The member was recently at a parliamentary committee testifying on a different matter, but the point he made applies to this place. He said:

In Canada, there is only one federal electoral process, and that is the process whereby Canadians get one vote for their local member of Parliament. Everyone else in our system is appointed. The Senate is appointed. The Prime Minister is appointed.... The cabinet is appointed. Everyone else is appointed. The only electoral process federally in our system is for the House of Commons. It's the only part of our system that has an electoral process. It's the only part of our system that is democratic. It's the only part of our system where Canadians get a vote, and that is for the House of Commons.

The changes the Liberal government is proposing would give even more power to the whips and party leaders, and take away the rights and privileges of individually duly elected parliamentarians. It is a fundamental principle in this place that the Standing Orders ought to be respected, and up until now, the changes ought to require consensus. It is clear from the debate thus far that the government does not have that consensus.

I want to draw members' attention to some history in this place. On May 18, 2016, the then leader of the government in the House of Commons, now the minister of democratic institutions, introduced government Motion No. 6. Back then, when the NDP was still operating as an opposition party and holding true to its principles, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby raised a question of privilege in which he called the motion “a motion that rewrites our Standing Orders in more than 17 different ways so that the executive has unilateral control over all of the procedural tools in the House.”

That was when the member for New Westminster—Burnaby had principles and held the government to account. Unfortunately, now the New Democrats have joined the Liberal coalition and are no longer using the tools at their disposal. Motion No. 6 was eventually withdrawn, but only after the united concerted efforts of the opposition parties to make it clear that changes ought only occur with a consensus.

Then in our walk down memory lane, we move to 2017, when the then leader of the government in the House of Commons, now the chair of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, instructed the Liberal members on that same committee to introduce a motion that would have given the government the ability to change the Standing Orders in a way that was only approved by the Liberal majority in the House of Commons. This resulted in what was then known as the Standing Orders standoff, in which the 55th meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs lasted from March 21 to May 2, 2017, when the Liberal government eventually backed down.

That was certainly a challenging time, but when I look back at it, I do so with pride, because it was a time when Conservative, New Democrat, Bloc and Green members were all united against the unilateral Liberal government actions. I remember at the time the outrage so eloquently expressed by the NDP member David Christopherson. In one of his 303 interventions in that meeting, he said, “I don't understand how the government thinks they're going to win on this, or how they think that ramming through changes to our Standing Orders is going to make the House work any better.”

More than six years later, here we are again, with the Liberals trying to ram through changes, having not learned a single thing. Unfortunately, this time the NDP is driving the getaway car.

It reminds me of another quotation. In a speech to the Empire Club, an individual said this:

It is the opposition's right to insist at all times on the full protection of the rules of debate. The government is entitled to that same protection, but in addition it has its majority with which to establish its will. The opposition has only the rules for its protection, hence the authorities on parliamentary procedure emphasize the greater importance to the opposition of the only protection it has, the protection of the rules.

Who said that? It was the late great Stanley Knowles, one of the great NDP parliamentarians in this place, who, even after he left office, continued to have a seat at the clerk's table until he passed away. That is how dedicated he was to this place and to parliamentary democracy. Sadly, the NDP is no longer living up to the great expectations set by the late great Stanley Knowles.

As I mentioned at the outset of my remarks, the provisions for hybrid were brought in as temporary measures during the lockdowns of COVID-19. They were only there as a matter of necessity and should not be a permanent change so that members of Parliament can avoid this place.

Frankly, I remember that in April 2020, when we first started looking at temporary changes to the Standing Orders, it was done with a clear understanding that they were temporary. When the procedure and House affairs committee made its recommendations at that time, it included phrases such as “during the current pandemic” and “during exceptional circumstances”. This was never thought to be a part of the normalized operation of this place.

In fact, the committee heard from former acting clerk Marc Bosc, co-editor of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, the person who quite literally wrote the book on procedure in this place. On June 4, 2020, he said:

...I would say that I agree with Mr. Blaikie that the changes made so far relate to a pandemic situation. I think that has to be the lens through which you look at this particular exercise. The speed with which the hybrid model for the committee has been adopted, to me, is not a particular concern, but as Mr. Blaikie pointed out, if the tendency or the temptation is to make these changes permanent, that's a whole other issue.

As clearly shown at the time, these changes were never contemplated to be wholesale changes but rather temporary measures for a temporary situation.

We, as parliamentarians, especially opposition parliamentarians, hold a fundamental purpose in holding the government and the executive branch to account. What is often forgotten by Liberal backbenchers is that they share the same responsibility. Liberal backbenchers are not members of the government. They are members of the government party, but they are not members of the executive branch, and they ought to share the same concerns as opposition members in their role of holding government to account.

Unfortunately, hybrid Parliament makes it easier for Liberal ministers to avoid accountability in this place and at committee. What is more, as much as we may not always like what our friends in the media may write or say about us or our party, the media, too, holds a fundamental role within our parliamentary democracy. However, when a minister of the Crown participates virtually, either in committee or in the House, they avoid the interaction with our friends in the media and thereby avoid that effective way of accountability. When ministers participate in committee virtually, it takes more time and eats up more of the opportunity for opposition members to ask questions and have an effective restraint on the actions of government.

As I have raised a couple of times in questions and comments, the challenge of committees is very clear in a hybrid setting. I had the great honour and privilege to serve for nearly a year on the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. At the time, we were undertaking some very important studies, one of them on the absolutely horrendous state of affairs at Hockey Canada. I might add that is now ongoing with many other sports, which frankly, has not been adequately addressed. Sport Canada, as an organization, should be ashamed of itself in view of those allegations against Hockey Canada back in June 2018. It did nothing for four years, but I digress.

At committee, we were also studying Bill C-11 and we were undertaking clause-by-clause. In both of these situations, having a chair who was entirely virtual led to a gong show of a committee. The committee was unable to function because the chair could not see the room. The chair could not understand what was happening in the room. Quite frankly, the chair was constantly saying that she did not know what was happening in the room because she was not in the room. That is one of the major failings of the hybrid system, particularly as it relates to committees.

