House of Commons Hansard #339 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was survivors.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
Again, I am very sorry, but that question is not for the government. Even so, I see the Minister of Canadian Heritage rising to answer.
Pascale St-Onge LiberalMinister of Canadian Heritage
Mr. Speaker, the last time Mr. Legault got in bed with the Conservatives, Quebeckers put him in his place. It will be the same thing this time.
I find it rather strange that Mr. Legault and Paul St-Pierre Plamondon are supporting a party that is bent on destroying our most important institution in Quebec, an institution that defends the French language, Quebec culture and Quebec's cultural creators, namely CBC/Radio-Canada. It is shameful.
Those of us on this side of the House will always fight for Quebeckers, for the right to our language and for the right to our culture.
Pierre Poilievre ConservativeLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Prime Minister has lost his Quebec lieutenant, who has now become a provincial candidate.
Fortunately for him, he found another Quebec lieutenant, and it is the leader of the Bloc Québécois.
The Bloc voted to increase inflationary bureaucratic spending by $500 billion. It voted to hire an extra 100,000 public servants. It voted to keep a government that broke the immigration system in office.
Is it not true that the Conservatives are the real defenders of Quebec?
Pierre Poilievre ConservativeLeader of the Opposition
Mr. Speaker, we all knew that the NDP leader had sold out the people and signed on to a costly coalition with the carbon tax Prime Minister to tax people's food, punish their work, double their housing costs and unleash crime in their communities.
However, he claimed that he had torn up the carbon tax coalition so that Winnipeggers would not fire him in a by-election, but as soon as the votes were counted, he betrayed them too and taped back together the carbon tax coalition.
How can anyone ever believe what he says again?
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
The Chair is in a very uncomfortable situation here.
The hon. Leader of the Opposition has the floor.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Mr. Speaker, the NDP leader was terrified he was going to lose a by-election in Winnipeg, an NDP stronghold, so he put out a Hollywood production where he claimed he had torn up the carbon tax coalition to which he had signed up, and that he was going to stop fighting for his pension and start fighting for the people. However, once the votes were counted, he betrayed them again. He is a fake, a phony and a fraud.
How can anyone ever believe what the sellout NDP leader says in the future?
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
Order.
Colleagues, there are some long-standing traditions of the House that we should endeavour to respect. It is important that we ask questions in question period to make government accountable to the people of Canada. The questions by their very nature should be pointed, should be tough and should be specific, and the answers should also be clear.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
However, colleagues, for this to work, we also have to make sure that we work within the rules we have. There were some important questions that were asked but that were not related to the administration of the government, and therefore there were no responses to those. We have so many other tools available to us as members to make the comments we need to make outside question period.
While the microphone was off, although the Chair did not hear this, there might have been some strong words exchanged between members. I ask members to please remember that Canadians are looking at us. Let us conduct ourselves in a way really befitting of each of our constituencies and the country as a whole.
With that, we will move on to the next question.
The hon. member for La Prairie.
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the citizens of LaSalle—Émard—Verdun for putting their trust in the Bloc Québécois.
The truth is the Bloc Québécois is in the best position it has been in over 15 years. If increasing the number of Bloc members was our priority, an election would have already been called. However, our priority is Quebeckers. Quebeckers are concerned about the living conditions of seniors, among other things. That is why we are asking the Liberals to stop financially discriminating against seniors aged 65 to 74.
Are they finally going to increase old age security by 10% for that age group?
Karina Gould LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for asking a real question here in the House.
It is important to make sure that questions refer to the work of government. The government is here to work for Canadians and to demonstrate what we do every day to serve Canadians.
It would be nice if all members of the House could keep that in mind.
Alain Therrien Bloc La Prairie, QC
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals need to understand something. It is very simple.
They have two choices, and both choices come at a cost. Either they increase old age security by 10% for seniors aged 65 to 74, or they will pay for it, politically speaking. The Liberals will have to make a choice, and so will the other parties. If they think that seniors' pensions are not important, then they better have the nerve to tell seniors to their faces. The Liberals are going to pay for it one way or another.
