Debates of May 11th, 2023

Opposition Motion—Immigration Levels

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her passionate remarks on Quebec's regions.

The Bloc Québécois will take no lessons from her on our regions. Nearly all of us in the Bloc come from rural regions. I myself am extremely concerned about the labour shortage in the regions, particularly in Charlevoix, which is a tourist area. I am also our party's critic for fisheries and oceans, where there are also labour issues.

Can my colleague, who is the Minister of National Revenue, explain how, with a really large influx of immigrants to the regions, we are supposed to provide housing for all these newcomers? What hospital can care for them? Where will they go for child care and where will their children go to school?

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Madam Speaker, if my colleague had listened carefully to what I said, not so long ago—I may be of a certain age, but that is not to say that I am old—when I was young, we had schools in my town. There were six elementary schools. Now there is one.

Immigration is productive for a region. It can bring a region to life. These are people who work, who will get involved in the community. They will be good citizens and will pay their taxes, and that money can be used to build schools. They will get training. This can only be good for our regions.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have two questions for my colleague.

This morning, I was saddened to hear the leader of the Bloc Québécois using the same kind of language that the French far right uses when discussing this topic. I thought that was extremely inappropriate. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

The other aspect is the government's failure to meet its francophone immigration targets. We know that the world's francophone population is surging. There will be half a billion francophones on the planet by 2050.

That population represents our opportunity to get professionals here, the people we need to come fuel our economy and allow Quebec to remain a strong francophone society, and for francophone communities across the country to grow as well, like in my home province of British Columbia. Francophone immigrant communities enrich British Columbian society in an extraordinary way, with schools that are—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I will let the hon. minister answer.

The hon. minister.

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have met with business owners in my riding and all over Quebec, and I have also worked in the health care sector. I can say that businesses will do the work and take care of teaching people French. We know that. They are ready to do it. The business community is ready to co-operate, be it the Quebec Employers Council or the chambers of commerce.

In the health care sector, back home, the physicians who are coming to work in our emergency rooms are travelling doctors. They are doctors who come from abroad. They speak other languages, but they also speak French. They are able to come help out in our communities. This is a plus for the region.

I also want to point out that Quebec sets its own targets for immigration.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate)]

Madam Speaker, I heard the response to the first question and I assure the member that she is still quite young.

More importantly, as I listened to her speech today, I really appreciated when she said that unless we are of indigenous descent we are all immigrants to this country.

This is a young country. It is only 175 years old. We have all come from different parts of the world. My parents did the same thing. I wonder if she would talk to the importance of continuing that to grow our population.

[Diane Lebouthillier, Liberal, Gaspésie—Les-Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Madam Speaker, in order to grow the population, we need people from all over. Quebec was created from immigrant populations.

I encourage my colleagues to visit Grosse‑Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site, which is truly an extraordinary example of what immigration has brought to Quebec and to Canada as a whole.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to follow the Minister of National Revenue. If only I could speak as passionately as she does in French. What I really appreciated about the minister's speech is the fact that she talked about how immigration has been of such benefit for the province of Quebec, as it has been for the entire country.

That is why I am a bit disappointed in the leader of the Bloc party. In essence, what he is doing is taking the very important issue of immigration and the impact that immigration has had from coast to coast to coast here in Canada in such a wonderful way. We are a country of immigrants. Immigration helps Canada grow into the future. All one needs to do is talk about where the needs are in many different ways in many different sectors of our country and one will quickly come to the conclusion that for Canada to continue to prosper in the future, immigration policy is so critically important.

Today, we have the leader of the Bloc party trying to use this as an issue for the party's own personal cause, which is not in the best interest of Canada or Quebec. When I think of the French language and I think of my home province of Manitoba, today there are more people in Manitoba who speak French than there ever have been. If it were not for immigration, Manitoba's population would have been decreasing; it is because of immigration that our province has been growing. It is because of immigration that the French language today is spoken more in Manitoba.