Now, I do recognize that, in these provisions, the presiding officer must preside in person, and perhaps we could call that the Hedy Fry rule, but that is what is happening—

Budget Implementation Act, 2023, No. 1

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, that is what happens when it is in fact the government that is spreading misinformation, not the people. Is it not then more dangerous to have concentrated the power over what is seen and said in the hands of those few people?

It goes back to the fundamental and basic question: If a man is not capable of governing himself, how can he govern others? That is the basic and fundamental question and the contradiction that those who believe in the superiority of the state over the citizen fail to answer.

If everyday humans are so flawed that they cannot decide for themselves, how can those same humans decide for anyone else? Well, their answer over there would be that there is this small group that are made of finer clay, that have intellectual and moral superiority, and therefore, if we just hand over all of our decisions to them, they could correct all the flaws and frailties of humankind. However, we know that the opposite happens: When we concentrate more power into fewer hands, we attract power-hungry people who are more flawed and less capable, more incompetent and with less common sense, who then inflict all of their failings and bad behaviour on the rest of society. That is why a limited and smaller government is always better: It because it allows everyday individual people to make their own decisions and to have personal responsibility and personal freedom in how they do so.

That is why one of my first actions as prime minister will be to repeal Bill C-11. I will repeal the censorship law to let people express themselves online. Let freedom of debate reign so that everyday people can hash out their differences.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Madam Speaker, they are getting close.

There are 37,000 of them. As I said, to be redundant, many of them are big, ugly and empty buildings. Why do we not sell them off and turn them into housing and use the proceeds to pay down the deficit? This is common sense. We are going to take that money and we are going to pay down the deficit. We are going to turn the buildings into housing so young people have a place to live.

We are going to bring in faster immigration for the building trades. I am going to allow the unions to sponsor immigration so unions like LiUNA can bring in labourers from other countries to fill the 50,000 job vacancies that desperately need to be filled. That will mean more builders in this country.

I am going to give parity of esteem. I am going to give the same respect and funding for the trades that we give to the universities. We should honour the people who build stuff, fix stuff and move stuff. They need the same support as our professionals. This is the common sense of the common people.

That is how we are going to bring home powerful paycheques and bring homes people can afford by getting government out of the way, but still we are going to need people to have bigger and more powerful paycheques, so how are we going to do that?

Let us look at immigrants. There are 20,000 immigrant doctors and 32,000 immigrant nurses banned from working in our hospitals because they cannot get a licence to practise even though many of them actually have practised in more sophisticated health care systems in places like Singapore. The gatekeepers block them from getting medical licences.

The federal government is not responsible for regulating those sectors. However, the federal government does provide money for both immigration resettlement and for health care. I believe we should use that money as leverage to get all the provinces to agree with a common national testing standard for all the regulated professions.

That would allow Canada's brilliant immigrants to take a test, not to get a shortcut but to take a test, to prove they meet the Canadian standard and that within 60 days of an immigrant applying to work in their profession they should get a yes or no based on their tested ability and not based on where they come from. I call this the blue seal standard. We have a red seal for the trades. Let us have a blue seal for the professions.

What has the federal government done? In the last eight years, it has done absolutely nothing. We at least, in the prior government, were able to reduce the wait time for an immigrant applying to work in their profession to one year, which I admit was too long but it was shorter than prior. Since that time, there has been no progress whatsoever and the list grows longer and longer of engineers, architects, nurses, personal support workers and doctors who could be helping our economy and serving Canadian patients but who are left on the sidelines in low-wage jobs because there is no simplified, streamlined process to accredit their abilities.

By the way, I will back up 30,000 small study loans so working-class immigrants who need a few months off work to study up to the Canadian standard can do so. Then they can get licensed, get practising, get a bigger paycheque, pay back the loan and that same money can then be lent out to the next deserving immigrant, who can then be propelled to a wonderful paycheque of opportunity serving Canadians.

This is just common sense. I would love to say that this is some work of art I am presenting to the House of Commons, but really it is the common sense of the common people I hear out on the streets when talking to those people every day.

Speaking of common sense, we need to bring home safety again. There is no way we can have a secure economy if we do not have safe streets. Crime has been raging out of control. Drugs, disorder, crime and chaos have become common in our streets under the Prime Minister. He has brought in catch-and-release, which allows the most violent repeat offenders to be released again and again and again onto our streets.

In Vancouver, the same 40 people were arrested 6,000 times, or 150 arrests per offender per year. If those same 40 offenders were just behind bars, we would have had 6,000 fewer people hit over the head with a baseball bat, stabbed with a knife or thrown onto a train track. Why not focus on putting those same repeat violent offenders behind bars?

I believe in second chances. I believe in redemption. I do not believe in a 75th chance. If one has committed 75 crimes, one belongs in jail. One should not have bail. One should not have parole after that many offences. The public's safety is more important than the criminal's right and we should protect the people and keep them safe. That is what we will do with a common-sense criminal justice reform.

We are going to bring home our loved ones recovered from drug addiction. We know that drug addictions have raged out of control under the Prime Minister. He has unleashed a wave of drug addiction since he became Prime Minister. Maybe he is trying to medicate poverty. Maybe he is trying to tell people that they should simply take drugs rather than have a future, because so many people are feeling hopeless and helpless after eight years of his leadership. They lose their jobs and suffer the pain of being unable to pay their bills. They are losing their homes. Many of them cannot take the suffering and end up addicted to drugs, drugs that were originally prescribed by doctors and pushed by powerful pharmaceutical companies.

Under the Prime Minister, there has been over a 200% increase nationwide in the number of drug overdose deaths. His solution has been to give people more tax-funded drugs, tax-funded narcotics like hydromorphone, an opioid more powerful than heroin, now handed out with hundreds of millions of dollars of Canadian tax dollars. We now know that those drugs are being resold by addicts who no longer find them powerful enough to get them high. They are selling to kids and the kids get addicted to those. Then they sell them to other kids and use the profits from selling these free government-funded drugs to buy more powerful fentanyl.

