Canadian Heritage Committee on Feb. 25th, 2009

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

No, but you cannot say...

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Pierre Falardeau, one of the most radical separatists, publishes Le Québécois, which receives 80% of its advertising revenue from the Bloc Québécois and the PQ. This is a fact. Patrick Bourgeois is the manager of the paper and the main contact person, Mr. Chairman. I believe that the Bloc Québécois does not want these facts to be made public, but Mr. Bourgeois has said:I don't know how we are going to solve [the problem] aside from beating them up. You can't really set radios on fire, but if someone did so one day, I will stand back and applaud.

This was written in Le Devoir. There is no doubt that it is a call to violence against Quebec media. That's a fact.

In the December-January 2008-2009 edition of the same paper, that is, Le Québécois, Patrick Bourgeois accused Jean Charest of wanting to increase the number of immigrants to Quebec in order to put Quebec's francophones into a minority position. Mr. Bourgeois said: "That level of immigration for Quebec is worrisome".

He continues by stating that Quebeckers lost the 1995 referendum because of the weak demographic weight of old-stock Quebeckers.

Mr. Chair, I thought we had turned the page with regard to money and the ethnic vote. It's quite simply racism. And it is funded to the level of 80% by the Bloc Québécois. The same paper even proferred threats—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'm having a hard time--

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

—I see here that funding... She does not want the text to be made public.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

I'm having a hard time getting translation.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

And now do we have problems with translation? Do you want it in English?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Okay, is this a point of order or is this debate?

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I have a point of order. Anything Patrick Bourgeois has said has nothing to do with the re-enactment of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which is what we are discussing today.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

He is the one who proferred threats.

[Carole Lavallée, Bloc, Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC]

I am asking you, Mr. Chairman, to be more rigorous and that members focus on the subject at hand today. You asked the same thing of me, and I respected what you said. I am asking you now to apply the same rule to Mr. Poilievre, who, by the way, is basically talking nonsense.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Carry on and ask the question of Mr. Juneau, please.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

I would like to remind the honourable member that these threats were made in Le Québécois, which is mostly funded by the Bloc Québécois and the PQ. They have used their parliamentary budget to place advertisements in these papers which contain racist statements and which threaten Quebeckers with violence.

I can show you even more, for example on page 5. In this paper there are about five advertisements, all paid for by the Bloc Québécois and the PQ, which help to fund the paper. They have never renounced—

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

Mr. Poilievre, could you please ask Mr. Juneau the question?

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Do you feel that the threats contained in Le Québécois influenced your decision with regard to the Plains of Abraham re-enactment?

[André Juneau]

As far as the discussions are concerned, we were not involved in that. By that I mean that certain statements were directed at myself and at the commission, and they came from Mr. Bourgeois. Those were threats. I don't think he is denying that. They appeared in newspapers. We reacted to them in the same way we reacted to threats contained in e-mails or from other sources. If you are asking me whether Mr. Bourgeois threatened me, my answer is yes. As for everything which was said in the papers and the issue of funding—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much for your reply.

I would now like to introduce a motion, which reads as follows:

That the House of Commons condemns extremists financed by the Bloc for their threats of violence against Quebeckers; that the House condemns the racism and violence promoted by Pierre Falardeau, Patrick Bourgeois, and other extremists whom the Bloc has financed; that the House of Commons find a way to ban extremist groups like these which advocate violence and racism from receiving funds from the Parliament of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

The motion has been read, but we can't accept it at this particular meeting.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Nepean—Carleton, ON]

I'll give the 48 hours' notice today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gary Schellenberger]

We have the 48 hours' notice so that it can be reviewed by the committee.

With that, I thank you, Mr. Juneau, for appearing today, and I am going to adjourn the meeting.

The meeting is adjourned