Denis Coderre

[Points of Order, November 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I have heard that talking about fruit is unparliamentary. I did not want to compare apples and oranges, so I chose to speak about blueberries and lemons instead.

[Champlain Bridge, November 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I asked for a blueberry and got a lemon. I wanted to know what was going on.

The problem is that a decision could have been made on January 6, but we had to wait until October to find out what was going on. Even people at Delcan are saying that it makes no sense and that the bridge could collapse. We have waited all this time and we do not know if the bridge will last another 10 years.

Instead of having to one day appear before a commission of inquiry into the collapse of the Champlain Bridge, could the government table the inspection reports? People are crossing that bridge. Instead of hearing what the minister will say, we want to know whether the bridge is safe.

[Champlain Bridge, November 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Bleuet, the minister from the Lac St. Jean region, known for its blueberries.

Today the papers are reporting that officials have known since December 15 that the Champlain Bridge was a safety hazard and that it could collapse. We could have expected officials at Transport Canada to get together as early as January 6 to find a solution. Instead, the government tried to cover its behind and have the blues pages handy to respond in case of a leak.

What did this government hide? When will it tell the truth about the safety of the Champlain Bridge? We want to know.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, November 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, earlier today, we heard the Conservatives playing up the issue of their majority, even though we know that the vast majority of Canadians did not vote for them. What is even more appalling is that destroying this data will set back our culture of protecting people when it comes to firearms. I wonder if my hon. colleague could talk about the importance of keeping the data so that the other provinces, like Quebec, can create their own registries, unless they too are stuck with a Conservative government.

[Justice, November 1st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, Jean-Marc Fournier, who speaks on behalf of Quebec, the National Assembly of Quebec, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse, and the Association des centres jeunesse du Québec have said loud and clear that they do not want this automatic imprisonment system. They have also said that Quebec is not prepared to pay for it.

Given that the Minister of Public Safety misled the House when he said that all the provinces support this bill, what is the government waiting for to scrap the bill and do its homework?

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am trying to understand. I asked you a question. Are we talking about asbestos or forestry today? Is this NDP opposition day on the impact of chrysotile asbestos or something else? We will have to adjust our speeches. I just want to know whether we are talking about forestry or asbestos today.

[Business of Supply, October 31st, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, my English comprehension is starting to improve. I do not think forestry has anything to do with asbestos. Can we hear at the wording of today's opposition motion? Are we talking about asbestos or forestry? I will have to adjust my speech accordingly. There is something that does not add up today.

[Infrastructure, October 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, to begin, I would like to congratulate you on reading the motion entirely in French. Bravo. If the position of Auditor General is still available, I am sure you would meet the bilingualism criterion. Congratulations, Mr. Speaker.

I listened to my NDP and Conservative friends speak. I have been here for 15 years and everyone naturally tries to take some credit: because of me, it was me, my government is better than yours, the mean provincial governments led by opposing parties, it is terrible. In reality, Canadians, Quebeckers and people in Montreal, in my riding, need infrastructure renewal. That is the reality.

I could have said that in 1993, when the Liberals came to power and inherited a $42 billion deficit from the Conservatives, we decided to invest heavily and create what is now known as the infrastructure program. I could have spoken about that, but I want to look to the future. I do not want to look to the past.

We have clearly always wanted investment in infrastructure. I think that in 2007, there was a minority government. Yes, that is right. A majority was needed, and the Conservative Party did not have enough elected members. So I imagine that all parliamentarians—at any rate, those in the Liberal Party—voted with the government because it was important to invest in infrastructure for the people.

However, this is 2011. We are now faced with a certain reality. Every time we have gone through a recession, infrastructure has been the basic economic building block, not only to improve people's quality of life, but also to create jobs. It is a vital partnership program. While respecting all jurisdictions, we must ensure that the Canadian government acts as a facilitator, taking the needs of municipalities and provincial control into account, and that it invests the money needed to meet the needs of Canadians.

We are in favour of this motion. Of course, we have been talking about the Champlain Bridge for quite some time. I have been talking about it for quite some time. We talked about it during the last election campaign. The announcement has finally come. I do not know who will cut the ribbon, but we need a new Champlain Bridge. In the meantime, along with the original announcement, we also definitely need to know what will happen to the existing bridge. The government has always refused to hand over the inspection reports. If you talk to engineers, read the studies and follow the news, you know that the bridge is in bad shape. When engineers tell me not to drive at the edge when crossing the Champlain Bridge, but rather to stay in the middle, that is serious. I would really like to believe that a bridge will be built within the next 10 years, but that means we have to continue using the existing bridge for nearly 10 years. We therefore need to have the straight goods on the condition of the bridge.