Thus, the places where this experiment has been most enthusiastically tried, like Vancouver, have been the places where the overdose rates have been the highest. There is a correlation both across time and across space of people dying, the more these government-funded drugs are available. The current approach is not working. The answer is, yes, I will shut down taxpayer-funded drugs and I will put all of the money into recovery and treatment.

Recently, I visited an incredible treatment facility in Winnipeg. The story has a tragic beginning, but a happy ending. The story starts with a young man, Bruce Oake, who died of an overdose in Calgary. His father, a legendary sportscaster, Scott Oake, said he was going to make it his life's mission to make sure that no other parent would suffer the same tragic loss that his family had suffered, so he raised the money to create a beautiful, gleaming place where people who had lost all hope and were addicted to drugs could go and have counselling, detox, job training, reconciliation with their families, sweat lodges, yoga, mandatory exercise. They helped them to regain their health and cleanse their bodies of poisons. Not only that, sober homes were built attached to the treatment facility so that when the graduates come out of treatment, they go into an apartment that is right next to the treatment facility, where they can go back any time to see a counsellor or maybe to mentor a new person who is coming in.

I was amazed to find out that most of the people there doing the work, right up to the accountants and the administrative staff, were all recovering addicts themselves. They said it is one thing to have book learning, but it is much more powerful to have real-life experience when sitting down with someone who is an addict, who is going through the desperate pain of withdrawal. When all they want is one more hit that will relieve their immense suffering, they want to be able to talk to someone who knows what they are feeling. The word “compassion” comes from the Latin word pati, to suffer. Passion is to suffer; compassion is to suffer with someone else.

They sit together in those rooms in that wonderful facility and share in each other's suffering, knowing that when suffering is shared, it is relieved and replaced with hope. We are going to replace people's pain with hope by ensuring that places like the Oake Recovery Centre are replicated hundreds and maybe even thousands of times across the country so that young people can go into those places, cleanse their bodies, get their lives back and then mentor the next crop of addicts to give them their lives back.

This cycle of hope will be repeated again and again and again, as a Conservative government gives people the chance to bring home their loved one drug free. I was just reminded by the member for Brandon—Souris that they have a big beautiful gymnasium in there where they do their exercises and play some sports. They have jerseys and every graduate has a jersey raised up to the ceiling with their name on it after one year of being clean, with the number one on the back of every jersey to recognize the single year, the full year, they have gone drug free. They told me this. There was pride on the faces of those young men when they saw their names go up on that jersey, up in front of all their families. They were able to say, “That jersey means that I won, that I scored the biggest goal in the history of the game of life. I got my life back. I've been through hell. There's nothing more that life can throw at me that I have not already been through”.

That is not weakness, that is a superpower, one that we should celebrate and recreate right across this country. That is what I want for anybody who might be listening tonight because I know that there are a lot of people suffering across this country. I meet these people.

One of the things that I find most emotional about being a leader of a political party is how much people vest in the leader, how much they rely on the leader's success that they have to come through for them. Most times when there are elections, we are really just debating about who is going to manage, who is going to run the store. The differences are fairly small on most occasions, but we are in an unusual time right now. People are suffering like I have never seen. It is really bad out there. I hear stories from people who come up to me at the gatherings I hold, people in tears who tell me I am their last hope, that they do not know what they are going to do because they are just hanging on by a thread. I want those people to know to hang on, keep on fighting. There are better days coming. Help and hope is on the way. That is what we are going to deliver to all the Canadian people who are thinking about giving up. Do not give up. Never give up. Better days are coming ahead.

I want to take a moment now to talk about why this has been such an extraordinary country. I am deeply grateful to this country. This country has been very good to me. I think sometimes that we talk about the country in a modern sense. Modern ideology lacks gratitude. It has become very trendy to talk down our history, talk about all of the horrible things that we as Canadians have represented. I think that is the wrong mentality. Yes, we must acknowledge the flaws and failings of history to correct them, but we do that not by deleting parts of our history but by painting in the entire story, the good and the bad, being honest and debating all of those parts of the story, but also about being grateful and showing gratitude for what this country has offered them.

Why is it that 300,000 to 500,000 people a year would want to come here if this is such an awful place, if we were such an awful country that is so filled with injustice? The answer is they would not. They come here for the promise of freedom. They come here not because there is anything special in the water that we drink, not because of the land or because the weather is more inviting than any other place. There are more tropical and sunny environments where they could go, but they come here for the unique foundation that we have in the form of our freedom.

The great former prime minister Wilfrid Laurier was asked to define our country. He was a good Liberal. I will give him credit. He would not be in that party today. He would not recognize the Liberal Party of today, because he was a Liberal who believed in liberty. He understood the meaning of the word, the real word, as it was meant in its origins, not the illiberal, wokist liberalism that we have on the side of the Prime Minister today.

Listen to what he understood about this country. He was asked what Canada's nationality was. In most countries, this would have been a very easy question to answer. If he had been in France, he would have said “French”; if in England, he would have said “English”; if in Scotland, “Scottish”, and so on. Most places define their nationality by the ethnocultural makeup of the country, but that was impossible, even back then, because we were already mixed up. We had Scots, Irish, indigenous, French, English, Catholic, Protestant, people from Asia and Africa back then, a century ago, so it was impossible to define our nation or our nationality on the basis of race, ethnicity or religion. What he said was, “Canada is free, and freedom is its nationality”, and so it is today. It is our freedom that fundamentally distinguishes us from so many places on this Earth. That is the reason people come from such far distances to live here in this country. It is not because of any new grand invention the Prime Minister has created; it is because people want to come here to live their own lives and make their own decisions. That is what I want to empower them to do.

When I was running for leadership of the party, some people asked me whether, if I could win power, I would take power. The answer is that I do not want to take power; I am running for prime minister to give power back.

I do not believe there is a special species of humans who are able to make decisions for everyone else. I believe that every human being is endowed with their own ability to make judgments about their own lives. When I go around the country and I meet with the mechanic who can take apart a transmission and put it back together; the farmer who can master meteorology, economics and soil chemistry; the waitress who can balance 10 plates on her hand, deal with 15 tough customers at once, go home and teach her kid math, and balance her budget on a minimum wage salary, I look at these people and ask myself what business I have running their lives. They know how to do that better than anyone else in this House of Commons.

