André Bellavance

[Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission, December 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for recognizing me on a point of order.

Earlier, during question period, the Minister of Labour gave an unsatisfactory answer.

In a letter addressed to the federal minister, the Quebec labour minister talked about the urgency of the situation in the following terms:

This bill would therefore establish a precedent that opposes the principles and administration of labour relations in Quebec and, according to some experts, would also constitute a violation of the division of powers in this area.

I seek the unanimous consent of the House for the following motion: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the taking of the deferred recorded divisions on the motion at report stage and at third reading of Bill C-377, An Act to amend the Income Tax Act (requirements for labour organizations) be deferred until after a meeting of the Minister of Labour of Canada and the Minister of Labour of Quebec.

[Labour, December 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, Quebec's labour minister is asking her federal counterpart to defer passage of Bill C-377. She has asked for a meeting in order to discuss this issue with the Minister of Labour because Quebec is concerned, with good cause, about this bill's repercussions on labour relations, which is her responsibility. Furthermore, Quebec already has legislation requiring unions and employers to be more transparent.

Does the minister intend to respond to the Quebec minister's letter, meet with her and ask the federal government to defer passage of Bill C-377?

[Sport, December 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, sport may well have evolved, but the same cannot always be said for mindsets.

One great example of that is the Canadian speed skating federation, which, instead of investing in developing a promising, well-known athlete, is forcing this athlete to make a choice: school or funding, but not both. Olympic gold medallist Mathieu Giroux is being deprived of precious training resources.

Does the Minister of State for Sport support this completely outdated approach? Will he intervene to ensure that athletes are able to pursue their studies without being penalized, or will he wash his hands of the situation, as Dimitri Soudas of the Canadian Olympic Committee did?

[Natural Resources, December 4th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, with respect to the Lower Churchill project, the Conservatives are trying to conceal unfair competition for Hydro-Québec under a patina of environmental concern. As if the Conservatives had any credibility in that area. The NDP is gullible enough to believe it.

No one in the government could have any doubts about the fierce opposition of the entire Quebec National Assembly, considering that Quebec's natural resources minister has specifically warned her Conservative counterpart.

How can the Minister of Natural Resources have the audacity to claim that he tried to come to some agreement, when there has been no doubt from the outset that federal funding goes against the economic interests of Quebec?

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, December 4th, 2012]

moved:

Motion No. 297

That Bill C-45, in Clause 223, be amended by deleting lines 16 to 26 on page 239.

[Natural Resources, November 30th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, despite the Government of Quebec's formal opposition and a unanimous motion in the National Assembly, Ottawa will be announcing several billion dollars in funding for the Lower Churchill hydroelectric project with great fanfare this afternoon. The federal government will be using Quebeckers' tax dollars to fund a project whose purpose is to compete with Hydro-Québec, yet Quebeckers had to pay for their power generation network themselves.

How can the government justify this unfair and inequitable funding that is against the economic interests of the Quebec nation and constitutes nothing less than unfair competition for Hydro-Québec?

[Health, November 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, while negotiations surrounding the Canada-Europe free trade agreement are going on behind closed doors, as of next week and with just as little transparency, the government plans to get involved in another round of negotiations on a trans-Pacific partnership agreement. Quebec's beef and pork producers are being left out in the cold since Europe systematically closed its market to them, as Marcel Groleau, president of the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec, pointed out.

Can the Minister of International Trade guarantee that these agreements will strengthen agricultural exporters' access to foreign markets, as stipulated in the Bloc Québécois's motion that was unanimously adopted here in the House in 2005?

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, November 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question, which gives me an opportunity to reiterate what I said at the very beginning of my speech. She is entirely correct. There are very important measures in Bill C-45, as there are in any other bill.

If she has heard the things I have said in the past, she knows that I nearly always say there are never just bad measures or good measures in a bill. This is why it is so important that the government split these bills, particularly when we know that there are measures that are very important to Quebec, as she so rightly said. That is how we make sure that we talk about registered savings plans or tax measures in a bill that concerns those subjects.

Bill C-45 is a catch-all that contains an unending series of measures. It is 400 or 500 pages long and deals with 70 bills that have nothing in common, be it the environment, employment insurance or taxation. It never ends. About the only thing not included in this bill is the justice system.

What we are telling the government, over and over, is that we have to split these measures. Why did we do this when the issue was members’ pensions, when everyone was in agreement? The government agreed to remove that idea from the bill so we could vote on it separately, probably because, from a political perspective, it looked good. We cut our pensions and members were unanimous on that. It worked well and it went quickly.

If the government can do that for issues that affect members, I do not see why it would not do it for issues that are very important to Quebec and the other provinces.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, November 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I have sat in the House for a long time, so I speak as a veteran, and I have always been flabbergasted at the Conservative government’s disdain for science and technology. There are blatant examples of this, including the cuts in my colleague’s riding that he spoke about.

The leader of the Bloc Québécois recently visited Chicoutimi, and the people there had much to say to him about how we had brought the House’s attention to the cuts the government wants to make to the Aluminum Technology Centre. For the Cascades company, in my riding, research and development is the driving force. In the Chicoutimi region, what is now called the City of Saguenay, research and development in connection with aluminum is obviously very important.

These days, when we have a growing need for research, development and the contribution that scientists make to finding new, more effective approaches, if the government makes cuts like these, as I was just saying, it amounts to standing on the head of a person whose head is barely above water.

[Jobs and Growth Act, 2012, November 29th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my Bloc Québécois colleague who just spoke. Obviously, it is extremely important to speak on behalf of Quebeckers here in Ottawa. That is what we intend to do, that is what we have been doing for some time now, and that is what we will do with regard to this bill by introducing specific amendments that affect Quebec in particular.

