Denis Trudel

[The Budget, April 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, my colleague was saying that concrete action needs to be taken. Right now, in Quebec, housing is an area in which concrete action really needs to be taken.

I am pleased that my colleague is from Quebec. Every day, we see articles in the paper about the housing crisis in Quebec.

Two weeks ago, in Verdun, people were lining up to see an apartment. Right now, in Quebec, 450,000 households are in urgent need of housing, 250,000 households spend more than 50% of their income on housing and 82,000 households spend more than 80% of their income on housing. That is outrageous.

The government announced a $1.5-billion investment in the rapid housing initiative. That is not a bad thing, but the Federation of Canadian Municipalities was calling for a $7-billion investment in that program. There are 40,000 households waiting for low-income housing in Quebec.

Is it not time for a real, meaningful program to put an end to the pandemic housing crisis in Canada and in Quebec?

[Governor General's Act, April 26th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, there seems to be a problem with the interpretation. We cannot hear what my hon. colleague is saying at the moment.

[The Budget, April 20th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the pandemic has given rise to an initiative to help homeless people, including in my riding. This initiative has a high degree of acceptability, since it accepts everyone, without discrimination.

Unfortunately, those responsible for the initiative have been really worried about the budget, because they were wondering whether their initiative would survive the pandemic. They received some money to get it off the ground, but they are wondering whether they will be able to continue.

The budget included roughly $560 million for the reaching home program. Quebec is asking for $100 million a year to continue its efforts related to COVID-19.

What do I tell the folks at La Halte du coin in Longueuil? Can they expect to get enough funding for their initiative to survive the pandemic?

[The Budget, April 20th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, you would really have to live on Mars not to notice that there is currently a housing crisis in Quebec and Canada.

The government is relaunching the rapid housing initiative, which is not a bad program. Last fall, they announced $1 billion in funding. Unfortunately, Quebecers who submitted projects under the first billion-dollar program have not even heard back from the government.

The budget proposes investing $1.5 billion, which is not bad in itself. However, under the first program, the government received applications for more than $4 billion. Clearly, there is a demand for this type of program but, once again, the government is merely tossing a few coins around.

I think it is time to have a real national housing strategy in Quebec and Canada to deal with the problem. We should keep in mind that housing is one of the main indicators of extreme poverty.

When will the government implement a real national housing strategy to deal with poverty in Quebec and Canada?

[Laurentian University in Sudbury, April 14th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I have kind of a tough question for so late an hour. I imagine those of us who are still here are here because French really matters to us.

There is one aspect we have not talked about tonight, which is promoting francophone universities and francophone knowledge internationally. Our universities could be a unifying force within the Francophonie, and Canadian universities outside Quebec could be part of that movement. Does my colleague agree that funding research in French and promoting it internationally could be viable approaches for enhancing the value of francophone university culture in Canada?

Quebec is prepared to invest in promoting French-language research and science internationally. If Canada recognized the benefit of doing so, would that motivate the federal government and the Canadian provinces to get serious about supporting francophone universities? Does my colleague recognize the prestige—

[Laurentian University in Sudbury, April 14th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I have a somewhat convoluted question.

Earlier, the member for Langley—Aldergrove in British Columbia talked about his commitment to the principle of Canada's two founding peoples to explain why he feels the French fact is important. That is not how I see history, but it is an honourable view that I can respect. In 1982, former Prime Minister Trudeau reprogrammed the founding myths upon which Canada is built.

Does the member not agree that the introduction of official bilingualism and state multiculturalism has created old habits that prevent many people here in the House from seeing the real solutions that could be proposed to ensure the full development of French in Canada?

[Laurentian University in Sudbury, April 14th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I am a bit sad. In this debate, there is talk of small measures. The government will invest a bit more money in immersion here, give a bit of money for post-secondary studies there, and so forth.

This is the second time in a year that we are having a debate on French. I have been fighting for French in Quebec for 20 years. In North America, 3% of the population is francophone. For anglophones, this issue may not be clear. Across the border, we have the United States of America. It has the most dominant and overpowering culture in the history of humanity, what with Netflix and its ilk and all the films, music and songs flooding over the border. How can we compete with that unless we declare a real linguistic emergency in Quebec and Canada?

I think that the Official Languages Act has been a failure. We should immediately declare an emergency over the French language so that we can bring in the significant measures we need to save French in Canada and Quebec.

[Laurentian University in Sudbury, April 14th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague.

There is the Official Languages Act, but this evening we are talking about whether the two languages are on equal footing. In fact, there is one language that is doing very well and another that is not doing well at all.

I have a question for my colleague, who has been an MP much longer than I have. I have been an MP for about five minutes, and we have already had two emergency debates on French. That is crazy.

When was the last time there was a debate in the House of Commons on the status of English in Canada?

[Laurentian University in Sudbury, April 14th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I will try to be brief even though the issue of French is so important that we could talk about it at length.

Fifty years ago, Canada brought in the Official Languages Act. They said they would permanently protect French and English until the end of time. Fifty years later, we are still here this evening to hold an emergency debate because a francophone community in Ontario is under threat.

According to Statistics Canada, the demographic weight of francophones outside Quebec was 3.8% in 2011. According to the projections, that percentage will be 2.7% in 2036. In 2021, is it not time to admit that the Official Languages Act has been a failure and that we need to move on to something else?

[Laurentian University in Sudbury, April 14th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we are not going to fix the whole issue with French in 30 seconds.

I find it pretty pathetic to hear the Liberals and Conservatives passing the buck over the French language. There is just one language at risk in Canada, and that is French.

Three per cent of North Americans speak French. We do not need a policy on the two official languages. We need a policy for one dominant language and one language at risk. So long as the government does not officially acknowledge that French is at risk in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and all across Canada, we will not get any policies to specifically address this serious issue. A culture is in the process of dying.

Does my colleague agree that there is one dominant language and one language at risk in Canada? Could this become a policy?