Madam Speaker, I thank my learned colleague from Drummond for his very clear presentation. I would also like to thank him for repeating the motion, because I was just about to do so. It is easy to see that we share some ideas and that we belong to the same party.
We are also serious about wanting to bring the debate back to the forefront at the end of the day. A lot of things have been said throughout the day and, at some point, things have gotten off track. It is important to remember what we are working on. I will not reread the entire motion because the member for Drummond has already done so. However, we are basically saying that immigration thresholds need to be reviewed in consultation with Quebec and the provinces to ensure successful immigration.
What we are talking about today is successful immigration. We are not saying that we do not want immigration. On the contrary, all the members of our party who have spoken today have said that. They spoke about ensuring success for these people.
We need to put ourselves in the shoes of people leaving their homeland. Even if someone leaves with their immediate family, they are leaving behind their extended family, their friends, and their birthplace. Just think of the emotion that wells up when you see the house where you grew up.
I am from Senneterre, in Abitibi. It is a long way from where I live now. I do not go back often, but every time that I pass through Senneterre, in Abitibi, I stop in front of the house. The last time I was there, I even went to chat with the new owner. I did not dare ask if I could come in, but I certainly would have liked to see the place again, which seemed so huge at the time; looking at it now, it is actually quite small. Perspective changes with time.
I digress a bit, but I am talking about the sense of belonging and the emotional connection that people can have with physical places. When people give that up, they have good reasons. Most of the time, they are not doing it for themselves, because they know it will not be easy. They are leaving behind a legacy, wealth they have accumulated and physical places that may mean a lot to them. They often do it for the next generation, telling themselves that however difficult it may be, their child will have a better future in Quebec or Canada.
We therefore have a responsibility to welcome them properly. That is what we are saying today. We are talking about human beings, respect and richness. We are talking about people. We all hope that immigrants arriving in Quebec and Canada will be workers, of course. However, that is not all they are. They are citizens. We want them to integrate into society, to participate alongside us and to enrich our collective experience.
Quebec is one of the most diverse societies in the world. This not said often enough in the House. It has incredible richness, built on the contributions of people who have arrived over generations. We also have to think about the people who were there before the first Europeans arrived, and I am talking here about first nations. Fortunately, we have begun to catch up on this, although when it comes to reconciliation, we have a lot of work to do.
We must tap into and preserve Quebec's richness by working with immigrants. We can think of the waves of Irish immigration, of the British and others, all those people who came here. Over the generations, we have mixed, blended and shared our cultural heritage.
This is what we want in Quebec. That is basically the big difference between Canadian multiculturalism and Quebec interculturalism. We want to accept individuals with their own rich heritage, but we want to live with them, not next to them, each in their own ghetto. It is amazing how different our perception can be.
I would like to tell you about something I felt today. I was hurt a few times today when I heard some government members remind Bloc Québécois members that Canada needs immigration. Of course we need immigration. We never said we did not need immigration. We have been saying all day that we need immigration. We want to take care of immigrants and we want to treat them as equals.
It is there throughout today's entire debate. We want to do things properly, in fact. That is something that the Liberal government has a very hard time doing. We have a government that makes fine announcements, for good optics, but does not meet expectations two times out of three.
They will say that Canada is a great welcoming country and then invite everyone to come. When people arrive, they will have nowhere to stay and they will end up in the street. However, there will be no talk of that in the next announcement. What they say is that we are wonderfully welcoming and generous.
We truly want to be wonderfully welcoming and generous, but for that we need to do things properly. First, we need to work as a team, which is hard for the Liberal government. They need to consult the provinces and Quebec and think about the different levels of government who will have to take care of these people.
We talked about all sorts of things today, such as housing and infrastructure. There are even some political parties here who like blaming the municipalities, who are in no way accountable to this Parliament. Most of the time, they do not have money because the entire tax system should be reviewed. That is not our Parliament's jurisdiction.
Quebec is asking that this be reviewed and is asking to be consulted. Quebec is not saying that it no longer wants immigration. Quebec does want it, but it wants a better system. We want these individuals to be productive. In order for them to be productive, we have to start by recognizing their skills and giving them the opportunity to integrate into the society in which they arrive. What do we do if an immigrant arrives in Quebec and does not have access to French language training?
In my riding, Berthier—Maskinongé, which is 99% francophone, if I were to welcome an immigrant to Louiseville and did not teach him French, I would be a hypocrite. I would only be pretending to welcome him, likely only to make him work in a low-wage job in my company and exploit him. That is not what we want. Of course, we want him to work, but we want him to have a decent standard of living.
How many immigrants should we take in? Earlier, my colleague from Montarville talked about different thresholds that different political parties in Quebec came up with. I thought it was interesting that he did so, because perhaps it should be the Quebec National Assembly that decides on the number of immigrants.
That would require the federal government to take note. I have a hard time accepting a federal government that talks a big game about the number of immigrants to be taken in, and then turns around and tells the provinces that it is going to withhold money for social housing because it wants to impose such and such a condition, only to end up giving a tenth of what was requested.
The same can be said for health care. The government says that it is doing a lot for health care, and it makes speeches about health care, but it does not make the darn transfers to fund health care. Failing to address the requests of the provincial and Quebec governments is what I call contempt. It is contempt, pure and simple. These people know nothing about health care, but they are going to tell the provinces that they will not make the transfers. The provinces had unanimous demands, which we have reiterated here for months, but the government has not responded properly. This is unacceptable.
Today, the Bloc Québécois is calling for responsible action and foresight. We have to ask ourselves whether we have the housing. If we do not, or if we think that we will need more, then can we try to start building housing before taking in 100,000 people?
I am not saying to turn refugees away. That is not what we are talking about. What we are talking about is quantified targets. Can we roll out housing? Doing so will require showing a bit more respect for the various levels of government and funding them properly. They need to stop being know-it-alls who do nothing. That is basically what I have been seeing here for the past four years: The government thinks that it knows everything, sees everything and has a hold on the truth, but it is not responsible for anything. That is what is happening here.
What we are asking the federal government to do is to talk with Quebec and the provinces, be reasonable, figure this out together and put the necessary resources into this integration.
