André Bellavance

[Clarity Act, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to conclude the debate on Bill C-457, An Act to repeal the Clarity Act.

Liberal and Conservative MPs both delivered their usual speeches. They stuck to their guns, which was to be expected. The Liberals brought forward the Clarity Act after being shaken by how close we came to a yes vote in the 1995 referendum. They came up with a plan B. This plan B was the Clarity Act.

I heard some fairly unbelievable things in those speeches, which is why I should inform all my colleagues that the Clarity Act was condemned by the whole of Quebec's National Assembly. By that I mean that every member of every party, federalist and sovereignist alike, rejected this ignominious law called the Clarity Act.

As for the Quebec Liberals, we know that the former leader of the Quebec Liberal Party, Claude Ryan, said that the Clarity Act placed Quebec under trusteeship. We know that Daniel Johnson, the leader of the “No” side and also the leader of the Quebec Liberal Party at the time, criticized the Clarity Act, just like Jean Charest who, when this legislation was passed here in 2000, said that Quebec was the master of its destiny. All these federalists felt that Quebec was the master of its destiny regarding its decision to become sovereign, or to remain part of Canada.

As for the leader of the NDP, he was the most surprising in this House. He too arrived here and criticized the Clarity Act. Like all NDP members who spoke to my bill, he said that the Liberal Party's Clarity Act passed in 2000 had no reason to exist and that it was disrespectful of Quebeckers' rights. He also said that the debate was useless—that was also mentioned this evening—that there were other priorities, that this was an old issue, an old quarrel, and that the Bloc Québécois was only looking for trouble.

In short, he used a bazooka to kill a fly. He said he would introduce Clarity Act No. 2. He said the Clarity Act should be abolished because it deals with an old issue, it is a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of Quebeckers, who want a democratic process to decide whether or not they want Quebec to achieve sovereignty. However, he comes up with Clarity Act No. 2. The first one is useless, but Clarity Act No. 2 is so useful. So, he perpetuates the old debates by introducing this legislation.

Bill C-470, introduced by the previous speaker, the member for Toronto—Danforth, is just a bill which, like the present Clarity Act, imposes trusteeship on Quebec regarding its perfectly democratic right to decide its own future in the Canadian Constitution.

Clarity Act No. 2—that is what it is—is not simply about oversight in Quebec's affairs. It gives the federal government—the Conservative government in this case —the right to decide whether a referendum question is clear. It is written in black and white in the bill. It even goes further and unilaterally provides the wording of two questions that the NDP considers to be clear. According to the NDP, the Quebec National Assembly and the people of Quebec do not have the last word on the question to be asked in a potential referendum. The NDP has the last word in its Bill C-470.

Even if the National Assembly agreed on the wording, with this bill, the federal government could oppose the question and send it to the courts, which would certainly bring Quebec's referendum process to a standstill.

I think this comes down to trading four quarters for a dollar. The speeches we are hearing from the NDP make no sense. They are all saying that the Clarity Act should be repealed, but they do not want to vote in favour of my bill, even though the only thing my bill would do is repeal the Clarity Act.

In conclusion, I want to reach out to all members of Parliament, especially those from Quebec. I urge them to do some soul-searching, to look at themselves in the mirror and say, like Robert Bourassa and a number of federalists said, that Quebec has the right to its own destiny, the right to choose its own future, and that these decisions should happen in Quebec, not in the federal Parliament.

[Clarity Act, February 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I do not like to interrupt my colleagues when they are in full flight. However, with all due respect for the Chair, I would like to remind him and my colleague who is making a speech that we are discussing Bill C-457. I really do not see the connection with the bill he is talking about now.

[Employment Insurance, February 15th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives keep bringing in their ideological measures and are undermining the employment insurance system.

Even though 50% of unemployed workers are not eligible for benefits, the Conservatives keep adding restrictions. For example, workers are forced to accept lower-paying jobs further away from home, there are quotas to cut $40,000 a month, pregnant women could end up disqualified, and now the work-sharing program is becoming stricter. These are the kinds of tricks the Conservatives are using to make unemployed workers pay off the deficit.

