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Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was quebec.

Last in Parliament March 2011, as Bloc MP for Compton—Stanstead (Québec)

Lost her last election, in 2015, with 21% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Status of Women March 5th, 2009

Mr. Speaker, the slogan chosen this year by the Regroupement des centres de femmes du Québec for International Women's Day is “United, mobilized and moving forward”, but unfortunately, in many parts of our society, women's progress is at a standstill and vigilance is still required if we are to maintain our gains.

We are still under-represented in positions of power and we hold only 13% of the positions available in the corporate boardrooms of Canada's largest 500 companies. In 2006, women earned on average $15,000 less than men. In 2008, 58.9% of people working for minimum wage were women.

Internationally, the UN continues to criticize Canada when it comes to respect for women's rights, poverty and violence, especially against women, and aboriginal women in particular.

None of this squares very well with the policies of the Conservative government.

The Bloc Québécois would like to wish all women an International Women's Day full of promise.

International Childhood Cancer Day February 13th, 2009

Mr. Speaker, February 15 will mark International Childhood Cancer Day and so I would like to mention a few facts about this illness.

The most common cancers in children and adolescents are leukemia, lymphoma and tumours of the central nervous system, and they are different from those that affect adults. Cancer is the leading cause of death in children between the ages of 0 and 14. This year in Quebec 230 children in this age group will contract cancer. Sadly, 40 will die as a result.

Although a great deal of progress has been made, the fight is not over yet. Therefore, I invite my colleagues to salute the volunteers, doctors and other health professionals in their communities devoted to working with children suffering from cancer.

Budget Implementation Act, 2009 February 11th, 2009

—of insurability. Excuse me, I cannot find the words. I am overcome with emotion. It is true: to eliminate poverty, we have to provide employment insurance benefits. Many people who worked all their lives are eligible for employment insurance on a short-term basis. These people are losing their homes and watching their savings evaporate. That is why you have to have a heart to eliminate poverty. I believe that this government forgot to order this heart, because it really did not think about poverty, about women especially, about the unemployed, about all those losing their jobs.

Budget Implementation Act, 2009 February 11th, 2009

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. The Bloc Québécois asked that the two week waiting period be abolished and that more people be eligible for employment insurance. Even if you extend employment insurance by five weeks, more than 50% of workers do not even have access to it. In reality, people are not all lazy as the government is saying.

We also suggested an increase from 55% to 60% of the rate of—

Budget Implementation Act, 2009 February 11th, 2009

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, whose riding is struggling with high unemployment.

During the 39th Parliament, when I was a member of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development, Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, we worked together with this government to create an employment insurance financing board. Its mandate, paid for by the government, was to set the premium rates pursuant to section 66 of the Employment Insurance Act. The strange thing about all this is the board exists and the Conservatives are already meddling. They began setting premium rates themselves.

That is not the only promise they made that they have not kept. They also promised, by introducing a bill, to have fixed election dates. If that were the case, we would have an election again in October 2009. Also, they promised not to appoint any senators, saying that elections would be held and that mandates would be for eight years. What did the government do? Eighteen new senators were appointed, and it is not over; I assure this House, more senators will be appointed.

Budget Implementation Act, 2009 February 11th, 2009

Madam Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the people of Compton—Stanstead, who voted me into office for a third time in four years. Just think, three elections in four years. But on to serious issues.

After the loss of 18,000 manufacturing and forestry jobs in the Eastern Townships over the past few years, I was hoping to see significant investments for these sectors so vital to the region's economy in the Minister of Finance's budget. My faint hope has been dashed. This is a political budget and priority has been given to the province with the most federal ridings—Ontario. For members such as myself who were elected to defend the interests of Quebec first, this budget is completely unacceptable.

Let us be clear. I support providing assistance to the auto sector. I am well aware that the latter, in recent years, has become the industrial engine of North America. In my own riding, several hundred jobs in Waterville or Coaticook, in particular, are directly related to the auto sector. Nevertheless, the Eastern Townships needed substantial help for the manufacturing and forestry sectors.

