Alain Therrien

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the leader of the NDP, for the question.

I will tell him the truth. I just started sitting in the House. I have worked on the single tax return file, and I am quite familiar with it. Did I talk to those people? At the time, it was not my responsibility, because it was not my job. However, if the hon. member met with people who work in Shawinigan or Jonquière and are concerned, I propose that we meet with them together and work on finding solutions with them. I am sure that the Government of Quebec only expects us to find smart solutions and make the single tax return a reality.

I am sure these people can understand that this will not result in any job losses. If we act in good faith, there is a way to resolve this matter without punishing anyone. If my colleague reaches out to me, I will return the favour and propose that we go together to visit the people who are directly affected by this file.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, thank you for your comment. I apologize for breaking the rules of the House.

Indeed, I have crossed paths with my colleague in other circles. He said that the Conservatives attached a sum of money to the trade agreement. I hope he does a better job attaching his toque to his head when it is windy outside, because if not, he will surely lose it. If they had attached a sum, the other party would not have removed it. We would not be talking about it today.

What I am saying is that the best way to prevent money that has been put in from being taken out is simply to stop putting farmers' necks on the line in international trade negotiations, even when acting in good faith. I do not mean to say my colleagues were not acting in good faith, but that is what happened to farmers, and it must never happen again.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

I was the member for Sanguinet.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his fine words because he is saying good things about farmers. We will always agree on that.

He said that he is prepared to work together. I have no problem with that, on the contrary. The Bloc Québécois is prepared to collaborate. This could be the beginning of a healthy co-operation. We will eventually introduce a bill that will stop the undermining of the quota system once and for all and make sure that the government respects our agricultural identity in the future.

If that is what you want, then know that the Bloc Québécois will stand by your side and ensure that the mistakes of the past, which cost farmers dearly, do not happen again.

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I was talking about health transfer payments. I explained in detail that the provinces are dependent on funds from Ottawa, and they have been since the beginning of Confederation. Federal government transfers flow to the provinces so that they can do their job. Over time, however, transfers have continued to diminish so that the government can download the deficits to the provinces, as we saw in the nineties, or overload them with standards and conditions to go back to the basic notion that centralizing power was what the Fathers of Confederation intended and that the goal of federal spending is precisely to accomplish that almost-solemn mission.

There was no mention of the single income tax return in the Speech from the Throne. On May 15, 2018, the National Assembly unanimously voted in favour of a single income tax return that the Quebec government alone would oversee and administer. I know the motion was passed unanimously because I moved it myself. At the time, the Prime Minister quipped that the National Assembly rarely agrees unanimously on anything, but we saw it happen with the single income tax return. Was that mentioned? No, it was not.

There is some hope, however, since our Conservative colleagues believe in the same cause. If the NDP or the Liberals were to help us, we could create a single tax return administered by Quebec, much to the delight of the Quebec National Assembly and Quebeckers. A recent survey shows that 65% of Quebeckers support a single tax return administered by Quebec. The only study that has been done estimates annual savings of $425 million. Not only will this save money, but it will also save time, since Quebeckers will be able to do their taxes faster.

The Liberal government and the NDP always use the argument of job losses in the Jonquière and Shawinigan regions, and they say those losses would be drastic. Yes, jobs would be lost. Is that an argument for axing the plan? No. According to the Minister of National Revenue, 5,300 jobs in Quebec involve administering Quebeckers' income taxes for the federal government. Transferring those responsibilities to the Quebec government would create 2,332 jobs doing the same work for the Quebec government. The Quebec government could easily ensure that those jobs remain in Shawinigan and Jonquière. The other employees could work on tackling tax evasion or managing web giants like GAFA. Those jobs would pay for themselves.

As there is a shortage of workers in the federal public service, those people could easily go work for the federal government. Given that 4% of public servants retire every year and that it will take four years to transfer the federal government's responsibilities to the Quebec government, there will be more than 800 jobs to be filled. Clearly, there will be no job losses.

Which Liberal or NDP members will join the Quebec consensus that there will be no jobs lost?

Our consensus is that the public service will save $287 million and that Quebeckers who file a single tax return will save time. Who can argue with that?

The Bloc Québécois is expecting a positive response. We are ready to have discussions to promote this great idea.

We know that Quebec is not responsible for managing its representation abroad.

