Alain Giguère

[Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1, April 3rd, 2014]

Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, closure prevents us from discussing the financial insecurity of Canadian families.

We will not be able to discuss credit card interest rates, which destroy the financial capacity of Canadian households.

We will not be able to discuss “pay to pay", the practice whereby companies charge additional fees to people who pay by Canada Post. Despite this government's throne speech, nothing is being done about this.

Lastly, as for pensions, it is the same story about the grasshopper and the ant. I would like someone to explain to me how not saving now will give us an income in the winter of our lives.

[Job Market, March 28th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, we knew that the Conservatives had a bad habit of basing their decisions on their ideology or on good old reform prejudice, but this week, we found out that when it comes to making decisions about the job market, the Conservatives rely not on experts or Statistics Canada, but on Kijiji. Yes, the same site where people buy a sofa bed for their teenager who just moved out.

Across Canada, Canadians who no longer have access to employment insurance are looking for jobs. The government's response is to check on Kijiji between an ad for winter tires and another for a garage sale in Mont-Joli.

I never thought I would have to say this, but Kijiji is not a reliable source for managing the job market of a G7 country. Canadians deserve better than a government that makes it up as it goes along. In 2015, the NDP will put an end to the “Kijiji economy”. We will provide real jobs to Canadians.

[Business of Supply, March 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my question is rather simple. On the one hand, experts are introduced who tell us that this bill is dangerous for democracy. On the other hand, we have the evidence of the second-last Conservative member, who said that someone tried to give him hundreds of voter cards, that he should have called the police and he regrets not doing so.

According to a very clear and simple rule of law, silence is consent. By failing to report an illegal act meant to rig the election, the member is himself guilty of election rigging. He presented that as an anecdote to justify the amendments to this legislation to prevent what he himself encouraged.

I would like my distinguished colleague to tell us how much importance we should place on anecdotes told by people who do not do their civic duty or their duty as an MP and report someone who tries to rig an election, compared to the importance we should place on experts who support us and encourage us to value our democracy.

[Qalipu Mi'kmaq First Nation Act, March 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that we are having a cordial and quite intelligent debate. All MPs truly want to find a solution to this problem. This should happen more often.

I have a relatively simple question about children who were adopted and presently have the status of their parents, who quite often are white. Can my distinguished colleague guarantee that, in these rather critical cases involving people who quite often do not know much about their past, a special effort will be made to ensure that they do not lose their status?

[Petitions, March 7th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a certified petition to protect Gatineau Park.

It is very unfortunate that, even today, we have to present petitions and private members' bills to preserve this great resource, our parks, for future generations. We need to preserve and protect them. Unfortunately, we have to keep doing it over and over again.

[Petitions, March 4th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I present a certified petition to protect Gatineau Park.

It should be noted that even in this day and age we have to intervene to protect green space from speculation and people who have no respect for their environment. It is shocking and unfortunate that even today we still have to do this. In keeping with this legislation, I would like the House to automatically protect the environment to leave a legacy for future generations.

[Canada Post, March 3rd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is the only G7 nation that will not have home mail delivery. In Rosemère, Lorraine, Bois-des-Filion, Charlemagne and Repentigny, the Conservatives are abandoning seniors, people with reduced mobility and small businesses without consulting anyone, be it the municipalities, experts or even the public.

Instead of slashing services to the public, why are the Conservatives not looking at options that would save home mail delivery? I would really like an answer.

[The Budget, February 25th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very attentively to the Liberal member’s comments, and quite clearly, the Liberal Party does not walk the talk.

The member talked about the Kelowna agreement, a splendid agreement that was negotiated and signed. However, an analysis of the country’s financial statements shows that no financial provisions had been made. It was just a scrap of paper. With respect to Kyoto, it was exactly the same problem. We were told that something must be done, that the Liberals wanted to do something, but they did nothing. Under the Liberal government, air pollution increased as never before.

In short, I would like to know when the representatives of the Liberal Party will stop criticizing, stop talking, take real action, actually propose an innovative plan for this country and keep their promise.

[Canada Post, February 24th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, my riding of Marc-Aurèle-Fortin has the misfortune of being one of the first to be squeezed by the Conservatives' gutting of Canada Post.

While the 23 Canada Post senior executives pocket $10 million a year, Rosemère, Bois-des-Filion and Lorranie will lose their door-to-door delivery, no matter the consequences for the elderly or disabled. This botched and harmful initiative will be implemented with the Conservative government's approval.

A responsible government would have proposed solutions in order to improve service and attract new clients, instead of cutting services, increasing prices and firing 8,000 people. The NDP will continue to fight alongside the elderly, SMEs, people with reduced mobility, workers and fellow Canadians to ensure they have access to the services they deserve.

