Denis Lebel

[Forestry Industry, May 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows that the issue in the forestry industry is not access to credit, but the markets where we sell our products. In their press release last week, the people at Kruger said that market conditions were still quite unfavourable and that demand had dropped 30% in two years. That is the reason. We will continue to support the forestry industry, provide new programs for workers and work on new products. No one has ever helped the forestry industry as much as our government.

[Forestry Industry, May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, last week, in Abitibi, the regional director of Emploi-Québec and the director of the sectoral manpower centre said that the industry needed to diversify the products that it processes, improve marketing strategies and develop new markets.

Last week, in the Lower St. Lawrence region, they said, following a seminar, that the U.S. housing market recovery was a sign of better things to come and that the resurgence of markets would be beneficial. Bloc members are the only ones who do not understand. The problem with the forestry industry is that it sells less products. We are hoping that a new window of opportunity will help us sell more products.

[Forestry Industry, May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to reply to the member and to clarify things once again. EDC's vice-president responded to a question on loan guarantees. We have always talked about the financial services provided, which include accounts receivable insurance. As I already mentioned, that insurance accounts for 90% of EDC's support.

One should listen carefully. I have EDC's numbers before me. In 2008, it was $13.9 billion. We are talking about financial services provided to the Canadian forestry industry, including $8.9 billion in Quebec. We are not talking about loan guarantees.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

In the month of April, 108,000 jobs were created in Canada. We are on the way back to a stronger economy, which will allow our young people to have a future. They want jobs. We will continue to work to create jobs in all the regions of Quebec. I was happy to hear my colleague's comment, because in all the regions—Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Gaspe and Îles de la Madeleine, the North Shore, where I will be again next week—we are trying to help the whole community, including first nations who are going through difficult times with a population explosion.

I will add one more thing, in response to my colleague, on the long gun registry. In the eyes of those who live in large urban centres, the long gun registry is one thing. But it is a totally different thing in the eyes of those who live in all the regions of Quebec. I was saying the other day that hunters' associations throughout Quebec speak to me about this issue when I am in the regions and ask that we abolish the long gun registry. That is a fact. What my colleague just reported from the aboriginal affairs committee is not a unique or isolated occurrence. It is true in rural areas throughout Quebec. Obviously .410s, .22s and 12 gauge shotguns used for duck hunting are mostly found in rural areas of the province and the country, not in large urban centres. That is why people who live in rural areas, be they hunters, farmers or first nations, are the ones asking us to abolish the registry.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, my colleague, the Minister of the Environment, is proposing an approach with more specific targets. We will take action, as we have done since we arrived in 2006, unlike the ex-government party opposite, who, for 13 years, let greenhouse gas emissions increase by more than 30%. They did nothing. They signed agreements, but they did not follow through. We are going to continue to improve our targets and to work for the environment. Sustainable development really is one of our priorities.

I applaud the initiative of the Minister of Finance who, with his parliamentary secretary, continues to tour the country to listen to arguments and refine the jurisdictional details for pension funds.

It is important to remember that 90% of the country's pension funds are under provincial jurisdiction. Above all, we must not hurt businesses with our actions. People say that a company's pensioners must be put ahead of bank creditors, but we have to understand that, if the banks no longer lend money to those companies, they may well go into bankruptcy.

Studies are being done at the moment. We really have to see how the financial analysis—

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, this is a concrete example of the traditional and usual misinformation. It is all about politicizing and misinforming. The forestry issue has been turned into a political issue with the usual partners. Throughout this country, everybody knows the forestry issue is economic and not political. It will be turned into a governmental issue. Think about it. We are selling five times less lumber to our main economic partners, the Americans, because they are building less housing with lumber. Quebec exports 50% of its lumber, and 96% of these exports are going to the U.S. That country used to have over two million housing starts annually, but that number dropped to under 500,000 last year. You can make all sorts of political noise and talk to the media, but the truth is it is an economic issue.

In Quebec alone last year, this government announced $200 million for forest management and silviculture in order to prepare our forests for the future. That gave jobs to 8,000 forestry workers. Two weeks ago, we announced a $100 million commitment for forest communities in order to help diversify their economy for development projects. These commitments for a total of $300 million, from our department alone, are something the Bloc never managed in 20 years.

