Jean Dorion

[Intergovernmental Affairs, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Dupuis rightly pointed out that he did not understand why the matter had not been resolved, given that it would be easy to do so and that the request was legitimate.

Can the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and minister responsible for the Quebec City region explain what is so complicated about saying yes and going ahead immediately with the transfer of this land?

[Intergovernmental Affairs, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, last Wednesday the National Assembly of Quebec unanimously adopted a motion calling for ownership of four parcels of land that it currently leases from the Canadian government. This request has fallen on deaf ears on two previous occasions. No nation can accept that the land on which its parliament sits belongs to another nation.

Will this government, which claims to recognize the Quebec nation, finally understand that this request is more than legitimate and that it must stop dragging its feet in a matter that has gone on too long?

[Service Canada, May 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to add my voice to those of my colleagues who have today supported the motion by the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie, with amendments, particularly the one by my colleague from Saint-Lambert . This motion calls upon the government to improve its passport services.

In my riding on the Montreal south shore, the Bloc Québécois members have been calling for this for years.

Close to 700,000 residents could be served by a passport office on the south shore, yet the Canadian government is still refusing to open one there. While the people of Laval have their own passport office, the residents of Longueuil, Saint-Lambert, Boucherville and Brossard , and indeed of the whole greater Montérégie region, have to travel to Montreal to obtain the same services that are available on the north shore.

Last September, the Canadian government announced the opening of about one hundred new sites where people could hand in passport applications to Service Canada centres. That, however, was three days before the last election call, of course, so the three sites announced for Montérégie, including the one in Longueuil, are still not set up.

During a meeting last Sunday with the people of my riding in Boucherville, I had another chance to hear how dreadful the situation is: a citizen stood to tell me the last time he and his wife applied for passports, it cost them $250. There is apparently no parking after 9 a.m. in all the streets around the passport office in downtown Montreal. The couple went there at about 8 o’clock but with the long lineup, they did not get out until a little after 9, when they found a big parking ticket on their car.

The Bloc Québécois has been protesting since 2004 about the fact that people from the south shore are not treated the same as people from Laval or Montreal's West Island. When the Liberals were in power, they too turned a deaf ear to the repeated requests of my Bloc predecessor, Caroline St-Hilaire, for a passport office on the south shore. It is ironic, therefore, that today’s motion was introduced by a Liberal.

In the last election campaign, moreover, even the Conservative candidates joined in the demands that the Bloc candidates had been making for years and promised that a passport office would be opened on the south shore.

Today, both the Liberals and Conservatives have a chance to take a step in the right direction.

As a member of the Bloc Québécois, I would rather, of course, that Quebeckers could get a passport from their own country of Quebec. Until that time, though, I think we should make passport services more accessible to all citizens.

Time is running short now because as of June 1, travellers will have to have a passport to cross the American border by land.

This deadline of June 1, 2009, should prompt the government to act quickly and ensure that the Service Canada centres in the area can handle the passport applications from the residents of the south shore. This would ensure that people have fast, complete, accessible services.

Keeping just to my riding, there are several reasons why a passport office should be opened there, including the large population of the Montérégie and Centre-du-Québec regions, estimated at more than 1.5 million, and the traffic congestion and atmospheric pollution caused by the need to travel to Montreal Island for fast, complete services. How can a Passport Canada office be justified in Pointe-Claire with its small population when the unmet needs are on the south shore of Montreal?

The only option that the Government of Canada currently provides to the citizens in my region is to send their applications through Canada Post receiving agents.

Those agents charge an additional convenience fee of $20 simply for checking the applications whereas citizens who deal directly with Passport Canada are given full service without any verification charges and with delivery times that are much more acceptable.

This way of doing things creates disparity among taxpayers because they are not entitled to the same services as those living on the other side of the St. Lawrence. Given that the cost of a passport is already very high, it is appalling that they are required to pay additional fees simply because of the negligence of the Canadian government, which refuses to open a passport office on the south shore.

I find it truly inconceivable that we have had to battle so long to obtain such a small concession as a Passport Canada office on Montreal's south shore. It is the same thing every time we ask for equitable service for the regions of Quebec. In my opinion, the Canadian government is too big and too detached from our Quebec nation to concern itself with our needs.

Since being elected, I have seen, day in and day out, the deliberate, stubborn refusal of the Canadian government to abolish the waiting period for employment insurance—a measure that would benefit workers affected by the economic crisis—and its refusal to give the same treatment to Quebec's manufacturing industries as it does to those of Ontario. The current government, like its Liberal predecessor, ignores the legitimate claims of Quebeckers and even the unanimous consensus of their National Assembly, and offers up minute concessions in order to get re-elected.

As it promised to do, three days before calling an election, the Government of Canada must immediately open the three necessary receiving sites in Montérégie, including the Longueuil office. That would prevent the citizens of Longueuil, Boucherville and surrounding areas from having to cross bridges or endure long delays before obtaining their passports.

Therefore, I invite all MPs in this House to vote in favour of motion M-276.

[Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, May 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like also to congratulate my colleague for Berthier—Maskinongé on his remarks. He showed his command of the content of this bill, but there is a point on which he could elaborate further, and that is the issue of democracy. I would ask him to comment more on this.

