Debates of May 11th, 2023

Business of the House

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it has been a big week in the House. I would like the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons to tell the House what we will be working on at the end of this week and into next week, the week before constituency week.

Would the government House leader kindly share his plans with us?

[Mark Holland, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question, which is an important one. This is such a busy time for the House of Commons.

Tomorrow, we will deal with third reading of Bill C-13, an act for the substantive equality of Canada's official languages.

On Monday, we will resume report stage debate of Bill S-5, which would amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, we will be dealing with report stage and third reading of Bill C-21, which, as we know, is the firearms legislation.

Thursday, May 18, will be an allotted day.

Finally, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), I would like to designate Monday, May 15, for the consideration in a committee of the whole for all votes under the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows:

Rideau Hall

Ottawa

May 10, 2023

Mr. Speaker,

I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Mary May Simon, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bills listed in the schedule to this letter on the 10th day of May, 2023, at 4:59 p.m.

Yours sincerely,

Maia Welbourne

Assistant Secretary to the Governor General

The schedule indicates that the bills assented to on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, were Bill S-211, An Act to enact the Fighting Against Forced Labour and Child Labour in Supply Chains Act and to amend the Customs Tariff—Chapter No. 9, 2023; Bill S-227, An Act to establish Food Day in Canada—Chapter No. 10, 2023; and Bill C-46, An Act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act and the Income Tax Act—Chapter No. 11, 2023.

Similarities Between Bill C-243 and Bill S-211

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The Chair would like to make a statement regarding the status of Bill C-243, an act respecting the elimination of the use of forced labour and child labour in supply chains, standing in the name of the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River.

On June 6, 2022, the Chair advised the House of similarities between Bill C-243 and Bill S-211, an act to enact the fighting against forced labour and child labour in supply chains act and to amend the Customs Tariff.

Both bills have the same objective. They seek to require certain entities to report on measures they take to prevent, and reduce, the risk of using forced labour and child labour in the production of goods and in supply chains.

A long-standing practice prohibits the House from deciding the same question twice during a session. As a result, the Chair ordered that the status of Bill C-243 remain pending pursuant to Standing Order 94(1) and that it not be considered until proceedings on Bill S-211 have concluded.

Bill S-211 was adopted by this House on May 3, 2023. The bill subsequently received royal assent yesterday, May 10, 2023.

Accordingly, the Chair is ordering that Bill C-243 be dropped from the Order Paper.

I thank all members for their attention.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—Immigration Levels

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think we were at questions and comments.

The member for Winnipeg North has made several interventions in the House in today's debate. One of the things he said was how proud he is of certain francophone communities in Manitoba and the vitality of French in Manitoba.

I would like to remind him that in 1870, when Manitoba joined the Canadian Confederation, the population was 50% francophone. Today, he would have to give us the numbers, but I think it is below 50%.

My question is the following. The member for Winnipeg North has a French-sounding last name, but as far as I know, he does not speak French. Maybe there is no connection, but should Quebec learn from what was done in Manitoba when it comes to protecting the French language?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is being a little mischievous. If we were to take a look at the population of Manitoba back in the era in which he was talking about, our population was not that big. In fact, we looked like a little postage stamp.

The reality is that there are more people speaking French in the province of Manitoba today than there ever has been.

Because of Pierre Elliott Trudeau's multicultural policy and commitment to the French language, today we are seeing a multitude of different ethnic groups that are learning to speak French. French is a language that is loved and cherished in the province of Manitoba today because the national government has played a very important role in its promotion.

I personally come from an era where, sadly, French was discouraged. Today, that is not the case. Today, we have people of all different ethnic—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Kitchener Centre.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the text of the motion before us today includes a connection between immigration and housing. It is a connection that we hear of often in my home province in Ontario as well.

I did not hear the member for Winnipeg North speak about housing in his speech. Can he speak to how important it is for governments at all levels, including the federal level, to invest more in housing across the board?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I take a look at the province of Manitoba, where our numbers of immigrants, on average, are probably about 3,000 a year. We more than tripled that number, and the way in which housing, at least, in part, is being dealt with, we need to recognize that it is not just Ottawa.