Clearly, we need to find a new way of doing things. As a Montrealer, I think the municipalities are the key to the future of this country. So we need to have a new partnership.

We need a new deal with municipalities, a deal that will have a balanced approach with the rural and the urban, a deal where we will be able to ensure that we have a true diversity for those who have a car, or for those who have a bicycle, or for public transit. Public transit does not just mean buses; it also means trains. We need a rail policy between the cities.

We can talk about HSR in the Quebec-Windsor corridor. We can talk about basic infrastructure, whether interprovincial or between Canada and the United States. But very definitely, infrastructure is the future. The basic policy of a government, both for the economy and for quality of life, depends on its infrastructure. We have to protect the existing infrastructure while ensuring that we are able to build more. And this motion meets that need well. What we like about this motion is that it is all about diversity. It does not talk only about rural and urban, it also talks about aboriginal communities, the first nations, the Inuit and the Métis.

I am a former minister of sport. I remember that when we created the infrastructure program, there were three components. Component 3 was particularly important, to my mind, because it was a way of being able to invest in sports or recreation and tourism infrastructure. Infrastructure also serves as a prevention and development tool. An arena was built in Iqaluit, where there were young people with problems. The sports infrastructure improved the young people’s self-esteem, with the result that people like Joé Juneau in Kuujjuaq are creating programs for youth. This infrastructure means that we can restore young people’s dignity.

That is good both for the environment and for the quality of life in municipalities. It is an important development tool for our own people. We have a motion and we have a Conservative government. The member for LaSalle—Émard is going to be a bit disappointed, because she got a little handshake from the Conservative member opposite who said the blues were going to vote against it. But it is important that we keep talking about it. Yesterday, we talked with the member for Trinity—Spadina about her private member’s bill on public transit.

Today, we are talking about infrastructure. At the transport committee, we are doing a study of a national public transit strategy. Except now, we can no longer separate a national public transit strategy from infrastructure. We have to have a strategy that includes both these aspects. In terms of governance and funding, it is essential that any public policy take both these aspects into account; one will not work without the other.

We agree with the funding measures. Mr. Martin, who was the prime minister at the time, is the one who first put forward, in cooperation with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, the idea of putting a tax on gasoline that would be given to the municipalities for funding. The current government made this gas funding permanent. We must look at new funding methods. If the municipalities are telling us that this tax is no longer sufficient, we must find more money. If this money currently serves only to maintain existing infrastructure and we want to build more infrastructure, we will have to find money somewhere else.

We must look at indexing and see if we can find additional funds in the current gasoline excise tax. An additional tax does not mean an additional tax for the Canadian public. It means that we will take an additional amount and send it to the municipalities. We will no longer have any choice, and we all agree that such is the case.

First, a public-private partnership is imperative if we have smart regulations and the right type of support. It is not additional bureaucracy. Our role is to ensure that people have a decent quality of life and, as a result, it is up to us to provide the framework. Second, the Liberal Party has always advocated for a fund devoted to infrastructure. We therefore need an amount of money that is stable in the long term. Given the fragile state of the world economy and our fairly high level of debt, we must immediately start investing more in infrastructure. It is basic economics. Thus, we must set up a fund devoted to infrastructure.

And so, we will support this motion. This is an important debate. We do not agree with what the government has said. We recognize that investments have been made thanks to the efforts of all parliamentarians, but now we must move forward. We support the motion of the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard.

[Ending the Long-gun Registry Act, October 27th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, it is always difficult to have a discussion with people who think that what they are saying is right and true, and whatever anyone else says is wrong or is false. I will not fall for that ideology.

I have friends who are hunters. No one is attacking hunters. We are talking about protecting human life by ensuring that weapons are registered. We need licences to drive our cars. When people go hunting by boat, they need a licence. So it is only normal to have to have a licence for a firearm.

Now, what is even worse is that I can already hear the shredders. Not only are they going to scrap the firearms registry, but they also want to shred and destroy the registry. The people of Quebec want the registry. The Quebec government wants to have that information to create its own registry.

If the government respects people so much, why are the people of Quebec not entitled to respect so that Quebec can create its own registry? In the meantime, in spite of the Conservative cult, we will take care of our own affairs in Quebec.

[National Public Transit Strategy Act, October 26th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, this fits in with the work currently being done by the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities where we have come face to face with the reality. Canada does not have a national public transit strategy. The population is getting older. There are environmental considerations. We must work on improving coordination between all levels of government. We have made huge investments in infrastructure. Therefore, we obviously need a national public transit strategy.

