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Crucial Fact

  • His favourite word was finance.

Last in Parliament October 2019, as NDP MP for Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques (Québec)

Lost his last election, in 2019, with 29% of the vote.

Statements in the House

April 19th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I would remind the minister that during the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals promised to apply a new, more rigorous environmental review process to the Kinder Morgan project. I would like to reiterate that, as part of its ultimatum, the company imposed an entirely arbitrary May 31 deadline on the government. The bottom line is that the government is trying to put the cart before the horse in order to impress Kinder Morgan. That is called giving in to blackmail. Whether this Texas company likes it or not, we have rules here. A government needs to hold consultations to ensure that the rules are being followed and that the environment is protected, as the Prime Minister promised Canadians.

When is the government going to stop letting multinational corporations dictate its policies?

April 19th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, we learned today that in January 2016, just three months after the election, the office of the Minister of Natural Resources received a phone call from Ian Anderson, president of Kinder Morgan Canada. The company wanted to warn the government that it would abandon the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project if the approval process took too long. Canadians expect the government to stand firm in the face of such ultimatums.

Is pleasing a Texas giant more important that conducting a full environmental review?

Petitions April 18th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the government is gearing up to privatize Canadian airports. It has asked Credit Suisse, which, incidentally, is in the business of investing in private airports, to conduct a study. We think this is a bad move.

Just look at what happened in Australia when the Australian government privatized airports. It did nothing to address the issue or fix the problem. On the contrary, privatization will create new problems and generate new costs not only for millions of air travellers, but also for the hundreds of thousands of employees of Canadian airports.

This is the first set of a series of 6,000 signatures that will be tabled in this House asking the government and Transport Canada to move away from and forget about its move toward privatization of the airports. It is my pleasure to table this first set of signatures in this House.

Health April 18th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, one in five Canadians cannot afford prescription drugs. For decades, federal studies, commissions, and reports have shown that a universal pharmacare program would help millions of people and save $4.2 billion in prescription fees. People do not want another study. They want a universal pharmacare program now.

Despite the fact that a new report representing two years' worth of work will be tabled today, the government still thinks that we need to continue examining the issue. Why?

Health April 18th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, later this afternoon the Standing Committee on Health will table its report. It will highlight the need to implement universal pharmacare. The study, instigated by my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway, has made it possible for the committee members to hear testimony from 99 witnesses. It was a comprehensive two-year study, and the outcome of all this work is crystal clear. To quote our leader, Jagmeet Singh, “People need a champion for better public health care. It's not enough to defend it. We need to expand it.”

Why is the government refusing to commit to implementing universal pharmacare now?

Natural Resources April 17th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, British Columbians have legitimate concerns about the Trans Mountain pipeline project, and they recently elected a government that takes these concerns seriously. In fact, they gave their newly elected government a clear mandate on this issue.

The B.C. government is just doing what it was elected to do. Standing up and following through on an election promise is what governments are supposed to do. The Liberals could stand to learn a lesson from this.

How can the government continue to ignore both its own election promises and the real concerns of British Columbians?

Natural Resources April 17th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, after the meeting on Sunday, the Prime Minister said he was determined to impose a solution on British Columbia and Alberta to resolve the Trans Mountain pipeline dispute. The federal government should be trying to calm the waters, not adding fuel to the fire.

The Government of Quebec reminded Ottawa that it is also indisputable that governments must work together when analyzing projects that affect more than one Canadian jurisdiction.

The government cannot have it both ways. Either it works with the provinces, or it imposes its will on the provinces. Which is it going to be?

Trans Mountain Expansion Project April 16th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, we are all grown adults here. We all make our own decisions, and we all assume responsibility for those decisions. That is the case in this House, and that is the case outside of this House. What I can say about the protests that are taking place right now is that the people who are protesting what is going on are acting out of genuine concern. This concern has not been adequately responded to by the government, and I would submit that, at the time, this was the case for the previous government as well.

Instead of once again using the force of law and order to try to force a decision, why do we not try to get the input of those who are going to be at the receiving end of that decision? This is really at the core of the problem right now. These people do not feel that they have been listened to, and honestly, with the process that we have, they have not. They have not been listened to. The new process that was put in place, and that is still in place right now for the Trans Mountain project, was a process that was hurried, and it rejected a large number of people who wanted to speak about it, to present, and to intervene. People do not feel that they have been listened to because the intent was to try to speed up this project as much as possible, and this is what we have right now. We have hundreds or thousands of people opposing it actively and this will not be going away, so we might as well try to find a way to get along with it. This is why I am suggesting that the government go to the Supreme Court of Canada with Alberta, B.C., and first nations.

Trans Mountain Expansion Project April 16th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, what about the City of Burnaby? What about the cities that are in the path of this pipeline as well? If we are talking about consent, let us go to the fullest extent of what it means.

What we are seeing right now, with the message that the government is sending, is that for this project the government is reacting. The Liberals are very nervous that it might not pass, and they have been fighting with the Conservatives to see who the biggest booster of this project is and who can actually implement it as fast as possible.

Let us make no mistake. When the Prime Minister is telling us in the House, and all Canadians, that the government will have the power to enforce the implementation of this project and that it is the sole level of government that can do so, this means nothing for the consent that is being sought. It means nothing for the guarantees of reconciliation for first nations in the future, and it means nothing for the communities that have legitimate questions about the potential dangers and risks of those projects.