As to the automobile issues, Canada, the United States and Ontario signed an agreement in order to support an industry where all jobs would have been transferred to the U.S. At the request of the provinces and the forest industry, we signed an agreement with the Americans on the lumber trade. From 2000 to 2006, companies were paying countervailing duties of 30%. Thanks to the new agreement, duties have been lowered to 5% to 15%, depending on the choice made by the provinces. We have a signed agreement. Once again, that party is spreading false information and turning the issues into political ones.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Why do they attack all kinds of things that have nothing to do with their raison d'être? They are here for one reason and one reason alone: to destroy the very country that I want to serve.

How sad it must also be to fail to achieve any concrete results for the people of Quebec, who really need representatives who support them and help create jobs in their regions.

Twenty years ago, the Conservative government, which was open to Quebec, had a commendable goal with the Meech Lake accord.

I prefer people who are optimistic and who take action, over people who sit on the sidelines in lounge chairs to watch the parade go by and provide the commentary, saying this is wrong and that is not right, that we are making too much noise, and that we are doormats. That is very easy to do. So it was 20 years ago, which also coincides with the arrival in Ottawa of the Bloc, a party that is daily doing everything it can to destroy our country.

Generally at age 20, we take stock of that first part of our lives. We wonder what we will do in the coming years once we have grown up. We wonder what we could do differently to improve ourselves. It is important to take stock of what the Bloc has done for Quebeckers, the concrete actions it has taken and the results it has to show for those actions.

At the founding convention of the party, Lucien Bouchard said that the success of the Bloc would be measured by the brevity of its existence. He later added that the shorter their stay, the more successful their mission. That is what the Bloc's founder said.

The former Parti Québécois leader, Jacques Parizeau, said in 1993 that the more effective Bloc MPs are, the less time they will have to spend in Ottawa. In the same vein, the current Bloc leader said the following on the night he was elected in 1990:

It felt strange when I entered Parliament. I thought to myself, I must be the first person to enter this chamber hoping to leave as soon as possible.

In 1994, he added that no one elected in the Bloc wants to make a career out of it. On the eve of the 1997 election, he promised Quebeckers that if they elected the Bloc, it would not be for long.

The last time I checked, the hon. member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie is still the leader of the Bloc. He has been in the House of Commons for 20 years now.

Two decades have gone by and the Bloc is still here. I am sure the brevity of existence to which Mr. Bouchard alluded was not meant to be measured in decades. The arrival of the Bloc may have had merit in 1990. In 1990, the TV series Les filles de Caleb had just debuted and the captain of the Montreal Canadiens was Guy Carbonneau. In 2010, the Canadiens are still in the playoffs and the Bloc is still clinging to the idea that they were not going to be here for long, but they are still here.

In 20 years, Quebec has changed and grown, but the Bloc has not. Despite the fact that 63% of Quebeckers voted for a federalist party in the last election, the Bloc members believe that their outdated option of separating Quebec from Canada is still alive. Their leader can continue to dig in his heels, but that is of no help to Quebec.

Quebec's political power will not increase with more spectators, but with more MPs who can one day aspire to sit at the table where decisions are made.

I understand that the opposition has a role to play and that it is necessary, but still it must be constructive and work to build the country it claims to have been elected to defend, not to tear it down.

In fact, the Bloc has produced nothing for Quebeckers since it has held the majority of seats in Quebec. What is it doing with that majority? It has not achieved one promise, not one project. I challenge any Bloc member to rise in the House and tell us seriously, with a straight face, about a single project, a single job that has been created as a result of their work. Not only does the Bloc not deliver anything, but, and even worse, it does not prevent anything.

The fiscal imbalance started when there was a Bloc majority in Ottawa. That majority did not prevent the Liberals from robbing Canadians in the biggest political scandal in the history of Canada. We are still looking for the millions of dollars that were paid out on the backs of taxpayers. Nor did the Bloc prevent the Liberals from increasing greenhouse gas emissions by 33% above the Kyoto targets. It did not prevent the Liberals from infringing on provincial powers. Not only can the Bloc not achieve anything, it cannot prevent anything.

In September 2009, even the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin said, speaking of a Bloc member, that “everybody knows he cannot deliver”.

The Bloc members are not patting themselves on the back for having only four bills passed in the last 20 years. Four bills out of 272 that have received royal assent: three to change the names of electoral districts and one to create a commemorative holiday. During that time, in the ridings, we hear that they will be arguing for bills. Every election, they bring forth a list of bills and tell people they are going to get them passed and fix things. But in fact, after 20 years, it comes to four bills, three of which were to change the names of electoral districts, and one to create a commemorative holiday.