I do not want to run their lives for them; I want to give them the freedom to make their own decisions.

That is why immigrants come here. They do not come here because there are these really brilliant politicians who can decide for them; they come to get away from politicians who think they can decide for others. That is why they come to our country. It takes a different kind of humility to be that type of leader, because if the government is small, then the leader's power is small and his reach is small. That is not what the Prime Minister wants. He wants big and powerful government because he thinks that it will make him big and powerful. It takes humility to be a leader who withdraws his control so that he can seed it back to the people to whom it truly belongs. It takes humility to lead a small and lean government, a small government with big citizens. That is the kind of humility that we need back in Ottawa, a humility that accepts the wisdom of the common people to decide for themselves. That is the fundamental essence of why I am running.

What does this come down to in the specifics? It means limiting the government's role in the economy. It means not throwing away money on corporate welfare, but rather lowering taxes for all productive businesses. It means allowing workers and parents to spend their own money, rather than having politicians spend it for them. It means allowing people to see and say on the Internet what they think, want to see and want to say without censorship by the state. Everything that is legal in the real world should be legal on the Internet and everything that is criminal in the tangible world should be criminal on the Internet, but no special censorship should be imposed on the people's thinking on the World Wide Web.

The Prime Minister passed Bill C-11, a law that empowers the bureaucracy at the CRTC to manipulate the algorithms of the Internet to control what people see, to give a bigger voice to the government's favoured broadcasters—

Sitting Resumed

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise and speak this evening—although I must say the hour is late, almost 9 p.m.—to join the debate on Bill C-47.

Before I start, I would like to take a few minutes to voice my heartfelt support for residents of the north shore and Abitibi who have been fighting severe forest fires for several days now. This is a disastrous situation.

I know that the member for Manicouagan and the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou are on site. They are there for their constituents and represent them well. They have been visiting emergency shelters and showing their solidarity by being actively involved with their constituents and the authorities. The teamwork has been outstanding. Our hearts go out to the people of the north shore and Abitibi.

Tonight, my colleague from Abitibi-Témiscamingue will rise to speak during the emergency debate on forest fires. He will then travel back home to be with his constituents as well, so he can offer them his full support and be there for them in these difficult times.

Of course, I also offer my condolences to the family grieving the loss of loved ones who drowned during a fishing accident in Portneuf-sur-Mer. This is yet another tragedy for north shore residents. My heart goes out to the family, the children's parents and those who perished.

Before talking specifically about Bill C-47, I would like to say how impressive the House's work record is. A small headline in the newspapers caught my eye last week. It said that the opposition was toxic and that nothing was getting done in the House. I found that amusing, because I was thinking that we have been working very hard and many government bills have been passed. I think it is worth listing them very quickly to demonstrate that, when it comes right down to it, if parliamentarians work together and respect all the legislative stages, they succeed in getting important bills passed.

I am only going to mention the government's bills. Since the 44th Parliament began, the two Houses have passed bills C-2, C-3, C-4, C-5, C-6, C-8 and C-10, as well as Bill C-11, the online streaming bill. My colleague from Drummond's work on this bill earned the government's praise. We worked hard to pass this bill, which is so important to Quebec and to our broadcasting artists and technicians.

We also passed bills C-12, C-14, C-15, C-16, C-19, C-24, C-25, C-28, C-30, C-31, C-32, C-36 and C-39, which is the important act on medical assistance in dying, and bills C-43, C-44 and C-46.

We are currently awaiting royal assent for Bill C-9. Bill C-22 will soon return to the House as well. This is an important bill on the disability benefit.

We are also examining Bill C-13, currently in the Senate and soon expected to return to the House. Bill C-18, on which my colleague from Drummond worked exceedingly hard, is also in the Senate. Lastly, I would mention bills C-21, C-29 and C-45.

I do not know whether my colleagues agree with me, but I think that Parliament has been busy and that the government has gotten many of its bills passed by the House of Commons. Before the Liberals say that the opposition is toxic, they should remember that many of those bills were passed by the majority of members in the House.

I wanted to point that out because I was rather insulted to be told that my behaviour, as a member of the opposition, was toxic and was preventing the work of the House from moving forward. In my opinion, that is completely false. We have the government's record when it comes to getting its bills passed. The government is doing quite well in that regard.

We have now come to Bill C-47. We began this huge debate on the budget implementation bill this morning and will continue to debate it until Wednesday. It is a very large, very long bill that sets out a lot of budgetary measures that will be implemented after the bill is passed.

I have no doubt that, by the end of the sitting on June 23, the House will pass Bill C-47 in time for the summer break.

What could this bill have included that is not in there? For three years, the Bloc Québécois and several other members in the House have been saying that there is nothing for seniors. I was saying earlier to my assistant that, in my riding of Salaberry—Suroît, we speak at every meeting about the decline in seniors' purchasing power. I am constantly being approached by seniors who tell me—

Criminal Code

[Joël Godin, Conservative, Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup for the speech he just gave. It was very heartfelt. It came from the depths of his being.

It is an honour for me to rise in the House to represent the people of the beautiful riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier, which is home to many hunters, fishers, sport shooters and farmers. There are also some indigenous people. I am very proud today.

My first reaction when I learned of the amendments made to Bill C-21 by the Liberals was simple. They had missed the mark. They were taking the wrong approach.

We are used to the Liberal government's inconsistency, whether it concerns Bill C-11 or Bill C-13, the bill to which I have made an active contribution over the past few months. Yesterday, we passed this bill. The Conservative Party supported it, but we wish the government had done more. Nevertheless, we align ourselves with the intentions of the Government of Quebec and official language minority communities.

Now we are talking about Bill C-21, which also demonstrates the inconsistency of the Liberal government. The government is not walking the talk. I will use the same expression as the Bloc Québécois leader, who said earlier in the House today that he will explain to the Liberals what this expression means one day. I urge him to explain it to them as soon as possible, because it is quite obvious. We have noticed the same thing.