With respect to our communities, we should be looking at how our diversity enriches our society not only economically but also socially. Therefore, in terms of the French language, bilingual schools and so forth, it is fantastic when I see someone who is young of Filipino heritage or Indian heritage or someone who speaks Tagalog, English and French; or Punjabi, English and French. Even in terms of the caucus, we just heard from the Minister of National Revenue. We also have a member in the Quebec caucus of Sikh heritage who is francophone. We have had other members speak of the importance of immigration not only to Quebec but, I would suggest, to our entire country. That is the issue that I have with the Bloc: Why would the members try to use this issue and try to portray immigration in any way as a negative issue when it comes to our heritage and the very social fabric of our society?

Then we have the Conservative leader, who responded to the resolution. It was hard to stay seated as he espoused the issues regarding immigration. It was hard to sit because I was the immigration critic in part during the Harper era when the leader of the Conservative Party was sitting around the cabinet table and Stephen Harper and that government decided to cut the parents and grandparents program completely. The leader of the Conservative Party is criticizing us on backlogs. The backlog for sponsoring a parent when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and the member was around the cabinet table was eight years. It got so bad that they actually said to the people of Canada that they were cancelling the program, so if someone wanted their mom and dad to come to Canada, they could forget it because they would not be able to come as landed immigrants.

That is something the Conservative government did when he was sitting around the cabinet table, and he is talking about backlogs. I still remember the issue when—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay is rising on a point of order.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would not normally say this, but I am not feeling all that well today. Could the member just keep it down a little bit and just talk to us, as opposed to shouting at us? It is really hurting my ears.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is rising on a point of order.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Madam Speaker, he is almost as loud as I am when I get agitated about something, so it is very loud—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

That is a point of debate. I do want to remind members that we have microphones, and we also want to make sure that the interpreters are not being impacted.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, we will find that members, at times, might raise their voices a little bit when they feel passionate about an issue. Members are always welcome to leave the chamber or turn down the volume if they so choose. I hope that point of order did not take any of my time away.

At the end of the day, when the leader of the Conservative Party tries to give the amazing impression that, somehow, the Conservatives understood immigration, it seems they really need to get a reality check when it comes to immigration.

I made reference to the cancellation of the parents and grandparents program. One day, they have this other area on immigration. Imagine that someone is in line and has been waiting for years. They want to come as an independent and to be able to do some good things in Canada. They have been waiting for years under the Conservatives. The Conservatives have an idea: Here is how—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

I am getting a lot of heckling on the official opposition side, so I would ask members to hold on, because there will be an opportunity to ask questions and comments for five minutes. I would just ask members to hold off.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, let us imagine this. We have thousands of people in waiting lines, being processed. The Conservatives say they do not want to deal with this particular stream, so what they are going to do is just delete them all. Imagine being in queue, waiting for years, and the Harper government decides that the waiting lines are so long and that one of the ways they can deal with them is just to delete them, to pretend they did not even exist. A lot of people had a difficult time with that one.

One can imagine why the Conservatives say that things are broken. We are still fixing the broken system that we inherited from Stephen Harper. That was truly broken.

The leader of the Conservative Party says he wants people to feel good, to feel as if they can make a difference. Do members know what he talks about? He talks about immigrant credentials. That is a very important issue. There is no doubt that it is an important issue. In fact, the government has spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars to assist provinces in getting immigrant credentials recognized, far more money than Stephen Harper.

What does the Conservative leader say today? He says that they are going to have a blue seal program, and that a person would come to Canada, write an exam and be a doctor anywhere they want in Canada. That is balderdash. That is absolute, underlined, “cannot say the word”. At the end of the day, the Conservatives do not know what they are talking about. They have no idea what all is involved. One cannot just say, “Here, write an exam and then we will allow you, as a doctor, to practise anywhere you want in Canada.”

[An hon. member]

That is how it works.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

No, that is not the way it works, Madam Speaker—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order.

There is a cross-debate again, and there are some people who seem to be repetitive in not respecting the silence that I have asked of them during the hon. member's speech. I would just ask members, again, to stop heckling and to stop trying to engage in conversation while someone else has the floor.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order.

I am now getting it on the government side as well.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Order.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I should start from the top.