Alain Therrien

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, when I was teaching at CEGEP and at the university, I would explain to my students that market globalization meant that some sectors were protected by governments because they were important sectors for a society like ours. I always gave the example of agriculture, since it is important to ensure that a country can feed its people itself so as not to be held hostage, as we saw recently with health equipment. If we do not want to be held hostage, we have to take care of our agricultural sector.

What happened when the Conservatives were in power? They were the first to sacrifice milk quotas on the altar of international trade. They were the first to sell Quebec milk quotas to open the borders to the benefit of western Canada. The Liberal Party followed suit.

The Conservatives criticize the government. They see the beam in their neighbour's eye. It is not a beam that they have in their own eyes, but a dozen two by fours.

The member for Beauce knows that they were the first party to make sure that milk quotas were jeopardized by international trade and trade deals. They were the first to roll over before other countries and fail to protect Quebec dairy producers. While the Conservatives are criticizing the government today, they are in an uncomfortable situation.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

What they did in 2015 is a bit embarrassing. Those whom we might describe as destroyers of the Quebec health care system are here and, from what I understand, they did not see fit to do better than what the others proposed.

I understand why the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent rose. He must have felt the heat and did not want to hear us talk and be taken to task. There are none so deaf as those who will not hear. That is what I understand, Mr. Speaker.

My Conservative colleagues think it is funny to cut funding for health care and to put us in a situation where we cannot take care of people because we do not have any money from Ottawa because of them. It is because of them.

That is the reality, hon. member from Louis-Saint-Laurent—

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I am not saying that I do not like talking about agriculture. I know a lot about it already.

If I understood correctly, all the remarks we will be making, from when the bill is tabled to the end, will have to be about agriculture. That is my understanding.

I asked the government to add 20 minutes followed by 10 minutes for questions and answers to compensate for the 30 minutes we had to talk about the pandemic. Now you are telling me that what we discussed will not happen, that I did not understand what the government leader proposed. Is that what you are telling me?

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, we had a very clear agreement that on Wednesdays when we met in person in the House, we would get 30 minutes to talk about COVID-19. Today, we agreed to waive our 30 minutes in exchange for 20 or 10 minutes to talk about other matters related to COVID-19, a crisis currently raging in Quebec.

Now you are telling me that what we negotiated, what we discussed with the government and its leader, is no longer valid. That is what you are telling me. The agreements we secured are not valid anymore. That is what I am hearing. That is what you just confirmed.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question.

In the second round of 20 minutes or 10 minutes that we will have later, will we also be required to talk about agriculture?

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, as the House leader of the Bloc Québécois, I want to point out that we had agreements with the government and the other parties to meet physically once a week to talk about COVID-19 and problems arising from the pandemic.

We were told we would get 30 minutes every Wednesday to talk about anything we wanted in connection with COVID-19. The government stipulated that, whenever possible, it wanted to introduce bills for debate on those days. We agreed because it was easier for the government.

I would ask the indulgence of the House to simply say that every party is supposed to have 30 minutes to talk about all kinds of COVID-19-related things, but we are not getting that time today. I would ask the indulgence of the House to continue my remarks.

[Canadian Dairy Commission Act, May 13th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, we are in the midst of a health crisis. Everyone knows that. A health crisis affects the health of the population. More demands are being put on the health care systems of the various regions of Canada. Unfortunately, Quebec is no exception. We know that the Quebec health care system has been sorely tried by the COVID-19 crisis. Seniors' residences in Quebec are a good example of the major difficulties being faced by the Quebec government and the Quebec health care system in particular.

What are the solutions?

We know that the government is trying to find solutions to the problems facing Quebec and Canada, but it is relying on an old habit. It is the old habit of thinking that big brother in Ottawa knows better than everyone else, that big brother in Ottawa will solve the problem for the provinces and Quebec and will tell everyone else to step aside, because big brother has the solution. The problem is that, based on the slapdash way it managed the border closure at the beginning of the pandemic and the way it managed the Phoenix pay system, I am a bit worried when I hear the government saying that it has all the answers and it knows what to do.