In the Haut-Saint-François regional county municipality, located in my riding, a number of major saw mills have ceased operations, namely those in Bury, Weedon and Saint-Isidore-de-Clifton. The forestry workers of Haut-Saint-François were expecting more from this government and today they are rightfully disappointed.

And what about the manufacturing sector? The plants of the Shermag group, a leading light in the economy of the Eastern Townships, are now all closed. Hundreds of workers have lost their jobs in Lennoxville, Dudswell and Scotstown, to name but a few, because of the indifference of the Conservative government toward them.

The office of the Minister of Public Works and Government Services is still operating as if it were the 1950s. It is being openly said that people just needed to vote on the right side to get assistance. I find that extremely edifying. Yet the powerful political lieutenant for Quebec is in the Townships, in fact in the next riding to mine. The communities hardest hit, the ones I just named, Dudswell and Scotstown in particular, are only a few minutes down the road from his riding. Like all his other Quebec colleagues, he continues to show complete docility toward the Prime Ministerat the expense of his own region and of the Quebec nation.

During the last election campaign, Conservative candidates kept on saying at every possible opportunity, that there was not, and would not be, any crisis, that Canada was sheltered from it, that people need not fear falling back into the vicious circle of federal deficits. Ninety days later, they had totally changed their tune. Strange, that. Suddenly we were told that prompt and energetic action was needed. The government promised to help the middle class and the victims of massive layoffs. With the budget, and Bill C-10 which implements that budget, we are far from achieving that.

The latest unemployment figures are disastrous. Unemployment has shot up to 7.2% in Canada, to 7.7% in Quebec and now 8.5% in our beautiful Eastern Townships region. With the endless stream of bad news from south of the border, we can anticipate significant difficulties for our local industries and their exports. Thousands of workers are losing their jobs and thousands of others unfortunately are going to share the same fate.

In this kind of situation, the government's duty was clear. It needed to provide better assistance to the unemployed, to make the unjust employment insurance system with which we are saddled more flexible. In my region, the Mouvement des chômeurs et chômeuses de l'Estrie has been calling for EI reform. The government has continued to turn a deaf ear.

And so, employment insurance will remain what it is—an unfair system that cannot be accessed by more than 50% of the people who lose their jobs, the majority of them being women. These workers lose their jobs and are declared ineligible for employment insurance because of some technical detail and they cannot quickly find other work because the economy is currently destroying more jobs than it is creating.

Everyone knows what we proposed: eliminate the waiting period, relax the eligibility criteria and get rid of distinctions between the regions in terms of the number of hours required to be eligible for benefits.

The Conservative government has done absolutely nothing. It has abandoned the unemployed.

This is typical of the Reform-Conservative ideology. This same ideology continues to overlook low-income families. These families, who are having increasing difficulty finding affordable housing, have also been abandoned because this government prefers to fight the poor instead of fighting poverty.

In Sherbrooke, the vacancy rate hovers between 1% and 2%, well below the equilibrium point. Instead of constructing affordable housing units with two or three bedrooms, the government prefers to invest in renovating existing homes. Only the Prime Minister, proudly wielding a nail gun in a chic Ottawa neighbourhood, seemed happy with his ill-advised decision.

To kick-start the economy, the Conservatives have pulled the old infrastructure trick. On the substance, I fully agree: building infrastructure has a ripple effect and contributes to job creation. However, the proposed infrastructure programs require investments according to the following formula: one-third from the federal government, one-third from Quebec and one-third from the municipalities involved.

I was on Ascot's municipal council for eight years, and I can say that financial decisions are always painful. Small municipalities in rural regions already have so few resources with which to meet their needs.

Had it been possessed of some foresight, the government might have proposed a funding model consistent with each level of government's ability to pay, that is, 50% from the federal government, 35% from provincial governments and 15% from municipalities, as suggested by the Bloc Québécois.