Ottawa needs to step up and show leadership, and we have done that through the national housing strategy, which has hundreds of millions, going into billions, of dollars supporting municipalities and the provincial governments. The provincial governments, municipalities and the other stakeholders, all of us, have to step up to the plate to work together to deal with this. All of us want to see an increase in immigration numbers because we see the benefits of a progressive immigration policy. It adds so much value to our economy and to our Canadian heritage.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I quite enjoyed the member's speech. I know the member works very hard in his riding to work with different ethnic groups and work on case work when it comes to immigration. Immigration is so important to so many of our communities and to Canada as a whole. It is important to our economy.

The other day, I met with the Metropolitan Plumbing and Heating Contractors Association. It was startling and surprising to hear how many of our current tradespeople will be retiring in the next few years. There will be a huge gap we will need to fill in order to keep up with housing and infrastructure in our country. I would love to hear the member's views on that.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is important to recognize the importance of the contributions that immigrants make to our communities. In Manitoba, if it were not for immigration, our population would have declined. If it were not for immigration, many of the industries we have would not be there.

If someone takes a walk through any of our hospitals or care facilities, they will find people of Punjabi heritage, Filipino heritage and others, who make up the bulk of the workforce today. Whether it is in health care, the trucking industry or the trades, we will see it is often the immigration community fuelling the labour supply and ultimately contributing to our economy.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will share my time with my colleague from Montcalm, the always classy member I am so very fond of.

I am a little hoarse. I wish I could say it is because I am angry, but it is just a cold. Actually, I am kind of angry because of what I have been hearing all day. That brings me to one pretty simple question. Is it possible, in the House of Commons, to think critically about immigration levels without being immediately labelled a xenophobe, intolerant, a great replacement theory adherent or a far-right extremist? I heard that today, and it made me feel a little dubious.

Everyone knows that people often have extreme and ideologically entrenched views on immigration. That happens a lot, so I think we need to rise above that.

I listened to the member for Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie this morning who told us that, essentially, the Bloc Québécois is using this issue to weaponize the debate on immigration. I found this rather amusing because, in his speech, my colleague referred to Gérald Godin. We are very familiar with the poems of Gérald Godin, a sovereignist if ever there was one. I would remind the House that he was Pauline Julien's husband. Anyone who has ever heard Pauline Julien's songs and read Gérald Godin's poems knows that they are part of the culture that gave the sovereignist movement its soul.

I shot back with a little quip, quoting a poem by Gaston Miron, and I might very well pick up on that again later. The member for Rosemont—La Petite‑Patrie shot right back at me by quoting Gilles Vigneault, quoting the phrase at the end of the song Mon pays: “And these people are of my people”. Now that is what I would call weaponizing, especially since the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie left out the first few lines from Vigneault's song, where he sings:

My father had a house built
And I'm going to be true
To his ways, to his example

Gilles Vigneault tells us that Quebec society is a welcoming society, with its own cultural identity. What Gilles Vigneault, Gérald Godin and all the people who built Quebec culture have in common is that they want us to cherish that culture, to be a part of it and, above all, to try to stand up for it. That is why I find it so rich to be told that I am weaponizing the debate, when someone keeps taking all the work of the people who created Quebec culture and hijacking for ideological purposes. I have seen that a lot from the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie.

During the Bill 21 debate, he kept pointing me to a quote from Albert Camus, taken from Notebooks, a book that is not very important in light of Camus's overall body of work. It is the famous quote about democracy that goes like this: “Democracy is not the law of the majority, but the protection of the minority.” Camus did write that, but it is shameful to apply this quote to the debate on Bill 21. Anyone who does that must be ignorant of Camus's point of view on religion. With all due respect, I would recommend that my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie read The Rebel, especially the part about the metaphysical development of rebellion, in order to understand Camus' point of view, as long as he does not want to just hijack it for his own purposes, of course.

