Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac

[Canadian Jewish Congress, May 27th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, this week the Canadian Jewish Congress will be celebrating 90 years of existence. The first assembly of this official public voice of the Jewish community was held in 1919.

After a period of relative inactivity, the rise of anti-Semitism in Canada as well as in Europe in the 1930s convinced the community to make the CJC a permanent body in 1934. Montreal philanthropist Samuel Bronfman became its head at that time.

Since then, the Congress has played a vital role in defending and representing the interests of Canadian Jewry. It has also worked in conjunction with other groups on issues relating to the defence of religious and cultural minorities and of human rights. For example, the CJC was pleased with the recent Montreal court decision condemning the crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda in 1994.

The 29th plenary assembly will be one of the high points of this 90th anniversary year

The Bloc Québécois warmly congratulates the congress on its dedication.

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, May 13th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite called for justice, and I am here to talk about justice. Several years ago, an older person came to my office with a retroactivity case. That person owed money to the department responsible for pensions and old age security. The department was asking for three years' worth of payments. The mistake was made because of a coding error in the department.

But they did not ask the individual to reimburse one year's worth of payments; they asked for three. When members opposite talk about justice now, I find their statements abhorrent. They say it would cost $6 billion, and that that would be too much.

How can they give oil companies $2 billion worth of tax breaks every year and buy over $17 billion worth of military equipment over the past six years, yet not help society's poorest, the seniors who built Quebec?

I wish to thank certain Bloc Québécois members who helped me with this motion. I thank my colleague from Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, the Bloc Québécois seniors critic, for her support and help with this motion. I would also like to congratulate my colleague from Laval, who seconded my motion, as well as the hon. member for Alfred-Pellan, who was the original instigator of this idea. This is the third time the Bloc Québécois is bringing forward this idea.

When they were in opposition, the Conservatives supported the principle of this motion. The member across the floor spoke at length about the fact that the Liberals had gone back on their word. I would now like to talk about how the Conservatives have gone back on their word, since when they were in opposition, they supported the principle of this motion. We are talking about increasing, by $110, the monthly income of the most vulnerable people in Quebec and Canada, about continuing the benefits for a period of six months to a surviving spouse, about automatic registration for people over 65 who are entitled to the guaranteed income supplement, and about full retroactivity for payments. These are concrete measures that would really help our seniors.

The measures proposed by the Conservatives only help people who pay income tax. Furthermore, just because someone eats one meal a day does not mean that individual will not die of hunger because he or she eats every day. We in the Bloc Québécois want to help people to be able to eat three times a day. It is not a matter of simply putting them in survival mode, allowing them to eat just once a day and telling them that that is enough and they will not die.

Moreover, every time there is an election campaign, we hear the Conservatives and the Liberals make election promises to help seniors.

I also want a commitment from the Liberals. Why? Because if we are talking about retroactivity, it is because the Liberals created this situation. Basically, when they were in power, they did not inform seniors that they were entitled to a guaranteed income supplement.

I do not want the Liberals to act like firefighters who light fires now only to put them out after they are already lit. Their current position on the matter is not clear.

I would also like to invite the Leader of the Opposition to send a message to all his party members so that we have unanimous support for this motion that will help seniors throughout Quebec and Canada. We all have seniors in our ridings. Every member in this House is affected by the motion I am tabling today given that all have seniors in their ridings and have at least one person living below the poverty line who needs this measure.

The 35,000 people we are looking for do not all live in my riding. There are some living in every Quebec and Canadian riding and I know there is at least one in each of the 308 ridings represented in Parliament.

I would also like to say to the Conservatives, who speak of recognizing the Quebec nation that, if they recognize the Quebec nation they should also acknowledge the fact that, in 2007, a unanimous motion of the National Assembly of Quebec supported the demands of seniors.

I am not alone in this battle. Seniors' associations support us and are asking the government to help them. The government should not help just poor seniors, it should help the most needy. The purpose of this motion is to help those most in need.

My Bloc Québécois colleagues will not abandon seniors in need.

[17th Fundraising Drive for Troubled Youth, April 30th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, the 17th edition of Opération Tirelires takes place today. This year's goal is to raise an impressive $75,000 throughout Quebec. The 31 Auberges du coeur, including Auberge Le Baluchon in my riding, invite the public to give generously to support troubled and homeless youth.