We live in communities where anonymity is prevalent. People want to protect their private life. They do not give their names and addresses to many people, but they do disclose them to the associations they belong to.

Does my colleague think that the provisions of this bill, which require the organization to give its membership list to all members who ask for it, are a step forward democratically, compared to the situation that prevailed in the past?

[Trait d'Union Community Centre, May 4th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Trait d'Union community centre is celebrating its 25th anniversary today. That organization serves the people of my riding, especially those in the Sacré-Coeur neighbourhood of Longueuil. It provides a place for people to come together and share resources and ideas, and it serves as an anchor for the entire community.

Community involvement and the tenacity of many local stakeholders have produced positive results. Today, the Trait d'Union offers social and cultural recreation programs, summer day camps for children, sports and other physical activities, as well as community programs for all age groups.

I would like to congratulate and sincerely thank the staff and many volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to the well-being of their community day after day. I would also like to posthumously recognize the enormous contribution made by Raymond Guay, one of the founders of the community centre, who served as its director for 20 years.

[Securities, April 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the Quebec Minister of Finance and the CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers are concerned about the potentially negative impact of creating such a single commission, in part because of the loss of expertise this would represent for Quebec.

Will the Minister of Finance admit that the purpose of this plan is to centralize the financial sector in Toronto and to strip Montreal of its expertise?

[Securities, April 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, during a parliamentary committee meeting yesterday at the National Assembly, the Quebec finance minister and the CEO of the Autorité des marchés financiers again spoke of the efficiency of our decentralized system of securities regulation, which also has the support of the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD. They also expressed strong objections to the Conservative's plan for a single Canada-wide securities regulator.

Will the Minister of Finance give up on this totally counterproductive plan, which no one in Quebec wants?

[Business of Supply, April 28th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have another question for the member who just spoke.

We now have a Canadian government which says that the way the harmonization was done was not to its liking and announces that until it has collected all the money and distributed it in Quebec, if it wants to, it does not intend to give Quebec the $2.6 billion it owes it. That amount is growing daily. It would unfortunately have been the same thing under a Liberal government.

In an article published in The Gazette 10 days ago, the Minister of Finance said: “Quebec will collect when we collect”.

Considering that sort of blackmail, should we not be worried that if Quebec yielded to the Conservatives and let them collect the money, they could very well decide to take that blackmail further by refusing even to give us our fair share?

[Sri Lanka, April 21st, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, between 70,000 and 10,000 Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka are crowded into a 15 km square area initially designed as a no-fire zone for the protection of civilians. The Red Cross has expressed extreme concern for the civilians caught in this zone.

Does Canada intend to add its voice to the others who are calling for both parties to ensure the protection of civilians and to immediately reach a lasting ceasefire?

[Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, April 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is my turn now to rise in favour of Bill C-291, introduced by my colleague from Jeanne-Le Ber on behalf of the Bloc Québécois. As my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert already pointed out, it is absurd that we have a bill here to force the government to fully implement legislation already passed by the House and entitled the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Sections 110, 111 and 171 of this act provided for the creation of a refugee appeal division, which was supposed to enable claimants who were initially refused refugee status to appeal the adjudicator’s decision.

As things currently stand, a single adjudicator judges the validity of a claimant’s fear of persecution if returned to his country of origin on the basis of his race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinions. Sections 110, 111 and 171 creating the refugee appeal division were supposed to be implemented four years ago to enable people to appeal the decisions of adjudicators, but they still have not come into force.

I worked for nine years in the offices of two Quebec immigration ministers. For much of that time, one of my jobs was to deal with the cases of refugee claimants whose applications had been turned down by federal adjudicators and who were now appealing to Quebec ministers to try to find a solution to the impasse they were in. This job helped me understand the terrible solitude of many of these people and how helpless they felt when faced with a sole adjudicator without any chance of appeal.

In many cases, I had an opportunity to read the decisions handed down by the adjudicators very carefully. Some rejections, of course, were perfectly well-founded, but others left me stunned by the ignorance or insensitivity of the adjudicator. When some adjudicators reject nearly 100% of the claims submitted to them, the inevitable conclusion is that they are motivated much more by a desire to get rid of people who, in their view, disturb our society than by the humanitarian principles and compassion that should guide any civilized person or nation.

Because of the way in which the law is currently being applied, or more accurately, is not being applied four years after passing the House, claimants still have no chance of appealing arbitrary decisions based sometimes on bizarre reasons.

We, the Bloc Québécois, are not the only ones calling for the implementation of the refugee appeal division provided for in the legislation. For many years, countless voices have been raised, calling for a refugee appeal division. Before the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act even came into effect, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights was calling for such an appeal division:

Where the facts of an individual’s situation are in dispute, the effective procedural framework should provide for their review. Given that even the best decision-makers may err in passing judgment, and given the potential risk to life which may result from such an error, an appeal on the merits of a negative determination constitutes a necessary element of international protection.

In a letter dated May 9, 2002, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said that it considers an appeal procedure to be a fundamental, necessary part of any refugee status determination process.

For all these reasons, I urge all members of this House to support Bill C-291 introduced by the Bloc Québécois.