Previous Liberal and Conservative governments squeezed the middle class. Now, they are drastically reducing services. Canadians deserve better. They deserve a party like the NDP, which will be on their side.

[Public Service of Canada, February 13th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the NDP will support the amendments to Bill C-461, but if they were not made, we would vote against the bill.

What can be said about this bill, which is typical of his government? What the government is doing is in fact exactly the opposite of what one might expect from the bill's title. It was supposed to address government transparency, but that is not what we got.

The bill was to require all direct or indirect employees of the government to disclose their salary if it was over $188,600. In order not to have to reveal what it was paying its special advisors, its numerous consultants and the employees in the Prime Minister's Office, the government increased this amount to $444,661. This is completely crazy.

The bill, which was introduced by a member who was a Conservative at the time, was essentially about transparency. Taxpayers are entitled to know how much people are being paid out of their tax dollars, particularly if their salary is more than $188,600.

You can be for or against this measure. However, in order to hide its use of the machinery of government for personal purposes, the government increased the amount to $444,661. Incredible. It is certainly indicative of this government's attitude.

The bill also imposed a number of restrictions on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, on the grounds that the CBC was not only an enemy of the Canadian people, but also a nasty crown corporation. Obviously the government feels that Sun News is much better and more intelligent. It is at least more conservative.

This use of government regulations for strictly personal and partisan purposes is nothing new. We have seen this in many other statutes. Private enterprise is deregulated and allowed to do whatever it wants. On the other hand, for members of first nations, the financial regulations are torture. They are far too stringent. The first nations are going to spend more time filling out government forms that working so that people in their community can have acceptable living conditions. That suits the government just fine. In the meantime, they will not be asking the government to build social housing. That is typical of this government.

It is the same story for unions. The government has spared no effort where unions are concerned. Everything has to be public, including private contracts. For example, Xerox has agreements with some unions. If a particular union asks Xerox to offer its services at a specified price, Xerox does not want another union asking it to lower its prices as well.

Once again, the government wants to cut spending with this anti-union legislation. The private sector can establish any company in any way. For a worker who wants to unionize, it is becoming difficult. Moreover, it is easy for the management to challenge the union certification of that worker.

Let us also not forget environmental groups, because all environmentalists are being targeted by this government.

Indeed, these groups are dangerous. They question the fact that the government is unable to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Needless to say, that is not working.

Yesterday, we saw a surprising bill that can be legally challenged and is highly questionable from a moral point of view. It concerns officers of Parliament, who must now disclose their political past for the last 10 years. As far as I know, though, people in this country are still entitled to their own political opinion. They have the right to vote for whoever they want. This government does not seem to agree. Let us get back to this issue.

To say that this shows that the government has been in office for too long and the Prime Minister's Office—which is already struggling with many ethical issues—is not really interested in transparency is stating the obvious. This bill is not about transparency; it is about control. What the government wants is to allow private companies to acquire a non-competitive power against crown corporations such as the CBC.

We will talk about this later on, but that is the real goal. With its partisan approach, this government sees the CBC as an opponent. Of course, it is using this bill to do the opposite of what it was supposed to do originally, which was to disclose the salaries of all those who earn more than a member of Parliament. It is clear that the Prime Minister's Office does not want this information to be disclosed, although we know the Conservatives can be more cunning than that.

Instead of paying some expenses through the Prime Minister's Office or out of the Conservative Party fund, they appoint party fundraisers to the Senate to save money and make taxpayers pay. It does not cost the Conservative Party a lot of money, they get salaried workers who run fundraising campaigns on a full-time basis for them, and they are happy about that. However, Canadian taxpayers who see this are not pleased. When we see the blunders made by some Conservatives who really embarrassed the government with the magnitude of their excesses, it is easy to see that the government had other things to deal with.

Even organizers from the private sector told the committee this did not make any sense. Conservative members of the committee did not even bother to give a single reason for these changes. This speaks volumes about this government's inability to truly defend transparency.

As with everything else, the facts are hard to challenge. On the issue of the environment, the government may claim that acid rain does not exist, or that there is no greenhouse effect, but the facts show otherwise and people notice them. As for science, the government may claim it supports science, but when all the scientists say they are tired of being monitored and not being allowed to disclose their findings, again the facts are hard to challenge. In the case of the census, everyone told the government not to go ahead with its plan, but it did nevertheless. Now, Canada's censuses can no longer be used to anticipate medical services that should be developed in the future. For the Conservatives, climate change does not exist. People in Texas who are coping with a snow storm must really be having a good laugh. As for the CBC, the Conservatives are essentially saying that the corporation is not a problem.

There is nothing worse for a liar than the facts and the truth. We are going to support the amendments and this point of view on transparency. We are going to say yes to these amendments.

If the amendments are not adopted by the House, we will have no choice but to oppose this legislation, which is inappropriate, which is against Canada, and which does not promote transparency.