The mission of the Auberges du coeur is to help young people achieve their full potential and contribute to the Quebec of tomorrow, which will have a huge need for their talents. We must do everything we can to help these young people lead meaningful lives again.

I would also like to pay tribute to all the staff members, volunteers and current and former residents of the Auberges du coeur for working so hard to achieve tangible goals that make a difference.

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in fact, when it comes to prevention, Quebec is one of the leaders. What Canada should be doing is modelling its policy on Quebec’s. We know that Quebec has the lowest crime rate. Quebec has long understood that prevention is the best way of tackling crime. I am a criminologist by training myself, and so I know how important prevention and dealing with problems at their source are.

In my opinion, the gun registry is the best tool the police can have to work with, because in addition to protecting the public, it protects the police from some of the attacks they might be facing.

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite is talking about saving money when I am talking about protecting lives. The firearms registry lets us protect lives. I referred to a case in point. When a police officer went to an individual’s home, he was in a position to know that the individual owned an arsenal of more than forty firearms, and this meant that he was able to deal with the situation.

Right now, the last six murders of police officers were committed with hunting weapons. I am talking about saving lives. And the firearms registry is essential for precisely this reason: to protect people’s lives.

[Business of Supply, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Québec for sharing her time with me.

As my colleague so aptly pointed out a little earlier, we willingly accept the registration of our cars, snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles for safety reasons. Why should it be different for firearms? The gun control bill was passed in 1995. The Bloc Québécois, having demanded it, therefore voted in favour of it.

To justify their opposition to the firearms registry, the Conservatives prefer to hide behind the crimes that are committed with illegal weapons. The Conservative government maintains that the real criminals will always manage to procure firearms. That may be so, but do we have to make the task easier for them? Abolishing the registry may aggravate the contraband weapons problem, since there will be no more control or monitoring of firearms.

For the third time, nay for the fourth time if we count Bill C-301, the government is attacking the firearms registry. This ideological stubbornness is difficult to follow, since we know that the firearms registry has made it possible to reduce the number of gun-related tragedies.

Since they were elected in 2006, the Conservatives have been constant in their efforts to damage this registry. In June 2006, they set the tone for this issue by tabling the bill for the outright abolition of the registry. Unable to convince the opposition, they took roundabout action by declaring an amnesty. That amnesty had been allowed by the Liberals, but the Conservatives extended it until May 2008, then May 2009. They are attempting to extend it once again for another year.

Furthermore, the firearms marking regulations dating from November 2004, which initially were supposed to come into force in April 2006, were pushed back a first time by the Liberals and a second time by the Conservatives, less than a month before they come into force in December 2009. The amnesty announced in May 2006 had a term of one year. However it was renewed twice, and now the Conservatives are trying to extend it another year. This is unacceptable to the Bloc Québécois. We demand that this program be in place by May 16.

There is a direct connection between the ease with which one can procure a weapon and the homicide rate. Quebec has seen a drop in the homicide rate since 1995, the year the registry began.

The hon. members from the Bloc Québécois are not alone in finding benefits in this registry. The police forces of Quebec and Canada indicate that they consider it a very effective tool. The public health agencies, reporting the situation on the ground, say that the registry is an effective means of achieving a lower homicide and suicide rate. Lastly, that is what the statistics say as well. The number of violent crimes has fallen since the firearms registry came into effect.

This request has also been made by the government of Quebec, which repeated it during its last election campaign, when the Quebec premier wrote to his federal counterpart to ask that the firearms registry be maintained. What is more, the elected officials of Quebec have on two occasions voted unanimously in the National Assembly in favour of maintaining this registry.

This evening, to raise awareness among our fellow members of Parliament, the Bloc Québécois will be screening Polytechnique, which relates the events of the 1989 massacre at the École Polytechnique de Montréal.

To prevent events like the ones that took place at the École Polytechnique de Montréal and Concordia University from happening again, the Government of Quebec is trying to protect the people of Quebec. Recently, it adopted the Anastasia Act, which tightens gun control by regulating firearms possession in some locations and creating a regulatory system for target practice in Quebec.

The Government of Quebec talked about its intent to assume greater responsibility for gun control. We know that criminal law falls under federal jurisdiction. If the Conservatives recognize the Quebec nation, they must recognize our right to have different needs. If they do not want to maintain the gun registry, they should transfer the responsibility to Quebec, and Quebec will look after it.