I believe that all parliamentarians in the House agree on the objective of this bill, which is to improve public safety in Canada. This is critical, because after eight years of this government, violent crime has increased by 32%, and gang-related homicides have doubled. I am not making this up. This is not me saying so. It is not partisan rhetoric. It is not the evil Conservative Party attacking the good Liberals. This is a fact. I do not understand how they can defend this.

The Liberal government's approach to achieving this goal is completely out of touch with reality. As I said, the riding of Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier is an area with many hunters, fishers and farmers. It is largely rural. As in many other rural and semi-urban ridings in Canada, hunting season is a highly anticipated time of year. For many, it is a tradition, while for others, it is a family activity. It is a hobby. Young and old gather to practise this sport that has been passed down from generation to generation. Some hunt purely for pleasure. For others, it is an outright necessity in order to feed themselves, as a result of the Liberals' inflationary practices that are leaving Canadians hungry.

Two weeks ago, I was attending the annual convention of the Fédération québécoise des chasseurs et pêcheurs. I did not see any Liberals there. It took place in Saint-Jérôme. What I heard from the people I met at the annual convention was clear: They are worried about the consequences of this bill. This federation is not a run-of-the-mill organization. It is a solid institution that represents hunters and anglers throughout Quebec. Its mission is to represent and defend the interests of Quebec's hunters and anglers, help teach safe practices and actively participate in wildlife conservation and development to ensure that resources remain sustainable and that hunting and fishing continue to be practised as traditional, heritage and recreational activities.

I have a question. What is criminal about that? Absolutely nothing. These people simply want to enjoy nature and engage in an activity that has existed for millions of years. It is important to remember that, in the past, people bartered with what they hunted. They would trade pelts for mirrors. This is nothing new.

Perhaps I am a bit biased, but I want to point out that the federation's head office is located in the most beautiful riding in the Quebec City region—I will make the area a bit smaller—Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier. I want to commend the federation president, Marc Renaud.

I would like to read an excerpt from a news release issued by the federation after the government tabled its new amendments on May 1. It says, and I quote:

The federation understands the importance of public safety and supports the government's efforts to keep Canadians safe. However, we have raised concerns about how effective the methods proposed in Bill C-21 will be in meeting that objective. We believe that gun violence is a complex problem that requires a holistic approach, one that takes into account underlying factors such as poverty, mental health, organized crime, human trafficking and drug trafficking. We also recognize that firearms are not the only source of violence, as demonstrated by recent events in which other tools were used to commit crimes. We are therefore calling for a comprehensive review to come up with meaningful, intelligent and lasting solutions to these complex social problems.

To me, this is a call for a common-sense approach. Let us not reinvent the wheel. Again, as I was saying from the outset, this bill misses the mark.

Let us be clear here: Hunters are not the reason the crime rate in urban centres is higher than ever. We need to address organized crime and violent reoffenders to make the streets safer across Canada. Hunters, farmers, sport shooters and indigenous people are not criminals.

When I attended the convention two weeks ago in Saint-Jérôme, I felt very comfortable. These people are cordial, polite, civilized and intelligent, and I enjoyed meeting them. I did not feel like I was in danger. These are not criminals. Again, hunters, farmers, sport shooters and indigenous people are not criminals.

When we talk about criminals, we are talking about people who break the law. We could bring in a whole host of laws to have one model over another, to allow or not allow a certain model or to allow it with some exceptions. We can do that, but the criminals will never respect these rules. We need to address the problem differently.

A Conservative government will invest in maintaining law and order and securing the border rather than spending billions of dollars to take guns away from law-abiding Canadians.

Today, we have repeated over and over that amendments G-4 and G-46, the amendments that sought to ban firearms used by hunters and sport shooters, were withdrawn. Why were they withdrawn? It is because the Conservative Party of Canada, the official opposition in Ottawa, did its job. The minister boasted about those amendments and vigorously defended them, but he retreated when faced with common sense because the Conservatives made him see the light. I must say that they had other accomplices from other parties here in the House of Commons. It was not the Conservatives.

The government's new amendments are just a way of getting the work done through regulations. It is not meeting the target. We are not fools. We are used to these government tactics. I will repeat what we have said all day long: The Conservative Party is the only party to protect Canadians across the country, whether they live in large cities or rural communities.

This is a very technical bill. We worked very hard in committee to study the amendments, despite the time constraints imposed by the Liberals.

We want to do a good job on this bill, as we do on many others, but unfortunately, we are being muzzled. We are doing some work, but we could do so much more.

When we are in government, we will stand up for hunters and workers, because these individuals have rights, and we will work to protect them.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it was December 6, 1989, at École Polytechnique de Montréal, January 29, 2017, at the Quebec City mosque and so many other dates. Those dates need to resonate with my colleagues when they consider voting on this bill.

The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-21. We can say without hesitation that the Bloc Québécois's contribution is undoubtedly why this bill is finally acceptable. I would like to note the exceptional work of my colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, without whom this bill would certainly not have progressed in the same way.

That said, it is far from perfect, as it was initially botched by the government. We can see that, as with Bill C-10, Bill C-11 and so many other bills, the Liberal signature is to introduce flawed bills and be able to brag about having done this and that. In reality, it is others who improve them and deal with the problems and shortcomings of each bill that the government proposes. Bill C-21 is a flagrant example.

The bill was tabled in May 2020. It was essentially a freeze on handgun acquisitions and a grandfather clause. In that respect, the government did in effect prohibit most models of assault rifles with its order in council on May 1, 2020, which was issued quickly, a short time after the killings in Portapique, Nova Scotia, but several models were not covered, while new models continue to enter the market. Also, the prohibition on May 1, 2020, did not cover all “modern” assault weapons, thus allowing weapons like the very popular SKS, which is frequently used in mass shootings in Canada, to remain legal.

In the briefing to members and political staffers, officials also confirmed that the government planned to amend the bill to add other measures, which was unheard of for a newly tabled bill. There was no rhyme or reason.

