Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform you that I will be sharing my time with my whip, the hon. member for Salaberry—Suroît, because she told me to. Of course, I am kidding. I am pleased to be sharing my time with her.
On August 18, in the midst of a pandemic, the Prime Minister decided to prorogue Parliament for five weeks even though we urgently needed to study and adopt bills to implement all the support programs and even though committees were meeting and working hard. He did that in the midst of the pandemic in an attempt to make people forget his scandals.
The government sought exceptional powers and drastically reduced the House's role in order to respond the this historic pandemic. Even as the government was managing unprecedentedly enormous programs, the Prime Minister proved that he cannot be trusted. The WE scandal showed that he chose to favour his friends. The same thing happened in a scandal involving the chief of staff's spouse. It happened again with the Canada emergency wage subsidy: the Liberal Party chose to take advantage of the subsidy even though the law does not say it is available to political parties.
We will not stop digging and poking around, since the pandemic has revealed the Liberal Party's true nature, which has not changed since the sponsorship scandal. The Liberals' true nature is to govern while putting their own interests and their friends' interests first, which is a far cry from exemplary practices. Ethics rules appear immaterial to them, as long as they can apologize after the fact. I really think this accurately reflects the history of the federal government since the beginning of Confederation. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This brings me to the throne speech delivered two days ago by the Queen's representative, a throwback to the Middle Ages and the rituals Canada just cannot seem to let go of. The speech included absolutely nothing that justified proroguing Parliament for over a month in the middle of a crisis. Instead, we just heard more about the same things that had been introduced in the spring.
Let us not forget the Prime Minister's decision to go on TV that night, taking over prime time airwaves, only to summarize what was in the speech, and just to maximize his media presence. His address confirmed our suspicions: It was absolutely unnecessary, but it did a heck of a good job on boosting his image. Basically, it was grandstanding and electioneering at its finest.
To come back to the Speech from the Throne, the Bloc Québécois was calling for an increase in health transfers and respect for jurisdictions. That is what the National Assembly is calling for and that is what suits Quebec. However, the Speech from the Throne provides the exact opposite of that. The centralist aspirations of the Liberal government managed to garner unanimity at the National Assembly of Quebec, where every party is against the Speech from the Throne, from the Coalition Avenir Québec government to the Parti Québécois, Québec Solidaire and even the Liberal Party. To get everyone on board like that takes special talent.
As La Presse reported, even the leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec says that respecting our jurisdictions is not negotiable. She talks about this speech as a missed opportunity to meet the needs of Quebec. That is the QLP we are talking about and every other party had the same reaction. Why is Ottawa systematically interfering in the affairs of Quebec and the provinces instead of focusing on doing its own job?
It is part of the federal government's role to help fund health care, as Quebec and the provinces are demanding. I do not know if members are familiar with John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, and Adrian Wooldridge, a columnist for The Economist. They just published a devastating book entitled The Wake-Up Call, in which they analyze the differences between countries in terms of how they are managing the pandemic and note the importance of having a robust public health system.
Today, we are paying the price for underfunding our health care system in recent years and decades. In Canada, this underfunding can be traced back to Ottawa, which chose to reduce health transfers in the 1990s and subsequently never corrected the situation, despite calls to do so from Canadians. That just does not generate enough votes. The underfunding has resulted in reduced services, a weakened and vulnerable health care system, and greater poverty and inequality.
Ottawa, meaning this government and those that have held power in the past 25 years, is directly responsible for our health system's precarious situation and its lack of resources to manage the pandemic.
The Prime Minister, acting straight out of a last-century British imperialism playbook, is blaming the provinces for their management of the pandemic. He wants to run things himself, even though he knows nothing about it, and then he announces wanting to bring in criminal penalties. All of this, when he was the one who perpetuated the problem by failing to adequately fund health care. Unbelievable.
The Bloc Québécois wants this government, and especially the Prime Minister, to stop trying to lecture us. He needs to stop trying to be a know-it-all, meddling in others' jurisdictions, and has to start doing his job and adequately fund health care. He needs to stop putting his party and his friends ahead of the public good as he manages the crisis by ensuring that his government programs are run ethically and above reproach.
Interestingly enough, La Presse pointed out on Wednesday that intergouvernementalisations has now replaced anticonstitutionnellement as the longest word in the French language. This is a contested topic. The adverb, meaning “unconstitutionally”, unfortunately seems to apply to the current government. I will give you an example. The Prime Minister governed unconstitutionally by interfering in Quebec's and the provinces' jurisdictions.
Now that this word has lost its status, the government should stop trying to emulate it and start respecting jurisdictions.