I am being accused of weaponizing the immigration issue. Meanwhile, members are taking positions rather lightly, quoting ideas left and right that they do not understand.

What I propose is perhaps to take the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie at his word and to go back to what Rima Elkouri wrote: If we want to talk about immigration, approach is everything.

I think that the right way to discuss immigration is, of course, to have thoughtful discourse and especially to refuse to fall into the trap of conflating different issues. I bring this up because that happens all too often here in the House. Whenever we present legitimate demands in order to protect the Quebec identity, it is seen as a manifestation of intolerance and insularity.

It goes without saying that putting the words “Quebec” and “identity” side by side in the House seems to really annoy some of my colleagues. I have always wondered why.

We know that members of the Bloc Québécois are immediately suspect because we defend Bill 21 on secularism and Bill 96 on language, and today, because we are criticizing an immigration strategy that Gérard Bouchard, one of the greatest intellectuals in Quebec, described as imperialist and aggressive.

I would submit that no one should be ashamed to use their history to give meaning to their culture and condition. No one objects when indigenous national minorities demand recognition. No one has the audacity to tell them that they are doing it to the detriment of ethnic minorities. We just have to deal with it.

That makes certain thing clear. The first thing we need to state and make all of the members here understand is that Quebec is a national minority. I get the impression that the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and some Liberal members never understood the very basic principle that Quebec is a national minority.

The main crux of the immigration issue is that we cannot cut corners when examining two opposing identities. On the one hand, there is the Quebec identity, and on the other, there is the Canadian identity. There has been an opposition between the two since Confederation. It is rather simple. When we talk about identity, what the federal government usually does is refuse to recognize the Quebec people, the Quebec nation, in a way that would enable them to grow.

It is fairly simple. I am going to go back to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, the Laurendeau-Dunton commission, which gave rise to the Canadian model of integration. The commission's starting point was to offer recognition to French Canadians, one of the founding peoples, the Quebec people. That was the starting point, but what would we end up with? The commission would say that Canada would be a bilingual country, but never a bicultural one. Canada opted for multiculturalism instead. The reason for this is simple: Recognizing all cultures means recognizing none. The commission left Quebec to drown in an ocean of Canadian diversity that would express itself in English anyway. It was the best way to ensure that, in the future, Quebec's demands would be moot.

However, multiculturalism is not only an institutional policy that was developed in Canada, it is also a liberal theory. That is the problem. I would like to borrow the words of Gaston Miron, who wrote about “emancipated milksops and well-mannered insects” who are unaware of what multiculturalism really means. They blithely conflate pluralism and multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, as a theory—a liberal theory that is very well developed in both Canada and Quebec—suggests that there are two kinds of minorities.

There are ethnocultural minorities, whose rights must be defended. We have an obligation to recognize them. Will Kymlicka, a specialist in multicultural policy, says that we must also recognize national minorities. However, never in this chamber have I seen a representative of the NDP, the Liberal Party or the Conservative Party stand up and say that there is a national minority in this country. There are many national minorities, but there is one in particular: Quebec. Most people here pride themselves on defending multiculturalism without necessarily understanding it.

It is clear from the debate that the government wants to drown Quebec in an ocean of newcomers without allowing us to use our own unique system to integrate them. The government thinks that by using multiculturalism and welcoming 500,000 immigrants a year, it can meet employers' needs. What it is not thinking about, however, is the survival and vitality of the Quebec nation. That is why, today, my colleagues have moved this motion that is critical to Quebec. The Century Initiative has been condemned by all members of the Quebec National Assembly.

I will not be called a xenophobe for defending my nation.

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

Madam Speaker, we have witnessed a very ugly rise of xenophobia in Europe, which is the targeting of immigrants as though they were a threat to national identities. I heard my colleague talk about how Canada was going to be “swamped” with people coming in. I believe that was the term he used.