Will they increase old age security by 10%, yes or no?
Steven MacKinnon LiberalMinister of Labour and Seniors
Mr. Speaker, I applaud the member for La Prairie for wanting to help seniors in Quebec because, clearly, he has not been very supportive of Quebec or Canadian seniors to date.
Some may be surprised to learn that he voted against lowering the retirement age to 65, that he voted against increasing the guaranteed income supplement for the poorest seniors in Quebec and that, when we brought in a plan for dental care, the member for La Prairie voted against it.
Jagmeet Singh NDP Burnaby South, BC
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Medical Association is deeply concerned about privatization. Thanks to years of cuts, Canadians are worried that there is a—
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
Colleagues, I am having some difficulty hearing due to some shouting coming from the latter third of the House. Can I ask all members, please, who do not have the floor to not speak.
I am going to invite the hon. member for Burnaby South to start from the top, please.
Jagmeet Singh NDP Burnaby South, BC
Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Medical Association is worried about privatization in our health care system. It is worried about the real impacts of a dangerous shortage of frontline health care workers, family medicine and family health care workers. It is worried about specialist shortages and nurse shortages.
The Conservatives want to make people pay to receive health care, and the Liberals are too weak to stop them. Why are the Liberals letting the Conservatives force people to pay out of pocket to receive health care?
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
I know some members would like me to make a more specific intervention. Unfortunately, from the chair, I cannot see who is making the intervention, but I will ask members to please not speak when they have not been recognized.
The hon. Minister of Health has the floor.
Mark Holland LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, working together, we have been able to make incredible progress in our health system. Bilateral agreements have been signed with every province and every territory, based on co-operation, of $200 billion. With the NDP, when it was interested in working with us, we were able to do things like provide dental care, with 650,000 people already getting care. We were able to do things like pharmacare.
Unfortunately the NDP has made a choice. The New Democrats have decided to give in to a bully who is using a playbook that comes from a movie like Mean Girls, rather than standing up and fighting for our health care system and working collaboratively.
Jagmeet Singh NDP Burnaby South, BC
Mr. Speaker, New Democrats built medicare; Liberals and Conservatives are tearing it down.
The Liberals promised to help seniors in Quebec with the age well at home initiative, but Quebeckers are not receiving anything because the Liberals and the Legault government are too busy bickering.
Will the Prime Minister stop this nonsense and finally deliver on the promise to help Quebeckers?
Mark Holland LiberalMinister of Health
Mr. Speaker, did the New Democrats choose to continue the work on pharmacare? No. Did they choose to continue the progress on dental? No. Did they choose to make progress on working with provinces and territories in a spirit of collaboration? No. Instead, the New Democrats yielded to a bully. They abdicated the field. They got afraid. They walked away.
We are not afraid. We are going to stand up, and we are going to fight for public health care in this country. We are going to get it done. We are going to deliver dental care. We are going to deliver diabetes medication. We are going to make sure that every woman has access to contraceptives, and nothing is going to stop us.
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, taxes are up, prices are up, crime is up and time is up, and the NDP leader has sold out workers by devaluing their paycheque by supporting Liberal inflationary deficits.
He sold out seniors and families by hiking the carbon tax, driving up the cost of food and home heating, and he has sold out young Canadians, who have given up on the dream of home ownership thanks to the doubling of housing costs. What did he sell them out for? It was to protect his pension. Canadians now have to suffer longer just so he can get paid.
Why does the Prime Minister not just call a carbon tax election so Canadians can decide?
Karina Gould LiberalLeader of the Government in the House of Commons
Mr. Speaker, I do not think we should be politicizing pensions, but if the member opposite or his leader wants to talk about the size of their pensions, they should talk about that. At a time when they will be getting millions of dollars in government pensions, they also look to cut the pensions of everyday Canadians. We are here to support seniors no matter where they worked, not just parliamentarians with their pensions.