In other words, the bill was not at all ready and the government only tabled it to ride the wave of support for gun control following the latest unfortunate shooting. That is called opportunism. I would even add a real lack of desire to be truly effective. In short, the government was not necessarily able to bring forward a fair and reasoned bill, but action was required because it was the right time and looked good. The results are there.

In fall 2022, the government tabled a package of amendments to its own bill. More than 400 pages of amendments were submitted to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, although the studies were already completed. These amendments included new measures to combat ghost weapons, but also a definition of a prohibited assault weapon and a list of more than 300 pages of prohibited weapons.

Here is another demonstration of what the Liberal government has made us accustomed to: anything. These amendments were tabled without explanation, without briefing and without a press scrum. Even Liberal members of the Committee seemed unable to explain these amendments. The various positions of the advocacy groups have become entangled—that is normal, of course—in a mish-mash of various readings and interpretations, most of which were justified or unjustified, since we were in a sort of grey area.

By drawing up this list, the government created a host of ambiguities and possibilities for circumvention, and, at the same time, penalized hunters and airsoft sport shooters. This does not include the weapons market already trying to circumvent the list. The concerns kept growing.

Hunters' fears are a good example. The Bloc Québécois listened to hunters. We therefore proposed reopening the study so that experts could be brought in to testify on the matter of assault weapons. The Bloc Québécois opposed the list in the Criminal Code because it made it needlessly long. The Criminal Code is not a real-time reflection of models of weapons and their classification.

It is my colleague from Avignon—La Métis—Matane—Matapédia who was a guiding light and kept the reason for logic throughout the process. Through pressure from all over, her team's research and her consultations with scientists and advocacy groups, she and the Bloc Québécois research team made a big difference in the study process of this bill.

It makes me very proud, today, to take the floor and re-tell the entire story. The government then tabled a gag order to quickly conclude the study of Bill C-21.

However, the government itself is responsible for the slow progress of Bill C-21. It preferred to bring forward an incomplete bill quickly after the killings rather than take a few more months to table a complete bill.

Despite these shortcomings, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-21. Initially, the bill was criticized by hunters, pro-firearms control groups and air gun enthusiasts. Thanks to the Bloc Québécois, it was improved and satisfied most of the groups. Again, the Bloc was proactive and made such fair proposals that they could not be refused.

The government has acted softly for years, leading to gun violence everywhere, particularly in Montreal. Prohibited weapons are circulating illegally. Bill C-21 is a poultice on a wooden leg, as my father would say. It is not nothing, but it is little, and the time wasted with the parliamentary exercise of cobbling together a badly designed bill does not save time. However, time is running out.

It was a mistake to try to create a bill full of shortcomings, that practically put hunters, sports enthusiasts and killers in the same boat. What a lack of will and respect for the afflicted, the victims, and for the innocent. In fact, the ultimate urgency was to table a bill developed by experts and scientists and improved by consultations with associations and as many representations as needed. The government is proposing quite the contrary, and that is unfortunate.

As usual, the Bloc is being valiant. We have done the work by bypassing and adapting the limitations and mistakes of the government. The next step is urgent. Weapons are flowing into Canada. What will the names of the next victims be? Who will lose a mother, a father, a daughter or a neighbour? What does the Liberal government plan to do to prevent illegal weapons from crossing the border?

I hope it will learn from its mistakes. Above all, I hope that the next steps in the fight against crime will be firm and frank gestures, based on clear legislation and taking into account the realities and needs of organizations that oversee, that work and that intervene in the area of public safety.

Opposition Motion—Immigration Levels

[Martin Champoux, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will take it upon myself to deliver to the Government of Quebec the message given by my colleague, who just finished his speech, that it should pull up its socks on the immigration file. I think it might appreciate the message, but I am not sure.

I will begin by saying that I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Terrebonne.

Our motion today is very simple. I think it has been a few minutes since we repeated it. It states:

That, given that,

(i) the Century Initiative aims to increase Canada's population to 100 million by 2100,

(ii) the federal government's new intake targets are consistent with the Century Initiative objectives,

(iii) tripling Canada's population has real impacts on the future of the French language, Quebec's political weight, the place of First Peoples, access to housing, and health and education infrastructure,

(iv) these impacts were not taken into account in the development of the Century Initiative and that Quebec was not considered,

the House reject the Century Initiative objectives and ask the government not to use them as a basis for developing its future immigration levels.

It is not a very complicated request. It only makes sense. It is a question of understanding each other.

This objective of increasing Canada's population to 100 million by the end of the century is something that worries me. I must say that I am finding the ruse to be less and less subtle. It is difficult to believe that the hidden agenda is not basically to put an end once and for all to Quebec's never-ending demands, which certain self-righteous federalist thinkers see as a fly constantly buzzing around their heads.

There are two ways of looking at this. The first is to see bad intentions. The government and its policy-makers know full well what they are doing to Quebec by setting immigration targets that are much too high for the province to absorb. They know that by doing this, they are ensuring that Quebec's francophone culture, the Québécois culture, will be completely snuffed out.

How will that happen? It will be because of the massive influx of newcomers who, even if they speak French, will not be welcomed as Quebec likes to welcome its immigrants. They will not be able to integrate into Quebec society properly because the infrastructure and services are insufficient and ill-equipped to receive such an influx. What happens when a host society is unable to welcome and integrate its newcomers? This leads to ghettoization. Newcomers gather where they feel safe, where they feel a sense of familiarity, and this creates ghettos. This leads to what we have already seen around the world, including in some Canadian cities. This is not what Quebec wants.

Quebec wants large numbers of francophone immigrants so that the common language, the language of work, the language of everyday life, is French. Quebec wants to welcome and integrate its newcomers based on a model that is not one of multiculturalism. Quebec's specificity is precisely that it has a language to protect, a language that is constantly at risk of disappearing in an ocean of some 300 million anglophones in North America.

