Guy Caron

[Employment, May 13th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the Maraîchers du coeur is a program in Rimouski that provides young dropouts with work experience creating a community garden. They consistently received federal funding from 2000 to 2013.

However, Service Canada's Skills Link program is undermining this project for the second year in a row because the funding is being held up. Last year, the project was approved in September. Vegetables are planted in spring. This is the eleventh hour. I informed the minister of the situation three weeks ago.

Can he make sure he provides a response by the weekend, so that the young people can start their work?

[International Trade, May 12th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' record on international trade definitely does not measure up to their rhetoric. A year ago, the Conservatives made a big show of announcing that they had finalized the terms for the free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union, with just some minor details left to work out. Now more and more European governments are hinting that they may not ratify the agreement.

Will the minister finally tell us the truth and set the record straight regarding the status of this long-overdue agreement?

[Employment, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, Canada lost 20,000 jobs in April. In the regions, jobs are disappearing faster than we can count them. Some 30 workers lost their jobs at Enercon in Matane. Another 125 workers at the Resolute Forest Products mill in Mauricie will be out of a job. In Havre-Saint-Pierre, 31 workers learned last month that they will be laid off from Rio Tinto Iron and Titanium.

Why is there nothing in the Conservative budget for those workers?

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, that was a very long 20-minute speech.

I have a very simple question for the member for Sarnia—Lambton.

How can she justify the fact that there is no GST on Viagra or Cialis, while GST does apply to feminine hygiene products? My question is very specific, so I would like a very specific answer.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's speech, and I would like to raise this point again.

The motion we are discussing today is very specific. It is about removing the GST from feminine hygiene products. The member did not talk about that except for maybe in the first two minutes of her speech. Now she is talking about the law on balanced budgets, which has nothing at all to do with the specific motion we are discussing today.

She has been talking for at least six or seven minutes but has not addressed the matter before us. I would like to ask my colleague to speak specifically to the content of the motion we are discussing today.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague's comments, but I listened to the two speeches on our side of the House. These speeches had a very specific connection to income inequality and gender inequality in this very specific debate. There was a very clear connection to the content of the motion. However, when a member starts talking about TFSAs or other measures that have nothing to do with this specific debate, it detracts from the topic and I think it detracts from the seriousness of the motion we are debating.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I completely understand your decision, but I would like to point out that we are halfway through the debate. We talked only about the GST at the beginning and now we are hearing about the TFSA limit, which has nothing to do with feminine hygiene products.

I would like the member to focus on the essence of the motion for the rest of her speaking time. The motion is very specific, and I do not think that the member will have any trouble sticking to this particular topic instead of talking about measures that have nothing to do with the debate. I understand that we have some flexibility, but flexibility does not involve talking about a completely different topic for more than half of the debate.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt the debate of my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton.

I know that we are usually flexible in the content of debates on various motions and bills that are presented, but what we are currently discussing is actually very tight. We are supposed to be debating the issue of the removal of the GST from feminine hygiene products. I understand that the member wants to talk about all those tax initiatives the government has undertaken, but I do believe the motion has been tightened in a way that we could actually have a specific debate on the importance of the burden the GST represents on that specific item, which is not supposed to be a luxury item, on the contrary.

I would like to know if the member could speak specifically to the opposition day motion.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel for her excellent speech. The question I am going to ask her is similar to the one I asked the member for London—Fanshawe but from another angle. I remember quite well that when we debated introducing the GST in Canada, one of the discussions that got the most media attention was about how many donuts you had to buy before they were not taxable. If you bought one, two or three donuts, they would be taxable, but if you bought six or 12 donuts, you would not be charged any GST because they could be considered a meal.

This type of debate took up a lot of time in our discussion about the GST, but it seems to me that we overlooked a far more important debate, such as this one, on products that cannot be considered a luxury, such as feminine hygiene products. I would like to hear what the member has to say about the direction the debate on the GST took and the reasons why this important issue was overlooked.

[Business of Supply, May 8th, 2015]

Mr. Speaker, as deputy finance critic, I am proud to support this motion.

I certainly remember the debate around the introduction of the GST in Canada and the debates over what were considered luxury goods and what goods would one day be GST-exempt.

The member for London—Fanshawe gave an excellent speech and an excellent rationale for why the GST on feminine hygiene products should be eliminated.

Would she like to give us a little background and draw a comparison between certain luxury products and others that are no longer designated as such—