House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 49% of the vote.
The Environment February 6th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, it is dizzying. I get the feeling that if you looked up the word “liberal” in the dictionary, it would say, “say one thing and do another”.
People are not fooled by the Prime Minister's doublespeak. The Climate Change Performance Index was released at COP24, in Poland. Out of 60 countries, Canada ranked 54th. It is so bad.
How can the Prime Minister look our young people in the eye and tell them that he is concerned about the planet and their—
The Environment February 6th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, yesterday, there was a debate on the environment in Outremont and the Liberal candidate decided to stay away. She did not show up.
It is not easy to defend a Prime Minister who breaks his promises. It is not easy to explain to people that his party's priority is to give billions of dollars to his oil industry friends. It is not easy to defend wasting public money on the purchase of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
Are the Liberal candidates trying to hide because they know that their government's environmental policies do not cut it in Quebec?
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Sherbrooke for his excellent question.
Let us remember that workers are the foundation of the NDP. We are the party of labour. We are also the party of public services. We will always take great care to respect people and provide them with the best jobs possible, and not cause them to lose their jobs. That is what is most important.
That is why we are fighting for auto sector workers. That is why we are fighting for Davie shipyard and to get back the hundreds of jobs that were lost. That is why we rise in the House to defend workers in the aluminum and forestry sectors. That is why we are in politics. Our colleagues introduce bills to protect workers' pensions so the money is not stolen as was the case with Sears workers. That is why we are here and we are proud of it.
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague.
I look back fondly on the work we did together on the Special Committee on Electoral Reform, but that is a whole other story.
I think this shows the NDP's prudent and responsible approach towards thousands of people, their families and regional economies.
I really like the more specific point he raises about all the software that is widely available. Once a person completes their tax return on the computer, which they only have to do once, they can file two copies electronically, by email. Many people already do their taxes that way. My office offers a tax filing workshop to my riding's least fortunate residents. I volunteer for that workshop, along with other people and my staff. That is the method we use to help people who have trouble reading and need a hand with filing taxes.
I think that is a fairly simple example that demonstrates that the technology is more advanced than certain political claims taken from a focus group.
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
It is indeed amateur hour, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned improvisation earlier but this is completely amateurish. I was really shocked to hear the Conservative member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord this morning. Following his speech, he was asked how he would ensure that there would be no job losses and what exactly these people would do for work. The member replied that these were details. We are talking about the lives of 5,000 people and decent incomes for these families and for the regions.
With those jobs comes a great deal of economic development, not to mention increased purchasing power in regions with many SMEs, including restaurants and other businesses.
We need to take a serious approach. We have to approach the task as professionally as possible, and that is exactly what the NDP has done, by holding several meetings. We have done things reasonably and diligently, as we must when we respect people. We respect workers. From the outset, we said that this was what we wanted to do.
The principle is good, attractive even, and easy to understand. However, there are significant regional and socio-economic impacts for families. We are being told that the NDP members are not listening to the people of Quebec. However, the 5,500 workers are 5,500 Quebeckers we sat with and listened to. I will claim loudly and proudly that my Quebec definitely includes the FTQ, which represents 600,000 people. It is the largest civil society organization in Quebec right now. These are people with whom we have a relationship and with whom we can sit down to see what practical solutions we can come up with. That is what we have done and what, unfortunately, other political parties, such as the Conservatives, have not.
They are so unwilling to truly commit themselves that I want to remind everyone about what happened this morning. The member for Sherbrooke said that the Conservative motion as drafted contained certain potentially interesting elements, but that it was missing one big thing. That big thing is the second component of the resolution adopted at the NDP convention, namely a guarantee that these people will not suffer or lose their jobs in the regions.
The member for Sherbrooke therefore presented a very simple amendment saying that the implementation of the single tax return must not result in a loss of employment within the public service. Shockingly, this amendment was rejected. The Conservative Party turned it down, even though the Conservative members said over and over, in all of their speeches and questions today in the House, that no jobs would be lost. When the time came to put it in writing, however, they said no. They said that it was a mere detail and that they would think about how to do this.
We cannot trust a party that spent 10 years slashing public services and cutting social programs when they were in government under Stephen Harper. We cannot trust them or tell them that the details will be taken care of later. That is not how things work.
We might one day be open to a plan for a single tax return if it did not involve job losses and if services were being provided to the public and were perhaps improved. That is what we are saying. It is not complicated.
We can find ways to make life easier for people. In many countries, tax returns are filled out in advance. People must check to make sure that their income and deductions match, since tax returns are relatively simple for a large number of people who have a set salary. A number of OECD countries operate like this, and we could consider this solution or possibility as a way to make things easier for Quebeckers and Canadians.
However, that is not on the table for right now. I think it is unfortunate that political parties are so quick to get carried away with rhetoric and theatrics. This is easy to do when members are not out there themselves, looking into these things.
