Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to this issue. I would like to thank my colleague who moved the motion today.
It feels a little like Groundhog Day with this motion. I was listening earlier to the speech by my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou, as well as the speeches from my other colleagues. Basically, this motion could be called “Canada is not doing enough for the less fortunate” or “Canada is turning its back on a bunch of people”. That pretty much sums it up. We would not need this motion today if Canada were doing enough for people with disabilities. Today, we are talking about children with disabilities.
I have often spoken on various issues. I have just returned from a tour all over Quebec. I visited all of Quebec's regions this summer, including Abitibi, Gaspé, Lac-Saint-Jean, the Eastern Townships, Montreal and Gatineau. Every region is facing extremely difficult situations. According to a recent report by the Quebec government, there are 10,000 homeless people in Quebec. How can we accept that? Winter is coming, and those people are going to be left to live outside. Some of them will die because of our inaction and our lack of commitment to the least fortunate in our society. I do not know how anyone can accept that.
We do a lot of debating in the House and all sorts of bills are introduced, but sometimes I get the impression that we are not making any progress. This motion is a sad reminder of that. We are talking about children with disabilities, and earlier I spoke about homelessness, but we can also talk about housing. The government is aware of the statistics. Everyone here is talking about them. The housing crisis was the major theme of the summer. Canada needs 3.5 million housing units to address this crisis. The numbers are astronomical. That is related to the issue we are considering now. We need a national plan so we can take care of the most vulnerable members of our society.
We need 1.1 million housing units in Quebec. We should stop everything and discuss just that, especially with winter on the way. What are we going to do about it? We need an industrial plan. We need measures that are just as broad as those that were proposed at the beginning of the pandemic. We stopped everything. I remember one evening when we adopted an $82-billion plan that involved sending cheques to everyone across the country to help industries, workers and individuals pay their rent. We stopped everything to deal with that crisis. We are in a major crisis right now that is at least as serious, but we are not dealing with it. We are not doing enough. I cannot understand it.
I will never be as moving as my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou in discussing these issues. However, I have some relevant personal experience. One of my nephews has Asperger syndrome. He is 33 now, and has spent the past 20 years or so in his room, playing video games. Now and then he comes downstairs to get a glass of juice or milk from the refrigerator, a sandwich or a cookie, then goes back upstairs to his room. He never speaks to anyone. What could be more devastating for a parent than to think their child will never have a social life or friends?
I had an experience that ties in with the motion we are considering today. When my son was in kindergarten, he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Alarm bells go off in a parent's mind. My nephew had already been going through this for 20 years and I know that he had a very difficult life. He had no friends. It was hard for him to get to school, to go outside or even have a simple conversation with someone. It was the school psychologist who told us that my son might have this disorder. It is thanks to him that a light went off in our heads, but then we needed to find a clinic to get a proper diagnosis so that the school psychologists and professionals could offer him good care to help him learn.
Members can imagine our panic. I remember living in that reality for a year. We looked for a specialist but could not find one. How is it that, in this country, people cannot get the services they need for their children?
This ties in with a story that ran on television this week. It featured a young, single mother who has two children with disabilities. She, too, was unable to find the services to simply have her children diagnosed. It is an uphill battle. What exactly do we mean when we are talking about this? How can we take action?
Health is a provincial jurisdiction. My colleague from Beauport—Limoilou mentioned that. Why is it that, in the negotiations a few months ago, the provinces were asking for $6 billion, but Quebec did not even get $1 billion? It is as though it is not important. Who is getting let down when this happens? Who is not getting taken care of when Quebec gets a cheque for a measly $800 million, when there is need for $6 billion? All of the Canadian provinces were in agreement. Everyone was asking for it. All the provinces were asking the same thing. As my colleague just mentioned, the government gives to oil companies. This country refuses to put a roof over the heads of the most disadvantaged. A single mother is denied the support she needs to have her children diagnosed. What are we doing instead?
According to the International Monetary Fund, $50 billion was invested in the oil industry in 2022. How can that even be? I would remind the House that, in 2022, the five big oil companies cleared $220 billion. In other words, Canada is making billionaires richer, but doing nothing for 10,000 homeless people in Quebec. It is doing nothing for parents who are worried sick about the future of their children who have all kinds of problems. People talked about the autism spectrum and children with a visual or physical disability. These are tragedies. These are not easy lives. These people need support. As a country, do we not have the means to help all these people? Do we want to make other choices, such as enriching billionaires instead of supporting our society's least fortunate? I simply will not accept that. I want us all to be aware of the real issues. Instead of looking up at the billionaires, we need to look down where the needs are.
For example, we also need housing units that are adapted for adults with disabilities. We were talking about the needs of children, but children become adults. In my riding, there is a wonderful housing resource for adults with intellectual disabilities. It is called L'appart à moi and it consists of six amazing housing units. In the basement, there is a shared kitchen where people can meet up. They gather, they hold meetings, they organize activities and they go on outings. In the spring, they even came here to Parliament. I brought the people from L'appart à moi to Parliament. I am talking in particular about Étienne Grutman, who follows politics and spends his time liking my posts on Facebook. Perhaps he is watching right now. I want Étienne to know that we are going to work here in the House to make sure that all of the people like him across Quebec and Canada have access to a resource like L'appart à moi. We will never stop. I promise him that. We will not stop until we fulfill our promise to work for the less fortunate, the most vulnerable and the marginalized, the only promise that should be important, the only lasting promise, the only promise that should guide us. This motion talks about exactly that.
I thank my colleague for moving this motion. I promise him that the Bloc Québécois will support it and that we will never give up the fight for the less fortunate in Quebec and Canada.