There is also the issue of Quebec's political weight, which is mentioned in today's Bloc Québécois motion and is fuelling this discussion and debate. If Quebec loses political weight within the Canadian federation, it means that the various laws that protect the specificity of the Quebec nation will be open to more vigorous attacks, and Quebec will be even less able to defend itself. Consequently, Quebec will continue to dwindle gradually, little by little. It is a bit like putting a frog in a pot of cold water and then turning on the heat, letting the frog slowly get used to the heat as the temperature rises until, well, we know the rest of the story. I am not sure that has been scientifically proven, but everyone gets the picture.

In short, Quebec will fade away and accept its fate, telling itself that a known misfortune is probably more comfortable than an uncertain happiness. We will then find ourselves in the ocean of multiculturalism that Trudeau senior dreamed of all those years ago. I will not be fooled into believing that protecting the French language was part of that particular dream.

That widespread lack of sensitivity is disappointing, but it also makes me realize that this is one of multiculturalism's adverse effects on French.

We know that Quebec culture is gradually drowning in the Canadian and North American cultural maelstrom. Those who champion French are increasingly viewed by many in the rest of Canada as old grey-haired reactionaries straight out of what they wish was a bygone era. I have to acknowledge that I myself might be an old grey-haired reactionary not unlike my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé. No doubt he approves.

If we allow things to carry on as they are, speaking French will eventually become a mere curiosity. A comparison comes to mind that deeply saddens me. It will be a bit like the first nations we hear about, where the language is still spoken by some elders but has disappeared from everyday use. Young people are trying to resurrect those languages. I recently talked to an Abenaki woman who told me she was trying to relearn her grandparents' language, which is no longer being spoken. Maybe one day my great-grandchildren will ask their grandfather, “Grandpa, say a few words in French.” It will be cute and quaint, but also pathetic and sad.

That is what we are trying to protect. We are not trying to sow division or stir up trouble, as our friends on the other side like to say. We are trying to protect something that is dear to us, namely our culture, our language, our specificity.

We talk about political weight. Sometimes people say that Quebec's political weight boils down to the number of seats it has in the House of Commons. It seems that some people do not appreciate the importance of that. What is the effect of Quebec having less political weight? In future elections, if we do not correctly adjust the number of seats that go to Quebec, if we do not give Quebec a minimum number of seats, as is the case for other Canadian provinces, we will once again lose the influence we can have here in the House of Commons. We will lose the number of seats held by Quebec members of Parliament. I am not even considering the political affiliation, because the Quebec seats lost will not just be the ones held by the Bloc Québécois, but also those of Conservative and Liberal members of Parliament. There will be fewer of them because there will be fewer seats available for Quebec.

Would it have been possible to protect supply management, for example, if there had been fewer members of Parliament from Quebec? The work of my colleague from Berthier-Maskinongé and the Bloc Québécois on this file should be noted.

Bill C‑10 also comes to mind. It was tabled in November 2020 as a modernized Broadcasting Act and was later rebranded as Bill C‑11 in the next Parliament. It contained nothing for Quebec culture. Without a strong Quebec caucus and the Bloc Québécois's unwavering determination to add measures to the bill to protect the French language and content created by our artists, I am not sure if the new Broadcasting Act would have provided any protection for Quebec's francophone culture. Quebec's political weight made all the difference.

The more influence that Quebec loses within the Canadian federation, the more Ottawa can push its centralizing agenda and keep sticking its big fat nose where it does not belong. On February 8, 2022, the House had a great chance to show Quebec that it believes in the need for Quebec to preserve its culture and acquire tools to protect the French language. On February 8, 2022, I had the honour of tabling, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, a bill to amend the Constitution Act. Yes, while awaiting independence, a Bloc member is trying to amend the Constitution Act.

We simply wanted to add a provision that would guarantee Quebec 25% of the seats in the House of Commons. That would have been a game-changer because, with a threshold of at least 25% of the seats, we would no longer have to worry about the political weight of Quebec being at risk and the consequences that would bring, regardless of any demographic changes that might occur in the coming years.

That is why the Bloc Québécois is moving a motion today to reject the immigration levels proposed by the Century Initiative, which the government seems to be following very closely. This is a good opportunity to debate that, but it is also a good opportunity to understand why the Bloc Québécois wants to reject those objectives.

An Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament who represents a great many anglophones, a minority community with unique needs in the Quebec context, I have studied Bill C-13 with a critical eye.

First, I would like to say that my community is not impressed by the Quebec government's pre-emptive, and one could say almost perfunctory, use of the notwithstanding clause to escape judicial and political scrutiny of its recent language legislation, Bill 96, and its law on religious symbols, Bill 21.

Quebec anglophones have a unique political perspective because they are a minority within a minority. This makes the community particularly understanding of the importance of minority rights, including francophone minority rights. This perspective leads to an inherent sense of fairness and moderation among Quebec anglophones that makes the community wary of government overreach that can harm not just minority-language rights, but minority rights generally.

My colleague from Mount Royal has put it well. Section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows for an override of rights where reasonable in a democratic society. Recourse to the clause when section 1 is otherwise available but deemed insufficient by the legislator is by definition a tacit admission that rights are being unreasonably suppressed.

The timing of Bill C-13 unfortunately intersects with the Legault government's heavy-handed approach to a legitimate objective, which is the strengthening of the French language against unrelenting pressures in the proverbial sea of English, pressures heightened by the new Internet-based communications technologies, a challenge our government is addressing through Bill C-11 and Bill C-18.

I believe Bill C-13 and Bill 96 have been conflated and a narrative has taken root that obscures key facts about this legislation and minority-language guarantees in Canada. Anglophones in Quebec have legitimate grievances with aspects of Bill 96, but Bill C-13 is not Bill 96.

As former Supreme Court Justice Michel Bastarache said, the objective in Bill C-13 is to give special attention to the French-speaking minority outside Quebec and it is not inconsistent with the interests of the anglophone community in Quebec. Let me quote the former Supreme Court justice:

I don't really know what it is in the bill [Bill C-13] that worries them. I don't think that promoting French takes anything away from anglophones.... One can help a community in trouble [that is, francophones outside Quebec] without harming another.... I don't think the anglophone issue in Quebec has anything to do with the federal government, but rather the Quebec government.