I think Canada has proven that we are different because, unlike Europe and the extremist fights happening there, we understand the importance of the different identities in this country. The fact that Quebec has the power to decide its own immigration policy is a reasonable thing. However, I would also say that in northern Ontario, we are more than willing to welcome the 450 million francophones out there who want to come and participate to build a just society. We are not going to say that they are outsiders, that they are a threat or that they are swamping our nation. Instead, we are going to say that our nation is built on the good will of people who come here with a desire to build a better country.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, that just proves my point about what I would call arrogant and predatory federalism. My colleague did not make any effort to understand the explanations I gave about what multiculturalism is. He did not make any effort to understand the specificity of the Quebec nation.

Based on the preconceived ideas that he has about what it means to be a Quebecker and the type of nationalism that we assert in the House every day, he sees Quebec as a small, closed society. I have seen that before. We read about it in the 1960s. Members need only read some of Hubert Aquin's writings.

My colleague believes that Quebec would be fine in a very strong Canada that minimizes Quebec's identity. That is his objective, but we do not support it. We will continue to annoy him.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Immigration]

Madam Speaker, I will be quick because I really want to hear my colleague's response to my question.

I think he knows that Quebec has an agreement with Canada and that a rather significant amount of financial compensation is transferred from Canada to Quebec, which is the only province to receive this type of compensation. There is also the idea that French integration in Quebec is tied to financial compensation.

I would like to know if my colleague is aware that Quebec does not spend all the money it is transferred. Could he say a few words about that?

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I think it is a mistake to reduce immigration to a monetary issue. It goes beyond that.

What I was trying to explain to my colleague earlier is that Quebec has a unique integration system. What the House is trying to do is put an end to that integration system.

It is going to challenge Bill 21 on secularism. A majority of parliamentarians here are against Bill 96. These are two pillars of Quebec's integration system. Quebec is a French-speaking state and a state where religion is relegated to private life; that is what secularism means.

That is what I wish my colleague had taken away from my speech. That is what I wish she had focused on in the presentation we made today, not on the matter of money and making a connection between migrants and money, between migrants and workers. There is another important dimension, which is the collective Quebec identity. Unfortunately, people here do not seem to fully understand it.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, just to expand on what my colleague was saying earlier, we hear a lot of members talking nonsense. We heard the member for Winnipeg North say that there are more francophones than ever in Manitoba.

I have the numbers right here. In 1971, there were 60,500 Manitobans or 6.1%, whose mother tongue was French. In 2021, there were 39,600, which represented 4% of the population. These are the same numbers for the language spoken at home. The numbers are declining, as is knowledge of French.

In the words of Gérald Godin, the federal policy on French in Canada can generally be summarized as follows: strengthen French where it is on its last legs—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but he has taken more time than what he was allocated.

The hon. member for Jonquière for a brief response.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, here is my brief response. For us, the solution is quite simple: independence.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague from Jonquière may not yet have experienced how passive-aggressive the House can sometimes be—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I apologize for interrupting the hon. member, but I was about to forget an important part of my job, which is to announce the questions to be raised in Adjournment Proceedings.

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the question to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment is as follows: the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, Indigenous Affairs.

The hon. member for Montcalm.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Madam Speaker, I was saying that perhaps my colleague has not had that experience.

I introduced a bill on two separate occasions indicating that multiculturalism, a political ideology that undermines respect for differences and the integration model advocated by Quebec, should not apply in Quebec, and I have received a barrage of insults as a result. Some people have insinuated that I am racist or xenophobic.

I am a democrat, a separatist and a humanist. When a human community established within the same territory has a language, a culture, a history and a heritage, when it is driven by a will to survive, when it is aware of its uniqueness, when it is driven by a desire to live together, when it is articulated around a common interest, then a vision of society and a nation emerges.

Madam Speaker, could you please tell the member opposite—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I myself am beginning to hear things I should not hear in this place, without even having to consult Hansard.

The hon. member for Mirabel on a point of order.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I recognize that the subject can be sensitive for some, but the “racist” epithet used by the member for Timmins—James Bay who is attacking us on the basis of our deepest values—