These amendments also affect other regions. Employment insurance is not exclusive to Quebec. However, my colleague who just spoke gave examples of problems with regard to tourism and agriculture in his region. These types of problems exist throughout Quebec. They also exist in my riding. I will speak about them a little bit later in my speech.

We have presented substantive amendments to emphasize the importance of preserving Quebec's assets. The government wants to make cuts to those assets, by introducing an omnibus bill. We do not understand why the government does not agree to split up this omnibus bill, which the media refer to as a mammoth bill. This has now become the way to describe the Conservative Party's bills. First we had Bill C-38 and now we have Bill C-45.

The countless pages of the bill are flooded with a host of measures that, in the end, will have drastic effects on the everyday lives of Canadians, but people will not find about those effects until later because we do not have time to debate this bill. The government is imposing gag orders. The Conservatives have now imposed about 30 gag orders on bills. Unfortunately, I expect that there will be another one for Bill C-45, and we are lucky to have a chance to speak before that happens.

As a result of these gag orders, parliamentarians are not able to properly debate this type of bill and are being muzzled in committee. A little while ago, I learned from a Liberal colleague that the NDP had accepted or overlooked the time allocation motion. When that happens, the amendments proposed by the other parties are not debated in committee.

Clearly, there is a problem with regard to democracy in this Parliament. This problem is exacerbated by the attitude of the Conservatives, who refuse to present reforms one at a time so that members can debate them properly and vote on them. Whether we agree or disagree, I respect members' decisions because that is democracy. However, we have to be able to have a minimum amount of debate and make Canadians aware of what is happening.

Mr. Speaker, everyone here is an MP, including you. Many people are coming to my riding office to talk about the changes to employment insurance. We are learning more about these changes every day. Why? Because we did not have a proper debate about them in this place. The minister and the government simply refused to split the omnibus bill, in order to create a separate, proper bill that we could debate properly.

Therefore, we are proposing a series of amendments so that we can at least discuss some of the issues. I hope that the parties, and especially the government, will listen to reason and accept these amendments.

My colleague just spoke about research and development. Members are also talking about amendments that affect employment insurance, the environment and labour standards. I proposed an amendment concerning research and development because in Bill C-45 the government has decided to decrease its support from 65% to 55%. That is a substantial decrease in research and development tax credits. Naturally, this will affect investments in the manufacturing and forestry sectors by Quebec businesses.

We know what this Conservative government did to the forestry sector, even though the Minister of Transport is from Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, in the Roberval area, where forestry is vitally important. During the recession that began in 2008, this government favoured Ontario's automotive industry. I am not saying that it should not have. However, billions of dollars were poured into the auto industry while Quebec's forestry industry received peanuts.

Now, the government has introduced an omnibus bill that cuts research and development. We know just how important R&D is for the forestry industry. The government's initial response to the problems in the forestry industry was unfair. Now, it is compounding the problems.

My region, which covers a large part of central Quebec and the Eastern Townships, has a forestry industry and many small and medium-sized businesses. There are also big businesses such as Cascades, in Kingsey Falls, which employs more than 2,000 people in Quebec, the United States and Europe.

It has been in the recycling business since 1964. It makes cardboard, paper, and so on. Pretty much everyone has, at some point, used a Cascades product. Obviously, research and development are the lifeblood of this kind of manufacturing business. The government will probably say that this is not a very big cut, but tax credits are extremely important for the growth of businesses in the sustainable development sector, extraordinary job-creating businesses like Cascades. This is a harsh blow, particularly at a time when the Canadian dollar is so high.

Again, the government will probably say that this is not its responsibility, but when everyone is struggling with the effects of an economic crisis—such as the high-flying loonie—the government has no business trying to drown companies that are managing to keep their heads above water. I am not talking about Cascades. I am talking about all of the companies whose research and development over the years have made them what they are today.

That is especially true for Quebec, and that is why we proposed this amendment. I hope that everyone will consider this matter carefully before agreeing to these cuts. The government is being penny-wise and pound foolish when it should be doing the opposite. It still does not get that investing in research and development pays off. I do not understand how a government that claims to be so focused on the economy can propose measures as unfair as those in Bill C-45.

Some members talked about employment insurance. My Bloc Québécois colleague discussed it in some detail, but I would like to reiterate the importance of protecting what we have. I am not talking about wanting to collect employment insurance. I am talking about making sure that people working for businesses in the tourism and agricultural sectors can do what everyone wants to do, which is keep working close to home. Are the people making these decisions from major urban centres exclusively? It certainly seems that way. Employment insurance affects them too, but the new measures will primarily affect the regions.

I do not think this is what we should do, but in Switzerland, farmers are paid to leave sheep in the fields, not because they are raising sheep and producing wool, but because tourists like seeing sheep in the fields. I am not saying this is what we should do, but some places are aware of the importance of land use.

My colleague spoke about the Gaspé. My father comes from a municipality in his riding, Causapscal. He was born in agricultural area where there is a lot of tourism. As the member pointed out, winter comes every year and there is a period during which seasonal businesses unfortunately do not operate. But as soon as tourist season returns, people line up to take in the beautiful landscapes and all that these regions have to offer tourists.

We have a choice to make: do we want to shut down these regions and ensure that there are no skilled workers able to work there, or do we want to adjust the employment insurance program so that it is fairer to everyone and so that we can protect these jobs that are so important to keeping the regions going? If we shut down these regions, everyone will end up in big cities and major centres, and then we will definitely have a problem with employment insurance.

I wanted to talk about other amendments, but I urge my colleagues in the House of Commons to examine the important amendments very carefully. If we are stuck with Bill C-45 because this is a majority government, we could at least make amendments to improve it before it is passed.