This government seems to be making a habit of downloading problems to the Government of Quebec. In Bill C-10, the government is showing its true colours and going ahead with its proposed changes to equalization. These changes will penalize Quebec severely. According to the new formula, Quebec will lose some $3 billion over three years. Not only is the government not investing in Quebec, but it is also denying the Quebec government the means to do so itself. Then the government will turn around and say that the fiscal imbalance has been resolved.

Unlike the Liberals, I swear that my party and I will not get down on our knees before the Conservatives.

This government's budget and budget implementation bill introduce measures that are clearly not in Quebec's best interest. We, the members of the Bloc Québécois, are not prepared to vote for a bill that deprives Quebec of billions in equalization payments, that creates a federal securities agency, and that reopens a matter that has already been resolved: women's right to equal pay for equal work.

I got into politics to defend the interests and the values of our people. I did it for justice. I did it so that Quebec could get the tools it needs to develop, to reach its full potential, and to take its place in the world.

What the government is proposing is diametrically opposed to the interests of the Quebec nation. It tramples on our values. The members of the Bloc Québécois will stand up and vote for Quebec. That is why I represent a sovereignist party.

Nuclear Energy January 30th, 2009

Mr. Speaker, recent events in Chalk River raise some serious concerns about the safety of the NRU reactor, which, despite being over 50 years old, is still producing 70% of the global supply of medical isotopes.

Can the Minister of Natural Resources, who says she cares about the health and safety of the public, tell us whether she has a supply plan in place in case of a sudden shut-down, and can she make it available so that we need not relive the drama of December 2007?

Madeleine Gérin January 28th, 2009

Mr. Speaker, I would like to pay a final tribute today to a great lady from my riding, who died on January 18 at the age of 92.

Madeleine Gérin was one of the founding forces behind the Coaticook Hospital and fought valiantly to ensure that her community had access to quality health services. In the 1950s, she devoted her efforts to recruiting nuns, as this was a requirement at that time in order to obtain a hospital. She headed the hospital board of governors and contributed in a variety of other ways to its development and expansion.

There is no doubt that her community involvement encouraged her eight children to follow her example, her son François in particular. He was one of the founders of the Bloc Québécois, and sat in this House from 1984 to 1993.

Pioneer and visionary that she was, Madeleine Gérin was a pillar of the Coaticook community and of her entire region. The tributes paid to her today are richly deserved.

Economic and Fiscal Update November 28th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks before Christmas, 120 workers at Bow Group in Granby will be laid off indefinitely. Some 40 workers will also be affected by the permanent shut down of Sonoco. The entire manufacturing sector in the Montérégie region, and especially its thousands of workers, is threatened by the current economic meltdown.

Rather than bringing forward a comprehensive plan to help these families and the hundreds of workers who are worried sick about losing their jobs, the Conservative government presents them with an ideological statement completely devoid of any measures to address the crisis. This government does not intend to do anything to stimulate the economy and breathe life into it.

Furthermore, even as it chooses to suffocate the economy in spite of the serious difficulties affecting industry, this government still finds ways to increase military spending.

The Bloc Québécois will speak out, loud and clear, regarding our opposition to the laissez-faire economics of this ultraconservative, backward-thinking government.

Speech from the Throne November 27th, 2008

Mr. Speaker, the people of Compton—Stanstead are very disappointed in the government's throne speech.

In my riding, agricultural producers in the Coaticook region are still concerned about whether the supply management system will be protected. Workers in the Haut-Saint-François forestry and manufacturing sectors have once again been ignored when it comes to help for older workers or employment insurance reform. Students at both of Sherbrooke's universities are still waiting for the fiscal imbalance to be resolved and for the $820 million towards education. There was nothing in the throne speech for people without adequate housing, those living near the border, or environmentalists either.

In short, even with a political lieutenant from the Eastern Townships, the government has overlooked our region's interests. Instead, the Conservatives have proven that only the Bloc members have our people's interests at heart.