We would have liked the document to make a clear statement on ending the loopholes in supply management. We would like Quebec farmers to no longer be used as a bargaining chip to promote the auto industry in Ontario, or the beef industry in the west. We would like these people to be respected and to never again be directly attacked or have money taken out of their pockets, because they work very hard and deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labour.

I would reiterate in closing that I began my speech with a bit of history. Something has changed since the creation of the Canadian Confederation. At the time, Canada's motto was “from sea to sea”. Unfortunately, now it is “drill, baby, drill”.

Sadly, in western Canada, the economy today is concentrated on a single sector. It is not diversified enough. We have to help the west diversify. What people need to realize is that oil dependency is not just an issue for western Canada. It is an issue for the banks as well. Around the world, five of the 12 banks that are currently investing the most in oil are Canadian. The Canadian economy is heavily involved in oil.

There is one party here that says we need to produce more oil. It has the advantage of being honest and saying what it really thinks. There is another party that plays around with definitions and contradictions in an attempt to put us to sleep. It says it supports this, but not too much. It does not mention oil, the “elephant in the room”, as my colleague put it earlier, in the throne speech. It talks about climate change, whereas the oil issue goes in the complete opposite direction.

We need a clear-eyed understanding. If we want to undertake an energy transition, we simply cannot promote oil. Some people are saying that we should change the Constitution, that it is an old model that does not work well and is of no use to us anymore. I explained the problems with that earlier.

I want the House to know that the Bloc Québécois and Quebeckers do not want to play this game anymore. To paraphrase Jean Garon, changing a comma in the Canadian Constitution would be about as easy as scratching my forehead with my front teeth. We quit.

What will the Bloc do? The Bloc is here to stand up for farmers, to defend Quebec's territory so that no pipelines are built on it without our permission. The Bloc is here to stand up for our cultural community, which is being attacked by web giants. It will stand up for the Davie shipyard and its extraordinary workers, who have demonstrated the quality of their work time and time again. We will defend the energy transition to ensure that our young people have a healthy future in an extraordinary environment.

That is the mission of the Bloc Québécois. We will do that work on behalf of Quebec. We will work hard until, one day, Quebec becomes a country.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this being my first formal speech in the House, I would like to take the opportunity to thank my campaign volunteers, who worked so hard to get one more Bloc Québécois MP in this place. I am so grateful to them.

I am also very pleased to thank the members of my hard-working election committee, without whom it would have been hard to win this election, because the Liberal candidate was a tough opponent, I have to say.

I also want to thank my friends, who have always been there for me and who nudged me into politics and political life in the first place. It feels so good to know I have their support, and I am grateful to them for that.

Obviously, I also want to thank my family, namely my wife, without whom nothing would be possible, and my children, who were willing to share their father with Quebec politics. I am very happy that they support what I am doing, and I really appreciate it.

Lastly, I want to thank the people of La Prairie for their trust, though I have no illusions that it was just about me. The reason people put their trust in me is that they trust the Bloc Québécois and my leader. They voted for Alain Therrien, for the leader and for the party. I will work hard to represent them.

When the people in my riding do great things, that is worth celebrating. I want to salute the two hockey teams in my region. Over the weekend, they put up an amazing showing at a tournament. Since hockey is a national sport, I could not let these achievements pass without a mention.

The Étoiles du Richelieu Atom BB team won the provincial tournament in Blainville with an overtime goal. This was tough for the people of Candiac. I want to congratulate these hard-working kids, who were masterfully led by coaches Nicolas Leclerc and Martin Tétrault. There are no words to describe the parents' joy as they watched these boys hoist the cup.

I also want to congratulate the Étoiles du St-Laurent Atom AA team for making it to the finals. The team's ranking cannot overshadow its exceptional talent, energy and journey.

To wrap up my tribute to these kids, I just want to say, “Go Étoiles!”

My father always told me that if I wanted to understand reality, politics or the economy, I had to know my history. It is from history that we are able to understand and even predict future events. I would say that the throne speech is no exception to my father's advice.

The creation of Canada dates back to 1867. We need to understand why and how Canada was created to understand how it works today. Canada was not created by a mass movement or a revolution. It was not created by people taking to the streets and saying that they wanted to come together as one nation. The reason Canada was created is simple. It was a matter of economics.

