Denis Trudel

[Committees of the House, June 15th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate the tone of the debate in the past hour. I find that the report contains good recommendations. The focus is clearly on the victims, and that is really important.

The problem is that the report was brought up this morning when we were supposed to be talking about something else. That has been happening a lot in recent weeks and months in the House. We are behind in much of our work. There are always distractions. There are always attempts to obstruct our debates. For that reason, we will be working until midnight until June 23. Important bills were supposed to be passed, but may not be before we adjourn for the summer.

I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about the partisan game that has been going on between the Conservatives and the Liberals since the beginning of the session.

[Committees of the House, June 15th, 2023]

I have some concerns this morning, Madam Speaker. I am listening to the debate and I am wondering whether this endless back and forth, filibustering, delaying debate, moving motions and tabling reports really benefits our democracy in any way. I do not know whether our democracy really benefits from the never-ending struggle between the Liberals and the Conservatives about who is going to win the procedural battle of the day and who is going to make the headlines by wasting the others' time.

I do not know. I am rather fed up with hearing, seeing and witnessing all of this. I thought that we were here to debate bills. I thought that we were here to advance democracy. I find this really sad.

It is not that I think the current motion is not important or worthwhile. However, it is giving rise to debates that are keeping us here until midnight every night until the House rises for the summer because so much time has been wasted on all this procedural wrangling over the past six months. I find that extremely unfortunate.

I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders, June 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I will calm down now.

In fact, I am a bit of a rookie in the House, a rookie in that it has been four years. I was here in 2019, but the pandemic hit soon after. We went back home and sat via Zoom. We returned roughly a year ago.

Honestly, when we are here in the House, that is when I resolve problems the most, by talking directly to the Minister of Immigration, among others. In Longueuil, there is a lot of immigration and we have very difficult and complex cases. Sometimes it is in talking to the Minister of Immigration, and offloading files to him, that we settle some things. I had cases involving Haitians who arrived in the past few weeks and months. If I had not spoken to the Minister of Immigration, I am pretty sure things would not have worked out so quickly.

There is also an airport in my riding. On that issue there is a lot of work to be done with the Minister of Transport. If I did not meet him in person, this would never get resolved. I do not understand why people are insisting on sitting virtually when we do our best work, in my opinion, when we are here in person.

[Government Business No. 26—Amendments to the Standing Orders, June 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I am a bit naive. When I first got here, I naively thought that we would be debating. I thought that democracy was the bedrock of ideas, that we would put forward ideas, that the opposition parties would put forward other ideas, that the government would also put forward ideas, that we would debate them all, and that this would lead to amazing bills. People would look at us and say how incredible we are. I thought that was democracy. As I have said many times here, that is not the case. I have lost count of the number of gag orders this government has imposed. Now we have a fundamental proposal that will change how we debate things for the next 10, 15, 20 or 100 years.

We hope to be long gone by then, because Quebec will have become independent. Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that this proposal is going to be adopted, changing all the rules of the game with the wave of a magic wand. We have just a few hours to debate huge changes to how we conduct debates here. I think that is totally unacceptable.

[Immigration and Refugee Act, June 13th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, this bill is a good opportunity to discuss the many human rights being trampled on across the world these days. One country we rarely talk about, if at all, is Haiti. Currently, Haiti is a country in turmoil, ravaged by gang-related theft, looting and murder.

There are tremendous challenges in my riding involving women who are here in Canada but whose children are still in Haiti, living in very troubled areas, with no adults around. They live with their grandmothers in villages controlled by violent street gangs. It is very difficult to bring these people here. We have had a few success stories. One or two children have been repatriated, but this is extremely difficult to do.

Obviously, it is always a bit complicated to intervene in other countries, but what could we do to resolve this atrocious crisis caused by the events in Haiti?

[Immigration and Refugee Act, June 13th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, my colleague seems to think Canada is tough and imposes sanctions on regimes and individuals that violate human rights around the world.

We recently passed a motion recognizing the genocide against the Uyghur community in Xinjiang, China. However, we continue to import products from that region. The United States dealt with the problem differently: It assumes that any product manufactured in that region is associated with human rights violations.

Does my colleague think Canada should adopt the same policy? We give no one any chances, and we no longer buy products from that region?

[Immigration and Refugee Act, June 13th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, my colleague seems awfully pleased with how Canada is dealing with the human rights issue. We know that this is documented in Canada. Take, for example, the crisis in Iran. We know that there are Iranian nationals who are here and who are friends of the regime in Iran, a regime that is currently violating women's rights. I do not think that I need to paint a picture. There are some pretty horrific images making the rounds on social media.

With regard to China, the government is still tolerating Chinese police stations here in Canada. The RCMP's reports on that are contradictory. Recently, the mayor of Brossard told the media that a city councillor had been elected with the help of the Chinese regime on social media. The Brossard city council is extremely uncomfortable with that situation. The mayor talked about it in the paper. She was trying to find out from the RCMP what to do with one of her city councillors, who, as we know, was elected with the help of the Chinese government.

Could my colleague enlighten us on what is happening on that issue?

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. I did not have time to address it in my speech.

Financialization of housing is a problem that is getting worse; we can see it. Just to put this into perspective, the federal government withdrew from housing in 1993. At that time, 30 years ago, 0% of the Canadian rental market was owned by private interests, either national or international. That phenomenon did not exist when the federal government was involved in housing prior to 1993. Now it is 23%. That means that 23% of Canada's rental housing stock is currently owned by national, private or international interests. When it comes to the right to housing, these people could not care less. All they want is to make money.

This problem needs to be addressed.

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right, this is a comedy show. Please tell me the members opposite are joking when they say that they have done the most for housing. Ask anyone who is serious about this issue and they will find that laughable. The crisis has never been so severe.

Just this morning I was reading an article in the Journal de Montréal about a 63-year-old couple in Quebec who, for the first time, are going to sleep in their car with their two dogs. They have never experienced anything like this in their lives. There is no such thing as $1,300, $1,500 or $1,800 housing. If there were, it would be directly subsidized by our taxes. Programs are offering affordable housing for $2,000 a month in Montreal.

To say things have never been better sounds like a tag line for the Just For Laughs Festival.

[Committees of the House, June 13th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government is awash with cash. I do not want to go into that debate, but we have to do it. We are going to have that debate. The Bloc Québécois is trying to show, and it will do so over the coming weeks and months, that the fiscal imbalance is still very real. The federal government is using its surpluses to encroach on provincial jurisdictions.

There is money over there. It just needs to be invested in the right place. I am not saying that the federal government should buy houses. I am saying that the federal government should create a program and free up some money so that the provinces can set up programs and take action on housing right away.