The NDP leader made it very clear today that he thinks the federal government just needs to meddle in the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec. It just needs to shove the provinces aside. However, everyone in the National Assembly in Quebec's Parliament and everyone across Quebec agrees that Quebec's jurisdiction must be respected, more specifically with regard to health. I am not the one saying this. This comes from the National Assembly and the various political parties.

As a solution, the Liberals initially tried to take over the long-term care homes. However, they were promptly informed that it was none of their business. I think they got the message.

There are always roundabout ways of doing things. The federal government said earlier that the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec must be respected, yet the Minister of Health said it wants to provide money for mental health, home care and so on. It cannot do that. That is a roundabout way of doing something it is not allowed to do directly. It cannot offer money to sectors that are managed by the provinces and Quebec with strings attached.

What is the solution, then? I can say that the NDP's solution is completely off base. It is not surprising that the NDP, which had 59 MPs from Quebec in 2011 has just one left. The Liberals' solution is no better. The Conservatives have proven that they cannot maintain consistent measures over time and were not able to manage the health care systems in the provinces and Quebec.

The solution is set out in the British North America Act, that famous document that created Canada. The solution is right there in black and white. This document states that the provinces have jurisdiction over health, and this document is sacred to many. It is simple: Health care belongs to the provinces and Quebec.

The Constitution also covers how government services are funded. Since the Canadian provinces and Quebec start off with fewer financial means to manage their jurisdictions, the Constitution was written to include a system in which the federal government would transfer funds to the provinces and Quebec. They knew that the money was in Ottawa but the needs were in Quebec. The fiscal imbalance dates all the way back to 1867.

Let's look back in history. At the time, this was not a major issue because health was often managed by religious orders. However, it became a problem when the responsibility for health was transferred to the welfare state in 1960.

Quebec was going to manage the health care system and would obviously call on Ottawa to lend a hand by providing program funding and federal transfers. It was thought that Quebec and the federal government would fund the system fifty-fifty, but such was not the case.

What happened was that—

[Canada Emergency Student Benefit Act, April 29th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my neighbour. In another life, I used to be an MNA in Quebec City. The member and I had the same constituents. I know her well and I want to recognize her. I really like her.

I taught at the CEGEP and university levels. Students are happy that we are thinking about them, so yes, I would say that they are happy with this. They appreciate it.

As I said, let us try to improve the incentive to help students who want to work more than 18 hours a week and be compensated for that. I would say that these people are very pleased with this bill.

On a side note, I heard from a university economics professor. He wrote to me to sound the alarm and to say that there are problems with the bill with regard to the incentive, which we discussed at length. We must therefore ensure that the two objectives are clearly linked in the government's future actions.

[Canada Emergency Student Benefit Act, April 29th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to speak to the bill on support for students during this pandemic.

As members know, from the beginning, the Bloc Québécois has been a very constructive opposition. We always try to improve bills. I think that, in general, the other opposition parties also worked with that goal in mind. It is therefore not surprising to see that there is unanimous support for this bill.

However, I must say that the bill does have its shortcomings. Obviously, there are some minor flaws, little things that are wrong and that we would have liked to work on more had we had more time. Unfortunately, we did not have as much time as we would have liked.

For two or three days, we pointed out the problems to the government and we were prepared to work together to fine-tune this bill. It is not completely perfect, but unfortunately, that sort of thing happens.

One of the basic principles of this bill is financial support for students. We are on board with this. We agree that we must help students. Since there may not be any tourism and since festivals will be cancelled, students may have a hard time finding jobs. We all agree on that. Students need some kind of financial assistance to help pay their expenses and to allow them to return to school in the fall with some savings as they pursue their education.

This bill also needs to include an incentive for young people to work. I am not saying that young people are lazy, but the bill must allow for young people to want to go out and find a job, to actually find one, and to believe that the CESB is designed in such a way as to encourage them to stay on the job because, in the end, it will be in their best interest to do so.