It would be a good idea to put more effort and energy into fighting tax evasion and aggressive tax avoidance. However, the Liberal government must first take this seriously and invest the necessary resources. Since coming to power, the Liberals have not convicted any millionaires for hiding millions in the Cayman Islands or Barbados. The Liberals have no credibility. They have signed new agreements with tax havens.
If they want to tackle tax evasion, we will support them. However, they have not yet done so. Neither did the Conservatives for 10 years. Neither of these parties have any credibility in this file.
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to inform you that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the member for Jonquière. She is very familiar with this issue and is very involved in finding practical solutions for the people of her region, for workers, but also for all Quebec taxpayers.
We are having a very interesting discussion today, because we are seeing some rather extreme and sweeping positions. It smacks of improvisation, while in the NDP, we have a clear position, but it is nuanced because it is well thought out and because we have worked on the issue. We did not just toss a balloon into the air to see whether it would fly.
Let me recap. The last federal NDP convention in Montreal was attended by 3,000 delegates from across the country. Part of the discussions and resolutions considered during the convention dealt with the single tax return. This resolution, which came from Quebec, of course, had two parts. The first was to recognize that it is somewhat incongruous for Quebeckers to be the only taxpayers in the country who have to file two tax returns, while all the others in the federation file only one. Is having a single tax return for Quebec a good idea? A vast majority of the delegates supported the resolution and its principle. It certainly would make people’s lives easier.
There is a second part to this resolution, which is that we must avoid shooting ourselves in the foot as we attempt to help each other out. We want to make this change, but we do not want to hurt people by doing so. More than 5,000 people in Quebec work for the Canada Revenue Agency. They process the tax returns not just of Quebeckers, but also of people from other provinces. They also perform other tasks related to the tax activities of taxpayers across the country.
The NDP's resolution is very clear. The NDP supports the idea of a single tax return, but that approach would need to be implemented in a way that respects workers and ensures that they keep their jobs. We are talking about good jobs and people who are working in the regions, mainly in Mauricie. My colleague from Trois-Rivières is obviously very aware of that. Some of those workers are also located in the Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean area.
We adopted the resolution and then we got to work. We went and met with the representatives of the employees who work in this field day after day and year after year. We asked them if it would be possible to come up with a plan to reassign people to different tasks, to additional or different activities. When one starts looking at the details, it is more complicated than it seems for various reasons.
There is a lot of seasonal work and student jobs. There are people who process tax returns for a living but who could not necessarily be reassigned to technical or specialized tasks related to the fight against tax havens or tax evasion. The NDP supports the fight against tax evasion. We are not against it, quite the contrary. That was our pet cause in the Quebec caucus throughout 2017. However, it is not true that someone who does a certain job can be transferred to a completely different one the next day. That is rather unrealistic.
The leader of the Conservative Party is saying that it is simple and that those who are working on tax returns today can be transferred to work on tax evasion tomorrow. This is proof that the Conservatives did not do their homework, that they did not talk to people on the ground, that they did not look into what is actually possible.
The Environment February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, for weeks thousands of youth in Europe have been mobilizing and calling for real action in the fight against climate change. Here in Canada, students are also prepared to take to the streets. In Davos, a young Swedish girl named Greta made a touching appeal for the future of her generation.
What have the Liberals decided to do? They are providing oil companies with billions of dollars in subsidies, they are wasting our money on a leaky old pipeline and they are going to miss the Conservatives' weak targets.
When will the Liberal government listen to young people and take seriously the urgent need to address climate change?
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I agree with him on certain points.
Since we are talking about Revenue Canada, I am also interested in tax avoidance. I cannot understand how the Liberal government could sign new tax treaties with tax havens. It is making the problem worse.
A few years ago, the Conference Board—not exactly a bunch of leftists—reported that the federal government lost between $9 billion and $49 billion a year because of millionaires and billionaires hiding their money offshore to avoid paying their fair share of taxes here at home. The rest of us are paying for that.
I would like to know the number of millionaires and white-collar fraudsters the Liberal government managed to put behind bars. Last time I checked, it was zero.
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. I realize that we were the first to raise the idea of examining the possibility of a singe tax return for Quebeckers. It was adopted as a resolution at our federal convention, but it stipulated that the single tax return must not result in any job losses for the people of Mauricie or Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean in the interest of keeping good jobs in the regions.
The Conservatives are saying that it is no big deal, since we are voting only on the principle today and we should believe their assurances that they want to achieve this without any job losses. We tested them by suggesting an amendment to their motion, adding in writing that no jobs would be lost in the federal public service. Can my friend from the Conservative Party explain to me why he rejected the NDP's amendment?
Business of Supply February 5th, 2019
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.
The NDP supports the idea of simplifying Quebeckers' lives, and we adopted a resolution calling for a single tax return during our federal convention. However, we included one very important clause: the implementation of this idea must not result in a loss of employment for Quebec workers in regions such as Mauricie and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean.
How is the member going to take this work, much of it seasonal, away from workers without cutting any jobs? We have done our homework, we have done the analysis, and that looks like a pipe dream.
I would like the member to comment on that.