How can the minister claim day after day that workers will still benefit from employment insurance while she is in the process of dismantling the whole program?

[International Co-operation, February 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Quebeckers do not identify with Canada's international development assistance priorities.

The federal government is abandoning francophone countries with which Quebec has a special relationship. The government is helping the countries that it sees as markets instead of the countries with the most vulnerable populations.

In response to this, Quebec has decided it wants to create its own development assistance agency. Since there is no constitutional provision preventing Quebec from funding humanitarian aid organizations itself, is the government open to giving Quebec its share of the CIDA envelope?

[Employment Insurance, February 8th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development will be travelling around to talk about the upcoming budget. If the economy is truly her priority, as the government claims it is, I hope that she will listen to employers in all regions who condemn the harmful effects of her employment insurance reform.

Guillaume Gagnon, a businessman in Sainte-Flavie, said, “The reform will compromise all of our efforts and may even put the brakes on our future investments.”

Rather than plow ahead with measures that are bad for regional economies and our business people, will the minister do the right thing and cancel her employment insurance reform?

[Petitions, February 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I recently took part in a press conference in Sherbrooke organized by the diocesan council of the Eastern Townships to protest the funding cuts made to Development and Peace. The Bishop of Sherbrooke, Bishop Luc Cyr, was there, as were many others.

Basically, the petitioners asked me to present a petition calling on the government to demonstrate international responsibility by recommitting Canada to contribute 0.7% of GDP to international development assistance. They want the government to prioritize responsive funding to those NGOs that Canadians support and that have seen their funding cut by CIDA. Finally, in the spirit of global solidarity, they want to ensure that CIDA restores the full funding amount of $49.2 million requested by Development and Peace over the next five years.

[International Trade, February 6th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, despite the Bloc Québécois motion calling on the government to protect the integrity of supply management, which was adopted unanimously here in the House, Ottawa is about to sacrifice some of the rights of dairy producers in its negotiations with the European Union. The federal government is prepared to allow the duty-free import of thousands of additional tonnes of cheese. This concession is clearly unacceptable.

Can the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food confirm that this is the case? Why is he refusing to talk to dairy producers at their annual conference? What does he have to hide?

[Conflict in Mali, February 5th, 2013]

Mr. Chair, my colleague put his finger on the problem when he said that ever since this government came to power in 2006, CIDA has really turned its back on Africa.

Would he not agree that ideology is what is behind all this? The Minister of International Cooperation himself has said and done things that fly directly in the face of what Canada has always done in the area of international aid, particularly in Africa and especially francophone Africa.

That is what is happening in Mali right now. I think we need to do more in tonight's debate than simply criticize this laxness. This is a clear, deliberate reflection of this government's ideology, as the Conservatives themselves have said. The Minister of International Cooperation has said so. They treat international aid as though they are doing business. Their priority should of course be to eliminate poverty. However, assistance to Mali at this time is woefully inadequate, probably because of the Conservative government's new ideology.

[Intergovernmental Affairs, February 1st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is sad to see that the minister is so unmoved by the disaster she herself has created.

The Premier of Quebec has been clear that she plans on initiating discussions on respecting Quebec's areas of jurisdiction, manpower training and the Criminal Code and on the firearms registry, Ottawa's funding for Churchill, protecting culture, and immigration authority.

Will the government use today's meeting to resolve these issues, or even some of them, and to clearly show that its so-called openness is not just a sham?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, February 1st, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the economy, the Conservatives' supposed priority, will be discussed today in Quebec City by the Prime Minister and the premier of Quebec. Premier Marois will specifically address employment insurance reforms, which are hitting families in all regions very hard. Quebec accounts for 40% of all seasonal workers because of its economy and geography.

Will the government show the openness it claims to have and agree to review its ideological reform of employment insurance?