Environment Committee on Aug. 19th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Once we have—

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'll speak to the amendment, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay. The floor is yours.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I'll turn it over to my colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Mr. Simard, you have the floor.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would like to correct some statements made earlier and perhaps show that the motion you have before you is all the more important.

My party, the Bloc Québécois, has been holding meetings on the thorny issue of caribou for two years. Together with the leader of the Bloc Québécois, we held meetings in Saguenay—Lac‑St‑Jean with forestry sector stakeholders, biologists, professors and all those who wanted to resolve the caribou issue. Never in my life have I seen the member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord step in to ask questions about the future of the forestry sector. The Bloc Québécois has proposed a common roadmap that's been signed by some mayors of forestry municipalities, people from forestry companies and forestry unions. The roadmap provided us with a plan for the claims we had to make to the federal government to support the forestry sector. The Bloc Québécois held a symposium specifically on the forestry sector with various stakeholders in that sector. So when I hear my colleagues say that we don't care about the forestry sector, I find that so very rich.

I want to go back to how things went this summer. First, I find it unfortunate that Mr. Guilbeault's consultations are being held during the summer, when forestry workers are out in the forest. This is no time to ask them to meet to explain the ins and outs of the forestry sector. I think it would have been preferable to hold consultations a little later, especially since a Quebec Court decision called on Quebec to consult indigenous peoples.

So, quite frankly, Mr. Chair, I don't think it was the best solution to ask people from the forestry sector to appear before the committee to discuss the caribou issue, in addition to Minister Guilbeault's consultation, but I'm a good sport. I wondered why not propose a motion to my Conservative friends, a motion that would have substance. I don't think we can solve the caribou's problems or the forestry industry's problems with magic words. Yelling out “radical minister” and “common sense” four times won't solve these problems. Problems are solved in life when people are able to look at things and put concrete measures in place. That's what we intended when we moved the motion that we sent to our Conservative friends. It looked at the big picture in the forestry sector.

The caribou issue is one obstacle among others facing the Quebec forestry sector, which has been scraping by and struggling to survive for 10 years now, because the industry is in transition. We're moving from pulp and paper to other types of activities—you saw how intense the wildfires were last year. In addition, the forest industry is receiving very little support from the federal government. My region, Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean, contributes more to the federal government in spinoffs than the forest industry receives in federal government subsidies. Since the government is afraid of breaching its international trade agreements, it never supports the forestry industry.

Added to that, of course, is the problem you've seen resurfacing in recent weeks, the one related to the U.S. tariffs, which are at nearly 15%. We put all this together to send the Conservatives a motion with a little substance, a motion that breaks away from the hackneyed ways and what I call the “Poilievre method”, that is to say, use threats and insults and then try to draw public ire. I don't think that's what we should be doing to address this matter at the moment.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

So we put forward a motion to these people—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

There's a point of order.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

This is going to be exciting.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Chair, defending Quebec's jurisdiction is not a threat.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

That's not a point of order.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Mr. Chair, I would say to my colleague that we've said many times that the federal government will never have a stranglehold on Quebec's natural resources. It's not up to the federal government to manage Quebec's natural resources; it's up to the Government of Quebec. We've said that many times. We'll have that debate after.

I was saying that we had proposed a motion to the Conservatives with some meat and bones to it; then we had radio silence. No one from the Conservative Party answered us. We can't negotiate parliamentary procedures on something. We can't do that. We can't put forward a motion on something and say that if someone votes against this, it's because they're lazy or on vacation. What a silly way to do things! Yet that's what we saw this summer.

When you think about it, the Endangered or Vulnerable Species Act is under the Department of the Environment. So the motion shouldn't go to the Department of Natural Resources. It should go to the Department of the Environment.

My colleague Monique Pauzé proposed a motion to Mr. Deltell in early August, but it fell on deaf ears. There was no response from him. I don't know if, as the Conservative leader said, Mr. Deltell was on vacation at the time. I also don't know if he was lazy for not answering us, to use the same epithet the Conservative leader employs for us. I don't mean to impugn his motives. The fact remains that, in this matter, until we were able to negotiate with the Liberal Party to have today's meeting, which seems very important to us, we never got an answer. So for all those reasons—

I totally understand my colleague's request for an amendment to refer to the 2,000 jobs; that's legitimate, but we will have the opportunity to debate that and make those demonstrations during the committee's study. If he wants to add the reference to the 2,000 jobs, we have absolutely no problem with that. However, I'm asking the Conservatives to stop playing partisan games, stop using points of order to get sound bites, so that we can focus on what we need to do, which is to learn about the problems and listen to the people in the forestry sector.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Simard.

Mr. Martel.

[Richard Martel, Conservative, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like my colleague to keep his cool, and I'm going to correct what he said a little. He said that people in the forestry industry are not available in the summer to meet with us and speak on the subject. I can tell you one thing: Industry business owners unanimously commended us for wanting to request an emergency meeting. If the Bloc Québécois members think they were on the ground, I can tell them that I was there too. Business owners were coming to my office and telling me that something had to be done. They were terribly worried about the future of their industry.

We were therefore extremely surprised that the Bloc Québécois twice rejected inviting the minister to appear before the committee and the forestry industry. We were very surprised by that, especially since the Bloc Québécois supports respecting Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. We were proposing two meetings to discuss all of this.

So, Mr. Chair, I wanted to set the record straight a bit, because I felt that my colleague was getting carried away. He is very emotional about this issue. I think he knows he's lagging behind.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Mr. van Koeverden.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We could spend all afternoon talking about whose idea this was or who cares more about caribou, but we should also consider just getting on with the substantive matter.

There were discussions today, and for our part, we support the notion of adding jobs to the motion. We would provide a subamendment to that so that we could just vote once and move on, if that would be okay.

That subamendment, which I can distribute, basically just asks for a fourth meeting, which would be to accommodate one additional stakeholder and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I'm sorry, Mr. van Koeverden, but that's not a subamendment. It's another amendment, so we have to dispose of this one first, and then you can propose your amendment.

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

I think we can do it as a subamendment. It doesn't negate any aspect of the current amendment on the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

You're proposing four meetings instead of three. That would involve amending the second part of the motion to change three to four, whereas right now we're discussing the first part of the motion, and the proposed amendment is to add some words at the end of the first sentence.

Can we dispose of the amendment? Was it Mr. Berthold's amendment?

[Adam van Koeverden, Liberal, Milton, ON]

If you want it to be done in two steps, then that's fine. It could be one step if you use my method.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Yes, [Inaudible — Editor]. Otherwise, I'll get very confused as chair, and that's not a good thing.

Mr. van Koeverden will have the floor after Ms. Pauzé when we return to the debate on the motion.

I see no other speakers. We'll vote on the amendment, then.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Can you read out the amendment, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Do you want to read it out again?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I'd be happy to read it out again, yes.