The best way to pass laws that reflect Quebec's needs is, without doubt, Quebec sovereignty. A sovereign Quebec would have dealt with the gun issue a long time ago.

Until then, the Bloc Québécois is the party that will stand up for the interests of Quebeckers and for motions passed unanimously in the National Assembly, including the one on firearms. The Bloc Québécois firmly believes that taking preventive action and tackling factors that lead to crime are sure ways to prevent human and family tragedies.

I said earlier that we set a record when it comes to the decline in crime and homicide rates in Quebec. We can see that creating the registry has had beneficial effects, unlike what is going on in our neighbour to the south. Ten years ago, they too had a terrible tragedy, the Columbine massacre. They did nothing to tighten access to firearms. The only thing they did to prevent crimes like that was to adopt more enforcement-oriented measures, like what the Conservative government is preparing to put forward. We have seen, however, that there were no significant results from those kinds of measures.

Although media coverage of violent crimes may suggest that they have been on the rise over the years, that does not reflect reality. Since the mid-1990s, crime has been falling in Quebec and Canada. Statistics Canada confirms that the overall crime rate has recently fallen in this country. It was the lowest in 25 years, and in Quebec it was the lowest homicide rate since 1962. That is not an insignificant fact.

We also know that violent crime declined by 22% in Quebec between 1991 and 2004. By way of comparison, the homicide rate in Canada for 2003 was three times lower than in the United States. That is very significant. Instead of modelling our policy on the Americans’, what we have to do is continue to work on prevention, and before long it will be the Americans modelling their policy on ours.

The Conservatives’ obsession with talking about nothing but smuggled guns must not be allowed to conceal the fact that the firearms most commonly used in spousal homicides are legally acquired shotguns and rifles. The statistics show that 85% of homicides are committed with rifles. We know that a large proportion of homicide victims in the case of spousal violence are women. That is not an insignificant fact.

We also know that it is not enough just to register a firearm. In 2003, Montreal police responded to a spousal violence situation. The wife was afraid because her husband, who had been hospitalized, was now coming home, and when the police checked the firearms registry they found that the man owned a real arsenal: 26 handguns, 16 hunting weapons and 45,000 rounds of ammunition. The registry made it possible for the police to prepare themselves before responding.

I will conclude by saying that we register our vehicles and we register our ATVs. Is it not reasonable for us to also register our firearms?

[Volunteer Week 2009, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, on the occasion of National Volunteer Week, April 19 through 25, I would like to draw attention to the exceptional contributions of the women and men volunteers who are committed to helping their communities. They embody the “passion for action ” the Fédération des centres d'action bénévole du Québec has chosen for its slogan.

There are many different ways of getting involved, of course. Some act locally, addressing such issues as poverty, health, rural development and the promotion of human rights. Others choose to address international issues. It is also reassuring to know that we can count on thousands of committed volunteers during our election campaigns.

I would like to pay tribute to these thousands of devoted volunteers who not only play an essential role in preserving our democracy, but also focus their efforts on improving the lot of their neighbours in these difficult times.

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, once again, the member is talking to me about tax credits for workers. Is he saying that he wants seniors to go back to work? What he is saying is completely ridiculous. He is mixing up two files. I am talking about a motion to help the poorest among us, and he is telling me that they should go back to work to get credits from his government—

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to hear what the hon. colleague across the way has had to say. It gives me an opportunity to repeat what I said. He did not really get the intent of my motion. He refers to intentions but this government needs more than intentions; it needs to take action.

He speaks of measures to help seniors but those are measures for people with incomes. Tax credits only affect people who pay income tax. The measures in my motion are to help people living with minimum incomes that do not even bring them up to the poverty line. I saw none of those measures in the budget presented by the Conservatives.

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, March 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Alfred-Pellan for his speech. He was, moreover, the sponsor of the motion the Conservatives supported when in opposition.

In response to his question, raising the income provided to our seniors would be of great help to their situation. We know that many seniors are having to make a choice between paying for food or paying for medicine. This can end up costing the state more because it will have to look after seniors who have become sicker than necessary because they cannot afford to buy their medicines.

I, and all of my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, want to see our seniors live in dignity. That is why I am calling upon all of my colleagues here in the House of Commons to support my motion.