André Bellavance

[Business of Supply, February 16th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I share the emotions felt by the hon. member who just spoke and the previous member. I thank them for sharing their personal experiences with such dignity. When I was first elected to the House, I was a member of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, where we heard a great deal of moving and alarming evidence.

I think it is absolutely appalling that we still need to move such a motion in 2012, and I congratulate the hon. member for doing so. I do not understand why the government cannot set aside its ideology, and its propensity to do everything based on that ideology, and do something immediately to fix this problem. The Bloc Québécois introduced Bill C-599 on this same problem.

Why is it that services, including education, are still capped at 2%, as they have been since 1996? This is appalling and must be corrected. What are the member's thoughts on this?

[Financial System Review Act, February 14th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons should be ashamed of himself for saying such things in the House. He says that economic chaos will ensue because opposition members want to talk about bills. Honestly.

Time allocation motions are not a new thing. I did some research and found an essay written by Yves Yvon J. Pelletier of the Institute on Governance in 2000 entitled “Time Allocation in the House of Commons: Silencing Parliamentary Democracy or Effective Time Management?” Of course this is the subject of some debate. Nowhere in the essay did the author talk about any other government using time allocation nearly as frequently as the current Conservative government is using it, which is virtually weekly.

I have an interesting quotation from 1956. A Conservative member said: “The...House of Commons has been gagged and fettered in this debate by a despotic government.” That was a Conservative member talking about the Liberal government in 1956. Those dark days have come again. It is a disgrace.

[Employment Insurance, February 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives claim that job creation is a priority for them. Perhaps it is also time they started caring about those who have lost their jobs. Maybe then they would realize that the unemployment rate is on the rise in Quebec, as the Mouvement autonome et solidaire des sans-emploi knows, and that nearly 40% of EI applications are taking two to three times longer to be processed than expected. This is affecting everyone. Every MP in every party has cases like this in their offices.

What is the government waiting for to fix this short-sighted management, which is leaving thousands of Quebec families that need financial support in the lurch for months? This is insurance; people pay in and they are entitled to receive it. What is the government doing?

[Taxation, February 10th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, clearly, the Conservatives are not prepared to require the Governor General to obey the same rules as everyone else. The Bloc Québécois's idea to subject the Governor General to the Income Tax Act seems very complicated to the Minister of Industry, who feels this should be done only in consultation with the Queen's representative himself. Yet, did the Conservatives consult seniors before proposing pension reform? Did they consult Quebec before depriving it of the data in the firearms registry? Did they consult taxpayers before spending millions of dollars to celebrate the Queen?

My question is simple: does the Minister of Finance intend to make the Governor General subject to the Income Tax Act like everyone else?

[Business of Supply, February 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the very least we can say about this government, when it comes to the economy, is that it has shown neither prudence nor foresight regarding the economic crisis, since the Minister of Finance was the last person in Canada to realize and admit that an economic crisis had hit Canada. We are still grappling with this economic crisis despite the rhetoric we just heard from my colleague. I listened to him closely. Believe it or not, he spoke very highly of foreign investors—he sung their praises.

I would like to ask him how these foreign investments benefited the employees of Electrolux, a Swedish company—foreign investments? They pulled up stakes here and went to Nashville because that city offered them better conditions. Even in his own region, Chaudière—Appalaches, 100 jobs were lost at J. M. Smucker, the jam producer. My colleague from Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean also mentioned that businesses are closing their doors. Thousands of jobs have been lost.

What is this government doing apart from announcing cutbacks to the tune of $8 billion?

[Ending the Long-Gun Registry Act, February 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member who just spoke what he thinks of the fact that the Bloc Québécois had to present amendments, including one that conveyed exactly what Quebec's National Assembly wanted. The request came not just from some of the members, but from three ministers who specifically asked the Conservative government to let the Government of Quebec use the information that belongs to the people. After all, Quebeckers contributed some of their own tax dollars to pay for the gun registry. The only thing Quebec wants—and I am talking about the whole province—is access to the information so that the province's police forces can use it wisely.

Why is the government denying that request and refusing to vote in favour of the Bloc Québécois's amendment, which will be put to the House this evening?

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, February 7th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, time allocation should be the exception, not the rule, in this House. If there were a question of national security or an entire Canadian sector dealing with a devastating economic crisis, we would come to an agreement in the House to cut off debate for a specific reason. However, the government is simply making up excuses. It has moved nearly 20 time allocation motions, even though the House just recently resumed. It is completely unacceptable.

Not only are the opposition members of the House being scorned, but so are Quebeckers. Three Quebec ministers came to Ottawa to comment on Bill C-19, specifically to ask the federal government not to destroy the data. The Government of Quebec has made a formal request and we have not finished debating this issue. However, the federal government refuses to listen. What is so urgent that the government will not listen to anyone—neither parliamentarians nor provincial governments—debate this issue?

[Quebec Ice Wine, February 3rd, 2012]

Madam Speaker, once again, the federal government is creating obstacles for agricultural producers from Quebec, with standards that penalize them and favour their counterparts from other provinces. Without bothering to notify stakeholders or the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agri-Food, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency declared that the Quebec method of producing ice wine prohibits Quebec wineries from using the “ice wine” appellation. Yet, this method, which is used because of the climate, is recognized by the Government of Quebec and the International Organization of Vine and Wine.

Representatives of the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Agri-Food confirmed In La Presse that this method in no way affects the quality of the product, as demonstrated by the international awards Quebec ice wines have won recently. The 70 or so vineyards in Quebec are not second-class vineyards. The Canadian government must recognize their method and let consumers judge the quality of the best ice wine in Canada: Quebec ice wine.

[Natural Resources, February 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Natural Resources is upset that the Americans have rejected the Keystone XL pipeline project and is now trying to promote the Portland-Montreal pipeline project, calling it fantastic and confirming his government's intention to shorten the assessment process as much as possible. Reversing the flow in this old pipeline could have serious consequences for the environment and people's health.

Rather than promoting a project that will export oil from the oil sands, why does the minister not respect the wishes of the elected officials and the people of the Eastern Townships and Montérégie, who oppose the project?

[Pooled Registered Pension Plans Act, January 31st, 2012]

Madam Speaker, the thing that surprises me today is not the fact that the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and his government are moving closure in this Parliament for the 14th time. That does not surprise me because they have already made such a mockery of democracy here in this House. I am surprised that the Conservative government has not decided to shut down Parliament. The government House leader keeps saying they were given a mandate in the last election. They did indeed win that election, but does that give the Conservative government a blank cheque? Get real.

Roughly 38% of the people voted for the Conservative Party, but many others did not. We are meant to have discussions in Parliament. We are meant to have discussions and hold debates in committees. We represent the entire population, those who voted and those who did not, and those who were not in Canada during the election. Regardless of what they did, whether they voted for the Conservatives or not, we owe it to the public to hold debates on important matters here in Parliament. I wonder where the government House leader gets the idea that they were given a blank cheque during the last election. He is misleading the House and the public when he says that.