Denis Trudel

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of empathy for my colleague representing seniors who has to go to bat for his government and deliver an empty speech.

The government repeated the same number three or four times, namely, the $300 sent in July, but that was a long time ago. Now it is talking about investments during the pandemic.

Indeed the federal government invested in health care during the pandemic, but it had to do so because no investment was made before that. If health transfers had been increased before, investments would not be needed during the pandemic. What we are asking is that the government invests now so we do not have to go through the same thing again. That is the problem and that is what we are asking this morning.

My hon. colleague keeps saying that people know and that the Bloc is spreading disinformation, that it acts in a partisan way. Last night I received an email from one of my constituents who seemingly had not read the same newspapers as my hon. colleague across the way. My constituent writes that many political columnists and politicians talk about extra money for older people, but he is wondering where that extra money is after being mentioned many times over a long period of time. It was supposed to be for older and low-income people. He concludes by thanking me for my involvement and my interest in helping the cause. A citizen from my riding wrote that to me yesterday, after the speech by the hon. Deputy Prime Minister.

[Business of Supply, December 1st, 2020]

Madam Speaker, what the Liberals have been telling us since the start of today's sitting is rather absurd.

Health falls under provincial jurisdiction. The federal government does not manage any hospitals or pay any doctors. We are calling for health transfers.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been asking the federal government for two fairly simple things: to close the borders and to secure a vaccine when one became available. The government did not come through on either of those requests.

We are calling for health transfers, which is simple. All of the provincial premiers agree that the federal government should send money to the provinces to help them get through the pandemic.

My question is quite simple. Health transfers have declined from 50% to 22%. That did not happen in three days, a week or even a month. This has been going on for 30 years.

If there was an election tomorrow morning and the Conservative Party were elected, would my colleague agree to meet the demands of the provincial premiers and increase federal funding from 22% to 35%?

[Criminal Code, November 30th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I have been listening attentively to this debate, which is understandably emotional, since this morning. There have been very moving testimonials.

I am listening to my friends the Conservatives talk about cancelling the bill or not submitting it for a vote now. I would like to ask my hon. colleague a simple question.

If there were someone here this morning who was waiting for this bill to be adopted in order to start an obviously difficult process, someone who was waiting for a sign from the government before taking action, what would my hon. colleague tell that person?

[Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, November 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague seems quite enthusiastic. He talks about the government's commitments and actions.

There is a group in Quebec called Mothers Step In. These are mothers and grandmothers who are very worried about climate change and rightly so. They even have a manifesto calling on the federal government to adopt a coherent plan to help meet targets and enshrine them in the bill on climate.

The government has good targets, but if it is so certain it will achieve them then why not include them in the bill as this group is asking for?

[Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, November 26th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech.

However, I find it rather odd to hear him say that oil is good because when people go to the grocery store, they send money to the government. Based on available figures, the federal government has invested $70 billion in fossil fuels over the last 40 years, including $19 billion in the last four years, and $2 billion this spring.

Sooner or later, we are going to have to transition away from oil. Even in Quebec, the Legault government just passed legislation to prohibit the sale of gas-powered vehicles by 2035. Does my colleague agree that, if we want to curb greenhouse gases, sooner or later we will have to transition away from fossil fuels? If so, what date does he propose?

[Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, November 26th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

I am sure she is committed to fighting climate change, but I have my doubts about her government, just as I did during last night's emergency debate on the French language, which I watched. There were a lot of good intentions and fine words. The government says that it is going to take action and that it is going to do this or that, but nothing much actually gets done.

One of the key promises the Liberal government made a year ago was to plant two billion trees. We saw the Prime Minister taking selfies with Greta Thunberg and that sort of thing. Things were really going to get moving. Two billion trees is a lot, but I would imagine that a lot of trees can be planted in a year.

My question is simple. Since the Liberal Party was elected, how many trees have been planted in Canada, and how many of those were planted in Quebec?

[Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020, November 24th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask the same question I previously asked another hon. member. It is about data security.

The bill targets private companies. With the CERB, we recently saw that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people were victims of fraud. When they receive their notice of assessment in April or May, they will learn that they owe money because they did not qualify for the CERB and collected it illegally.

If the government is working on cleaning up privacy laws in the private sector, why not put its own data protection system in order?

[Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2020, November 24th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

This is for private businesses, and I understand that my colleague may have a problem with that.

However, during the pandemic we have seen that the federal government itself had problems verifying people's identity. In my riding, some people received the CERB under a name other than their own. These people were on social assistance. They were not entitled to the CERB, received it anyway and will have to repay it when they file their income tax return. That is a serious problem.

I would like to know whether my hon. colleague thinks that we could have applied the provisions of this bill to the federal government itself.

[Citizenship Act, November 23rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's remarks on this bill.

I agree with what he said about it being easy to summarize the Liberal government's stance on indigenous issues in this country. My colleague recently made an effort to speak French during a debate on another motion, so I too will make an effort by saying that, in English, the Liberal Party's stance on this issue boils down to “words, words, words”.

On the subject of housing, which has gotten a lot of attention lately, the government launched a cross-Canada rapid housing initiative. Unfortunately, Montreal and Quebec City are the only two cities in Quebec that have had the opportunity to get money under that initiative. Mayor Valérie Plante pointed out that the number of homeless people in Montreal has doubled from 3,000 to 6,000 during the pandemic, which is a big problem.

I would like to draw my colleague's attention to the following. The new citizenship oath reads as follows: “I swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second”. Obviously that is a problem for us, but all of a sudden it is about the Constitution. I know my colleague is a history buff. As he knows, Quebec did not sign. Is it not a little—

[Citizenship Act, November 23rd, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very interesting speech.

For a number of years now, we have been seeing the Liberal government's inaction with respect to the cause of indigenous peoples across Canada and particularly in Quebec. We hear horror stories about reserves that do not even have clean drinking water for children. That is outrageous, and real action needs to be taken.

This bill takes real action and does something worthwhile. I think it is important to amend the oath of citizenship as proposed by adding the words “including the Constitution, which recognizes and affirms the Aboriginal and treaty rights of First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples”.

While we are doing something useful and cleaning up the oath of citizenship to add important elements, we could also remove the unnecessary elements. The first part of the oath states, “I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada”. Does anyone still think that is important? I would like to hear what my colleague thinks about that.