In 1840, our main trading partner was Great Britain, which decided in the early 1840s to start looking to Europe to do trade. In a way, Great Britain abandoned Canada.

Discouraged at not being able to export to what some of us here would consider the motherland, Canada decided to turn to the United States. In 1854, it signed a reciprocity treaty that made it possible for Montrealers and local producers from Canada, which had not yet become Canada, to export to the United States, achieve some economies of scale and make a lot of profit.

The reciprocity treaty they signed was in place from 1854 to 1864. This treaty would not be renewed because the American Civil War broke out and Great Britain made the regrettable decision to support the South. In retaliation, the Americans told their neighbours to the north that all trade between them was at an end.

Seized with panic, the Fathers of Confederation decided the most important thing was to protect the wealthy and provide a market where they could sell their goods. These people created that market artificially. That is what Canada is today. It was created to make rich people happy back in 1867. That was the Fathers of Confederation's only motivation.

The new Canadian federation needed a strong central government. I can already hear the NDP and Liberal Party members clapping. They are descended directly from those founding fathers. To establish a strong government and avoid a civil war like the one to the south, which was a bad experiment if ever there was one, it was decided that all of the powers would be given to the federal government and the provinces would get the crumbs. That is what these people did.

With regard to spending, the government held on to marine transportation, customs and borders, and rail transportation. The provinces were left with a pittance: health and education. It was a pittance at the time because the clergy took care of those things. The state was not yet secular. Maybe my colleagues will infer something from that.

To ensure a strong central government, customs and excise duties were given to the federal government. The provinces were given income tax revenues, which were not very significant at the time. It was almost nothing.

Those are the foundations of Canada, our country, or rather that of my colleagues opposite. How we operate is based on those foundations. The fundamental problem is that the Fathers of Confederation could not have foreseen what was to come.

In the 1960s, health and education became the primary expenses in Canada. It is what was most important at the time. Today, half of all of Quebec's spending goes to health. The federal government is not there. The same goes for education. What was thought to be negligible at first became extremely significant. The only reason the federal government can intervene is because during Confederation in 1867, the federal government put the Canadian provinces in a position where they had to beg. Their revenues were so weak that they depended on federal transfers. They were under the control of the federal government.

In 1954, following successive attacks by the federal government to control provincial income tax, the provinces finally caved. Only one province decided to take back control because it felt it was important for its people to have a financial tool to allow it to achieve its dreams and objectives. Only Maurice Duplessis, in 1954, said he wanted to keep that system. That is another reality.

What does this mean? The throne speech mentions health, but that is not the government's concern. Health expenditures are the responsibility of the provincial governments and of Quebec. When the government starts saying that it would like to have this and that, it is not their business. What is important is for it to give the provinces and Quebec the money they need to fund their services and serve the people, who keep saying that health is their absolute priority. The government must respond to this appropriately and not in the way it did in the throne speech. That is important.

According to the Thomson report tabled in 2014, maintaining health services for Canadians in light of inflation, aging and the increase in the population, as well as progress in health technologies, required a 5.6% annual increase. However, Harper and his gang started capping the increase at 3%. That is scandalous. The provinces are asking the government for an increase of at least 5.6%. That is what it needs to give them to maintain provincial health systems. That is why it is important to increase provincial transfers and to listen to Quebec and the provinces.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 6th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this being my first speech in the House, I would like to acknowledge my constituents in La Prairie and thank them for putting their trust in me in the last election.

My colleague from P.E.I. spoke about divisions. He pointed out that Canada is currently divided, as very different views clash with each other. For years, the government has been marked by deep contradictions and has been dragged down by that burden. This throne speech is no exception. I want to read a paragraph that really struck me:

And while the Government takes strong action to fight climate change, it will also work just as hard to get Canadian resources to new markets, and offer unwavering support to the hardworking women and men in Canada’s natural resources sectors, many of whom have faced tough times....

We have to make a choice: either fight climate change or export oil. We are talking about oil here. This is not hockey. We cannot play along the boards. We have to make a decision. Oil sands development releases more greenhouse gases than the entire province of Quebec does. Under the Liberals, oil production increased by more than 20%. We have to make a choice. It has to be clear.

The question is simple. How can we meet targets as ambitious as the ones the government is proposing without making an effort to lower the greenhouse gas emissions from oil production?