That said, in my view, we could have done without the preamble in Bill C-13, with its reference to the Charter of the French Language, and the confusion and controversy this has sown. In fact, there was an attempt to remove the reference, but that attempt was blocked by the opposition parties in committee. One would not expect co-operation from the Conservatives or the Bloc, but the lack of support from the NDP was disappointing.

Bill C-13's preamble refers to the fact of the existence of the Charter of the French Language, just as it also makes reference to iron-clad constitutional guarantees for minority-language communities across Canada, including the anglophone community in Quebec.

For example, the preamble states:

the Government of Canada is committed to enhancing the vitality and supporting the development of English and French linguistic minority communities—taking into account their uniqueness, diversity and historical and cultural contributions to Canadian society—as an integral part of the two official language communities of Canada, and to fostering full recognition and use of English and French in Canadian society;

Preambles, however, are not the substance of a law. They are not normative, nor determinative. In fact, they have not always been included in Canadian legislation. According to an article by Kent Roach in the McGill Law Journal, between 1985 and 1990, only nine statutes had long and substantive preambles. Since then, there has been an increasing trend to incorporate preambles into legislation. As Mr. Roach puts it, “Once departments and ministries saw their colleagues using preambles, this created a demand for more preambles.”

The same article outlined different types and uses of preambles. In some cases, preambles are meant as a recognition of “the complexity...of modern governance” and as “an appeal...to embrace tolerance and diversity as part of what it means to be Canadian.” Roach gives the example of the preamble of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which states that “the Government of Canada recognizes the diversity of Canadians as regards race, national or ethnic origin, colour and religion as a fundamental characteristic of Canadian society”.

He continues by saying, “The symbolic nature of preambles means that they are often concerned with the politics of recognition” and they “frequently recognize goals that are in some tension with each other.”

He then adds, “By definition, preambles will be better in securing expressive as opposed to instrumental purposes because they do not impose rights and duties.” Here is a final quote: “courts have frequently been reluctant to give great weight to preambles.”

This all sounds a lot like Bill C-13's preamble. I will quote from the preamble: “the Government of Canada recognizes the diversity of the provincial and territorial language regimes that contribute to the advancement of the equality of status and use of English and French in Canadian society”.

In response to those who argue that preambles are interpretive, I would say that this is typically the case only when the body of law in question is not clear, which is not the case with Bill C-13. I will quote British case law in Attorney-General v. Hanover: “It is only when it conveys a clear and definite meaning in comparison with relatively obscure or indefinite enacting words that the preamble may legitimately prevail.”

I will quote Ruth Sullivan, from her book The Construction of Statutes, in chapter 14 on page 445: “Preambles must be measured against other indicators of legislative purpose or meaning, which may point in the same or a different direction. If there is a contradiction between the preamble and a substantive provision, the latter normally prevails.”

Finally, I will quote former Supreme Court Justice La Forest: “it would seem odd if general words in a preamble were to be given more weight than the specific provisions that deal with the matter.”

Bill C-13, in its body, is specific in its language, including with respect to the need to protect the interests of Quebec's anglophone minority. This would avoid any confusion that would otherwise require the courts to rely on the bill's preamble for interpretation.

For example, Bill C-13 would add, in black and white, the following to section 3 of the Official Languages Act: “For the purposes of this Act...language rights are to be given a large, liberal and purposive interpretation”. The body of the text also reiterates phrasing from the preamble on the federal government's commitment to enhancing the vitality of the English and French linguistic minority communities in Canada and supporting and assisting their development.

This brings me to the fear that Bill C-13's preamble endorses the pre-emptive use of the Constitution's notwithstanding clause.

Some contend that the reference to the Charter of the French Language in the preamble of Bill C-13 endorses the Quebec government's pre-emptive use of the clause, but the federal government has been clear that it does not approve of the pre-emptive use of the clause, whether against organized labour in Ontario or in both Bill 96 and Bill 21. The Attorney General has said clearly that the federal government will argue the point in court, specifically when Bill 21 reaches the Supreme Court.

Parliament also made its view known when it recently voted against the Bloc motion seeking to affirm the legitimacy of the pre-emptive use of the clause. I note that the Conservatives voted with the Bloc to support the motion affirming pre-emptive use. However, both together failed to carry the day.

These official parliamentary and governmental expressions of opposition to the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause matter. As the Supreme Court said in 2023 in the case of Murray-Hall v. Quebec, “To analyze the purpose of a law, courts rely [also] on...extrinsic evidence, such as parliamentary debates and minutes of parliamentary committees”. This would include, in my view, statements by the government and votes in Parliament.

As such, there should be no confusion in a future court's mind that the federal government has no intention of legitimizing Quebec's pre-emptive use of the clause by referencing the Charter of the French Language in Bill C-13.

Finally, something that has been lost in this debate is that the notwithstanding clause cannot override minority-language education rights, nor the right to speak English in Quebec in the courts or in the National Assembly.

Some suggest that Bill C-13 would allow the Quebec government to ignore obligations to the anglophone community under federally funded programs delivered through negotiated agreements with the province, but those agreements are governed by section 20 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which refers to the right of the public to communicate with and receive services from federal institutions in English and French, and by part IV of the Official Languages Act, which is meant to implement section 20.

Motion That Debate Be Not Further Adjourned

[Rachael Thomas, Conservative, Lethbridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, one of the observations I have made during my time in this place is how much the Liberal government loves to hinder Canadians and their freedoms.

We saw Bill C-11 get rammed through the House. We more recently saw how Beijing interfered in our elections in this country. An hon. colleague of mine, and his family in Hong Kong, were threatened and intimidated, and the government did nothing. We have seen the government move time allocation on bills over and over again to ram them through.

Specifically, with Bill C-21, we see a government that wants to take away rifles from hunters, again wanting to thwart the freedom Canadians have, and not entrust them with the tools for a basic lifestyle. I am curious as to why the government is so distrusting of Canadians.