Mr. Speaker, if I have the unanimous consent of my colleagues, I want to take a bit more time. I will not repeat what I said last Tuesday evening at 5:25. I will continue my speech, but if I have additional time at the end, I will be able to say more about various aspects of BillC-9.
I listened very attentively to the point of order raised by the House Leader of the Bloc Québécois, who pointed out once again all that should be done to ensure that Quebec’s constitutional prerogatives are respected here in the House.
Yesterday, the hon. member for Saint-Lambert and the hon. member for Hochelaga jointly introduced a bill that would eliminate the federal spending power to ensure that the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces are respected. With Bill C-9, the federal government is again infringing on the exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces.
As our health critic, I am not surprised. At the Standing Committee on Health, hon. members in federalist parties ask certain questions to enhance the federal government’s role in health care, even though this is an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.
Some people will say, of course, that when it comes to health care, this is a good thing because it is supposed to help people, cure them and improve their lives. But that is not the point. We should not be asking whether particular measures are wanted or desirable, but whether it is up to the federal government to concern itself with them. My colleagues will have to agree with me that this is clearly not the federal government’s role.
In part 22 of Bill C-9 on payments out of the consolidated revenue fund, we see that millions of dollars will be paid to a foundation, a not-for-profit organization, to heal injuries. The question is not whether this should be done, but whether it is the federal government’s job to do it. When it comes to health care, we want the federal government to forward all the available money to Quebec and the provinces, which are most able to make wise choices in view of the needs of the people they represent.
We worry when we see the federal government once again disregarding the exclusive jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces and insidiously encroaching on the jurisdiction of health.
And when we listen to the leader of the Liberal Party, their ideas are no better. They want to implement Canada-wide strategies to block the initiatives that might be introduced by the Government of Quebec.
Part 2 of Bill C-9 implements an enhanced stamping regime for tobacco products. As the health critic, I am pleased to see that measures are being introduced to block measures to increase tobacco product consumption. We were in complete agreement with the government when it introduced Bill C-32 to eliminate flavoured tobacco products and cigarillos. We invite the government to continue down that path and adopt the regulations related to Bill C-32.
As far as stamping tobacco products is concerned, the government has listened to the Bloc Québécois' proposal to implement this marking system, but again, it is not nearly enough.
The government needs to take firm action to block the illegal activities of tobacco smugglers because the measures announced are largely inadequate. In the Bloc Québécois, my colleague responsible for public safety, my colleague responsible for justice, and I are calling on this government to take serious action to stop the growth in smuggling and even eliminate it altogether because if we do not want our youth to have access to cheap tobacco products then we have to address this problem head on.
I will now list a series of measures the Bloc Québécois wants to see the government put forward. It is aware of these measures since we have already talked about them in this House, but I would like to go over them again at this stage since, in part 2 of Bill C-9, the government is introducing a measure that is interesting, but falls far short of what is needed.
My time is up, so this will have to wait, but if the Minister of Public Safety or the Minister of Health would like to hear what I have to say about this, I invite them to contact me directly and I would be pleased to share my thoughts on this with the House another time.