Madam Speaker, I am pleased to congratulate you today. As a woman and a parliamentarian, I am thrilled to see a woman occupy the chair, particularly a francophone from western Canada. You will hold office with all the dignity for which you are known.
I would like to thank the voters of Trois-Rivières for their trust and for electing me for a third consecutive term. I am very pleased to be here, in this chamber. I wish to congratulate all the members elected in the recent election. It is a pleasure to work together.
Three things, among others, stand out in this Speech from the Throne. It completely ignores the concerns of Quebeckers regarding the uncertain economic situation and the current financial crisis. This throne speech in no way defends the interests and values of the Quebec nation. We need only cite a few examples. The Conservative government intends to diminish Quebec's authority in the area of finance—with a national securities commission—and is following through with its young offender legislation. The Conservatives have not understood the message delivered by Quebec voters on October 14. The Conservatives continue to impose their right-wing political ideology.
As the natural resources critic, I wish to comment on the federal government's intention of promoting nuclear energy as clean and renewable energy. The throne speech illustrates this government's interest in developing Canada's nuclear industry. For this government, nuclear energy is as environmentally friendly as hydroelectricity or wind energy. Of course that is not true. Nuclear energy is quite dangerous and the consequences for the environment will be a burden for future generations.
Furthermore, the federal government supports and promotes this industry's development. We should remember that it is a shareholder in a company that builds nuclear power stations and at the same time it is the guardian of public and environmental safety. The government is responsible for the industry's safety regulations through the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Hence, the government currently finds itself in a difficult position, almost a conflict of interest. The Bloc Québécois believes that the government should not promote nuclear power. The previous minister of Natural Resources led us to believe that his government might provide financial assistance for the construction of a nuclear reactor in Ontario. This would mean that the government might help fund Ontario's electricity grid whereas it never supported Hydro-Québec.
Furthermore, in 2009, the Nuclear Waste Management Organization is supposed to submit a proposal for the selection of a community willing to take in and store nuclear waste. The Bloc Québécois will ensure that Quebec does not become Canada's garbage dump for radioactive waste. Quebec opted for hydroelectricity, a clean and renewable energy. Quebec has nothing to gain from the federal government's decision to promote nuclear energy.
In addition, regarding bulk water transfers, unlike the Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois maintains that water is not excluded from NAFTA and that strengthening federal legislation is not enough. This could jeopardize Quebec's water resources, despite the government's indication in the throne speech that it intends to bring in legislation to ban all bulk water transfers or exports from Canadian freshwater basins. I would also like to point out that water is a natural resource that falls under Quebec jurisdiction and that Quebec has its own regulations regarding water.
That is why the Bloc Québécois believes that the federal government must limit its legislative measures to the water over which it has jurisdiction and that a general legislative ban at the federal level could be disputed under NAFTA.
The federal government should exclude water from NAFTA and, therefore, the Speech from the Throne does not respond to the questions raised by this crucial issue.
During the last Parliament, I had the privilege of being our party's industry critic and I rose on many occasions in this House to express the concerns of all stakeholders in the manufacturing and forestry industries, including the workers and their families, as well as businesses and communities that depend on the forest. Everyone is worried about the difficult situation those sectors are facing. In particular, thousands of jobs have been lost in my riding of Trois-Rivières and in Mauricie. Trois-Rivières' economy was founded on pulp and paper, and the situation is serious. We believe the government must act.
With the throne speech, the government had the opportunity to demonstrate that it intends to help those sectors, but once again, it offers nothing for the manufacturing and forestry sectors. It does not offer a single concrete measure to help workers and businesses get through this crisis. There is nothing new for the forestry sector, which has been in a crisis situation for several years now.
Yet the Bloc Québécois had repeatedly suggested numerous ways to revive that sector. We suggested creating financial tools to encourage companies to invest and modernize, such as loan guarantees to help companies modernize. We suggested that the government provide better tax support for research, development and innovation by making R and D tax credits refundable so that businesses could benefit from them until they made a profit. We proposed paying special attention to the regions that are being particularly hard hit by the current crisis and desperately need to diversify their industrial base to counter the forestry crisis. We suggested creating a program to support the production of energy and ethanol fuels using forest waste. We proposed that the government move quickly to impose absolute targets for greenhouse gas reduction in order to promote the establishment of a carbon credit exchange market. We suggested using government procurement as an economic development lever. Most importantly, we said that the government had to support workers hit by the crisis, by making substantial improvements to the employment insurance program, increasing benefits, basing the benefit calculation on the best 12 weeks, eliminating the waiting period and reducing the minimum number of insurable hours needed to qualify for benefits to 360. We also proposed an income support program for older workers. Such a program would enable workers aged 55 to 64 who cannot be retrained and who are victims of massive layoffs to bridge the gap between employment insurance and their pension fund.
The Bloc Québécois has repeatedly proposed measures to help workers and companies in hard-hit industries. To us, the message Quebeckers sent on October 14 should have been clear. The forestry and manufacturing sectors are mainstays of Quebec's economy, and the Conservative government's laissez-faire attitude is no longer the best option in these troubled times. The government must work with the members elected under the banner of the Bloc Québécois and draw inspiration from our innovative ideas to spur economic development.
If the government should decide to go into deficit to resolve the crisis, it must not just take the often dogmatic approach of reducing taxes, as this has negative effects such as reducing flexibility during difficult economic times. The government needs to intervene in the economy in such a way that the forestry, manufacturing and other industries can weather the current economic and financial crisis. Right now, judging by the throne speech, the government seems to want to take advantage of the economic slowdown to impose its right-wing reforms on the machinery of government.