Trans Mountain Expansion Project April 16th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, let me pick up on what the parliamentary secretary said. This is not the way that he said it during the campaign. This is not what he said on his campaign website during the electoral campaign. What he said on his website was, “A new, independent, evidence-based process must be established. The Kinder Morgan expansion project must satisfy this new rigourous review...”

There has been no new rigorous review. This is at the core of the problem we are facing now. We are currently undergoing an emergency debate, and the Liberals only have themselves to blame. They spent the whole electoral campaign in 2015 talking about the need to redo the environmental assessment process and that we needed to ensure there would be a more rigorous process in place which Kinder Morgan, the Trans Mountain project, would have to undergo.

The Liberals have failed to fulfill this promise. They have failed to meet the hope that people, especially in British Columbia, have in the government. This is the crux of the problem right now. We have hundreds of people who are protesting against the construction of this pipeline. We have a government that is musing sometimes about the possibility of sending the army to face them. This makes no sense.

Not only did the Liberals promise during the campaign that the Trans Mountain project would undergo a new environmental assessment process, it was said extensively. The Prime Minister has said since 2013, since he was the leader of the Liberal Party, that governments grant permits and communities grant permission.

This is what the party that is now in government has said for five years. Now what we have in this House is a competition between both the government and the official opposition to see who will be the biggest booster of this project, without taking into account what the people in British Columbia are thinking about and saying. They do not trust the government. They do not trust the process.

I understand the situation because we dealt with the same problem when we talked about the energy east pipeline for Quebec. I seriously doubt that this government would have had the guts to do to Quebec what it is currently doing to British Columbia. It is not a matter of war between the two provinces. Alberta Premier Rachel Notley is doing what she thinks she needs to do to protect her economy and the interests of her people. That is why she was elected. The premier of British Columbia is doing the same thing.

Let me be clear. John Horgan was elected on the basis of the opposition he has of the process that is currently pushing this project down the throats of the provinces.

We have been talking a lot about how the economy and the environment go hand in hand. We, on this side of the House, have been saying that for years and possibly even decades. The government decided to adopt that approach. That is fine.

What has dawned on me in this debate is that the government says we cannot talk about the economy without talking about the environment. We agree in principle, but it is a very convenient excuse for the Liberals. Every time that we ask them a question about the environment and the environmental consequences, they reply that we do not know about the economy. Then, when other questions are about the economy and the jobs being created, they talk about the importance of the environment. Let us be consistent here.

We have a crisis of the government's own making because during 2015, the Liberals were basically hunting for votes. They promised that we would have a new electoral system in place and that 2015 would be the last time for a first-past-the-post election. That was false. They promised everything they could to be in the position they are in. They cannot blame the official opposition and the NDP for the mess they have themselves created by raising those expectations.

I see a lot of British Columbia MPs here. They will have a significant challenge, an uphill battle, in 2019. Their constituents, especially those around Burnaby and Vancouver, will ensure that the government will be reminded of the promises from 2015 that they broke.

I talked about the promises we heard from the parliamentary secretary during the 2015 election. Let us hear about the Liberal MP for Burnaby North—Seymour. He is now the parliamentary secretary for fisheries and oceans. He said during the election that they were going to redo the National Energy Board process and that Kinder Morgan would have to go through a new revised process. Consistently in British Columbia, Liberals were elected on this commitment. Why do they think people are at the gate now? Why are they surprised?

That does not make any sense. We are in this situation partly because of the changes that the Conservative government of the time made to the environmental assessment process in 2012. The process was not perfect, but at least the provinces were a lot more involved than they are now. I know that Quebec and British Columbia were far more involved than they are now in the process that the Conservatives put in place.

Mr. Speaker, I am also reminded that I will be splitting my time with the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, which is something I should not have forgotten. I am sure he will have interesting things to say as well after I am finished.

The process we had in 2012 was not ideal, but it got the job done. I was in Parliament back then. Then the Conservatives made changes that cut down the time available to conduct studies and hold consultations as well as the number of stakeholders allowed to express their views on projects. After all that, it was no wonder people objected to this project. I know because I represent a riding right next to Cacouna, where there was a proposal to build an oil terminal that would have endangered marine animals, especially belugas. The proposal was flawed, but there was an attempt to force it through, and the people reacted. The first thing people realized was that there were precious few opportunities for them to air their views on this issue. That is what the Liberals were supposed to change. It is also what we promised to change if we took office, but they refused to actually do it.

What we have right now is a crisis, because the Liberals failed to fulfill the election promises they made, and people have noticed.

This is not a simple matter. As the Prime Minister said, it may eventually become a constitutional matter, because in his mind it is clear that the federal government has the sole responsibility for this, and it can impose a decision on any province that does not agree. This reminds me a lot of what his father was saying at the time. However, if we pursue that logic to the extent of it, then what does it mean for first nations and indigenous people? If the government feels that it has the sole responsibility, the sole power in implementing and pushing a project like this, that means it will have the sole power in pushing it down the throat of indigenous people as well. This is a very dangerous path that the government is pushing forward.

We have proposed a sensible solution that will be more collaborative than what the government is promising right now. I encourage the government to go in that direction and seek an agreement with British Columbia, which is already on board, with first nations and indigenous people, and with Alberta, to seek clarity at the Supreme Court of Canada and ensure whether this is really the sole responsibility of the government, and whether the environmental laws of the provinces matter or do not matter. The previous decisions of the Supreme Court were not linked to a project so controversial and so misaligned with provincial desires. I think it would be wise for the government to listen to this advice.