Despite what the government says, and because I am from Quebec, I respect areas of jurisdiction, everyone knows that. We must ensure that jurisdictions are respected when we look at implementing a strategy. Basically, this bill calls for and would result in coordination. This complementarity would be achieved by holding a federal-provincial-territorial conference. It does not mean that we will do the work of the others involved. The principle of Quebec as a nation is recognized in clause 3, but the purpose is to ensure that we will all be able to work together. The same taxpayer is footing the bill, but today we can see that the money should perhaps be better spent. For that reason, we in the Liberal Party will vote in favour of this private member's bill.

When in power, the Liberal Party always invested heavily in infrastructure. I remember that, when I was a minister, we looked at public transit issues. In 2011, we can see what is happening in the municipalities. We have met on several occasions with representatives of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the mayors come to see us. We need to work on this file. I went to see the people at the Fédération québécoise des municipalités a few weeks ago. It is a top priority.

The bill clearly states—and it does not mention money—that the government is not being asked to pay for things; the government, through the minister, is being asked to establish a strategy that would look into with funding mechanisms.

Everyone will try to take credit for it. We will commend Paul Martin, in particular, the first prime minister to address the situation by having the gas tax redirected to municipalities. The measure was subsequently made permanent and we support that. However, municipalities are telling us that this money is used for other things, that mass transit is necessary, and that the money must be found somewhere else.

Should we index this gas tax? Out of all the federal excise taxes, should we eventually take an additional sum from the gas tax and send it to the municipalities? That is the type of question we should be addressing when we talk about coordination and a federal-provincial-territorial conference. We really have no problem with that.

The word “national” might get some people excited—the Quebec nation or the Canadian nation? We will not get into the constitutional arguments today, but we will ensure that the jurisdictions are respected.

The Canadian and Quebec reality is that the municipalities are the key to the future. The role of government, of Parliament, is to protect people's quality of life and make sure we can improve it.

When we talk about a national strategy, Canada is not one size fits all. We have to ensure that the rural and urban municipalities are covered. We need to ensure that if we are talking about quality of life, helping seniors, youth and workers, that we do not have a one size fits all. A national strategy does not mean that we apply the same thing everywhere. It means that the country respects all the regional specificities in a common goal. That is what a national strategy should be. That is why we should take a look at this.

We should talk about the technology. We have to ensure that we use natural gas, electricity and new ways for public transportation. The bottom line is the environment, to protect our country and planet and public transit has a major impact on greenhouse gases.

We know that the Conservatives do not have a national strategic vision, but let us not be partisan. We are already working on this in the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities. I imagine that the government and its majority has just taken a bite out of the hon. member's ambitions for a good bill. We will carry on at report stage in the transport committee. A report from transport—that rhymes; I am such a poet today.

However, we will have to address another matter. Governance is one thing, but there has to be complementarity along with respect for each jurisdiction. The bill does not mention funding, but we should talk about it. The Liberal Party believes it is not just a public issue. This has been brought up in the transport committee. We have to turn to the private sector as well. We can have a public-private partnership, with rules to ensure security. We have to define what is meant by developers and by partnership with the private sector. In any event, the money all comes out of the same pocket.

This bill talks about strategy and therefore about partnership. Partnerships are not just about governance; they also involve economic considerations. If all the players could be gathered around the same table, we would be in a position to improve Canadians' quality of life.

We somewhat jokingly say that just because something is laughable does not mean that it is funny. We celebrated Car Free Day in Montreal. There may have been an orange wave, but there are certainly a lot of orange traffic cones in Montreal. Car Free Day lasted for a number of weeks this summer. The issue of traffic congestion must also be addressed. An investment in public transit is one way to deal with this problem but all the other methods of transportation must also be considered. The car is not our enemy. It is necessary in some circumstances. There is also the bicycle. We can give ourselves the tools and means to develop a broader strategy.

It is true that we have to think about governance, funding, partnerships and other methods of funding, but what is even more important is to inspire the public and give people hope. All the major cities in the world and all the G8 countries, currently have a strategy, except Canada. We have been addressing problems one by one, but we need to improve coordination and find a better way of doing things.

When we discuss a national public transit strategy, it will be essential that we do not take a piecemeal approach. We must consider the future of our infrastructure and think about the next 20 years. We must ensure that the existing infrastructure is adequate, but we must also consider other types of infrastructure. I am thinking here about high-speed trains, for example in the Quebec City to Windsor corridor, and light rail. When we build bridges, we must ensure that lanes are reserved for public transit.

We will enthusiastically support this bill. There are still holes, but we are here to do our job. We will have suggestions to make. We hope that everyone will take a non-partisan approach and support this bill.