Nor are they patting themselves on the back for failing to keep the thousand promises they made during election campaigns and for getting over 40 people pensioned off from a system they want to destroy. In a nutshell, the only jobs the Bloc has succeeded in creating are their own.

The Bloc has become a true concrete block that is holding Quebec down, misinforming the public and looking for a fight at any cost. My colleagues opposite are the undefeated champions of whining. When we state our opinion, we are treated like less than nothing, as the many comments I hear every day attest.

Every day, we are reminded that they have been democratically elected. We have been too. If they want respect, I really think we should get some back.

They play armchair quarterback and are content to criticize, but to score goals, you have to get on the ice. By working together, we, the Conservatives members from Quebec, are promoting the interests of the Quebec nation in a united Canada. We have done more in four years than the Bloc has done in 20 years and than it will ever do. The Bloc offers sterile words and arguments. We offer results, and I am very sure we will continue to do that.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

We shall speak about securities shortly. One day they take advantage of international opinion, and the next day they reject it. This is what I usually hear in this place. With this pessimistic attitude, the Bloc members aim to stir up people’s emotions, to create feelings of anger or spite toward Canadians among citizens of the Quebec nation. It is always the same: Quebec against another province, the good guys against the bad guys, us against them—and their “us” is always very inclusive because they claim to be the only ones representing Quebeckers.

I come from a region where nationalism is very much a factor. I am very proud to be a nationalist. Indeed I was introduced as such by the Prime Minister when I entered this the House, and I will take no lessons in nationalism from anyone among the hon. members opposite. I am here for Quebec, for the regions of Quebec, and to stand up for what Quebec is. I do this while respecting the ideas of others. When others do not agree with me, I do not say that they are servile, that they are doormats, or anything like that. I enjoy debating respectful ideas that will move Canadian society forward. That is the choice I have made.

Today is forestry day in Quebec, when the use of wood has been officially recognized in Quebec, and we shall continue to work on economic files in all the regions of Quebec, and it is a pleasure for me to do so.

My Conservative colleagues and I are realists, people of action and vision, people who create results for Quebec. Of course, it is easier to carry the message when you have no objective and you do not have to manage the portfolio. We assume the difficult job of managing and directing to the best of our competence. If we had 49 members from Quebec in the government, the voice of Quebec would be that much stronger, I grant you that.

I hope that one day, to manage the country, my beautiful province will elect 40 or 50 representatives from the governing party, so that we can have even more influence. Obviously, Quebec needs an even stronger voice, and it is not by shouting from the bleachers and criticizing decisions that we will acquire it. I would prefer to sit down at the table where the decisions are made, so we can move things ahead.

Even when we recognized the Quebec nation, those people stood up and proclaimed it was a black day for Quebec. It had to be so. Whether it is a decision such as the decision to recognize the Quebec nation or the economic decisions we are making today, the members opposite vote against every element of Canada’s economic action plan, which has just proven its worth. Indeed, we are not wearing rose-coloured glasses when we say that the economy is recovering, gently and gradually. The battle has not yet been won. But we must work on the economy and on jobs, and we must build our children’s future. In my opinion, our children’s future is built by pooling our strengths, not by scattering them.

How sad it must be to always look for the negative side of things to get people worked up. Maybe it is easier, but personally I think it must be very hard to do every day. They are so short on arguments for their plan to separate that they have to resort to negative arguments like, “federalism is not working”.

On the weekend, an article by Dominique La Haye appeared in the Journal de Québec proclaiming: “Long live a sovereign Quebec!” That is the essence of what they want to represent here. So why do they bother meddling in the governance of this country every day and talk about defending prisoners who often attack our armed forces, instead of defending our armed forces?

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

The Bloc members like to say that federalism does not work and will never work. Indeed, at the end of their congress or meeting last weekend, we were reminded of their prime objective, which they very often forget. It is a pleasure for me today to remind my colleagues of the defeatist and pessimistic attitude that is so typical of these members opposite, who have been wasting the political power of Quebec in Ottawa for 20 years now.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to take the floor to respond to today’s arguments by the hon. members of the Bloc, who have been enjoying the immobile comfort of eternal opposition for 20 years now.