Unfortunately, this bill has a major flaw. As my colleague from Thérèse-De Blainville mentioned, the problem is that students receive $1,250 or a big fat zero. It would seem that the only option is $1,250, and that after $1,000, the default is zero. A student who works about 18 hours a week at a minimum wage job earns $1,000 a month. When you add the $1,250 CESB, that works out quite well, but what if their boss asks them to work one more hour a week?

What will be their answer, Mr. Speaker? I know I have your full attention and that you know the answer. They will say “no”. They will not want to lose the $1,250 for one extra hour of work. Everyone understands that.

Then why are we leaving this in the bill? Students might work no more than 18 hours. Will there be any students who work full time? Perhaps, but there will be no encouragement, no incentive, for them to do so.

I taught economics for a few years. In my intro to market economics, I would explain to my students that the more hours one works, the more money one earns. That is a basic rule, but this bill breaks the rule: the more one works, the more money one loses. That makes no sense.

During negotiations, the Bloc Québécois pushed for simple common sense: work more, earn more. Unfortunately, the government told us it could not do that because that would be too complicated and it would have to review every individual student's case. For example, the government would have to make it explicit that a student who works 19 hours would not lose the whole $1,250, just a little bit of it. That way, the student would want to keep working.

The Canada emergency benefit will simply be phased out to ensure that students realize that they would be better off working and that they have a little nest egg waiting. That is what we asked for, but we were told that the public service could not get into those kinds of details, because it would be too complicated and there was not enough time. We had reached a dead end.

In the end, we got a commitment from the Deputy Prime Minister. Indeed, although it could not be made official and standardized, because the public service apparatus would not allow it, the government committed to doing it. The Liberals said it was a good idea. We knew it was a good idea, and we have many more where that came from.

The government said it was a good idea and that it would try its best to move in that direction with its measures in the future. It committed to respecting that approach. Obviously, we very much welcome the Deputy Prime Minister's comments, for they give us a little hope.

During the negotiations, the Bloc Québécois considered the importance of having a committee look at issues related to agriculture. That has been included in the motion. We managed to get that across to the government, but I admit that it was not very hard. The government quickly agreed that it was a good idea to have a committee on agriculture because there is a lot going in that sector. We need to get answers to our questions and that is the right tool for the job.

Also, the motion proposes that the government offer subsidies to employers who hire students, but it specifies that this is for the agriculture or agri-food sectors.

The Bloc Québécois members wondered whether the same opportunity should be offered to more people, not just producers. For example, this opportunity could be offered to municipal employees and to people who want to hire students and who would be entitled to these subsidies.

I was apprehensive about how the government might respond to the Bloc's request, but the government said yes. It said that this was a good idea. The Bloc managed to make improvements to the motion.

Lastly, we have our seniors, who are being so breezily discussed. For over a month, we have been telling the government that it is neglecting seniors and it needs to do something to help them. Our proposals would cost $1 billion, which is paltry compared to the $73 billion going to wage subsidies. Seniors are always overlooked, yet they are the ones being hardest hit by the COVID-19 crisis. They built our country, our society. We need to show them respect through positive actions. The motion mentions this. I see daylight at last.

According to the motion, we need to help seniors who are struggling to make ends meet because the current situation has increased the cost of living. We asked the government to amend the motion to say that it would strongly consider and ensure that the old age security and guaranteed income supplement pension mechanisms could be activated through those two tools. This mechanism already exists, and the government can control it as it sees fit. This was another Bloc suggestion that was heard by the government.

We are not entirely satisfied, but nothing is perfect. The government listened to us and accepted some of our proposals. There is one last proposal and it is a very important one. There must be an incentive for students to work.

[COVID-19 Pandemic, April 20th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

We agree. We must provide adequate help for SMEs, especially with respect to rent. The Bloc Québécois has suggested that banks, big business and people with high incomes support businesses through partially subsidized government assistance. That would help support fixed costs, which includes rent.

I think we have similar opinions. I agree with him. We need to do something to support SMEs, since they will spearhead the upcoming recovery.