Jean Dorion

[Mario Cusson Competition Team, June 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I was proud to learn that the Mario Cusson Competition Team from my riding recently distinguished itself at the Quebec provincial Golden Gloves boxing championship.

The team took first place as the most improved club and second place for number of wins.

I would like to congratulate the winning boxers: Charles Boismenu, Sarah Dasylva, Mélanie Carrier, Gino Colangelo, Mélanie Grenon, Martine Vallières-Bisson, Samuel Francisque, Parwiz Payman and David St-Pierre.

A big thank you to the team's head trainer, the president and former champion Alain Bosmenu, whose energy and dedication help young people excel at a competitive sport.

Good luck to Longueuil's Mario Cusson Competitive Team in the 2010 Quebec Cup, an international competition that will be held in Longueuil from June 24 to 27.

[Business of Supply, June 10th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I was quite saddened to hear the hon. member for Westmount—Ville-Marie reduce this debate to a purely legal issue, namely whether the Supreme Court of Canada will say that the federal government has the right to interfere in securities, as it intends to.

We can almost be certain that the court will side with the government, especially since every one of the court's judges is appointed by the Canadian government, which makes it not a Canadian institution, but a federal institution.

It is like a federal institution asking another federal institution whether the federal government has the right to interfere in this area. The real question from Quebec's perspective is: will this serve the interests of Quebec or not? That is the concern of the Bloc Québécois. It is obvious that it will not.

All the stakeholders in Quebec, the National Assembly, the major business groups, the major financial groups, know that tens of thousands of good jobs will be lost in Quebec and that English will become the only language of work in the financial sector and—

[International Co-operation, June 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, the CCIC, was forced to hand out pink slips to two-thirds of its employees because its agreement with CIDA ended on March 31.

The CCIC, a coalition of about a hundred organizations working to end global poverty, appears to be the Prime Minister's most recent victim as he attempts to systematically muzzle all organizations that question Conservative policies.

When will the Conservative government stop using public funding as a political weapon to thank its friends and punish anyone who disagrees with it?

[Amnesty International, May 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Amnesty International is concerned. It describes the deterioration in the federal government's support for basic rights and democracy as flagrant.

In addition, in a report released yesterday, Amnesty condemns the government's lack of protection of human rights in Canada, including aboriginal rights, when issuing licences for mining, logging and petroleum and other resource extraction. Amnesty also considers that Canada's failure to ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is indefensible and criticizes the government's inaction on violence against aboriginal women.

But Amnesty's criticisms do not stop there: recalling the testimony of Richard Colvin, the organization expresses concern about the fate of Afghan detainees. It also points out that child soldier Omar Khadr is the only westerner still being held in Guantanamo.

If it wants to stop being an international laughingstock, the federal government must regain its credibility on the issue of human rights.

[Business of Supply, May 11th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for Saint-Jean, who made a very interesting speech. I will no doubt touch on some of the results of the survey he mentioned, because the truth bears repeating.

I will of course support the Bloc Québécois motion, and I urge all members in this House, particularly those from Quebec, to be realistic and to join us in acknowledging that Canadian federalism cannot be renewed and cannot be reformed. Twenty years after the failure of the Meech Lake accord, which was the umpteenth attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, it is more clear than ever that the Quebec nation and the Canadian nation have completely opposite views of Quebec's current and future status.

Even now, the Conservative government has insisted on introducing Bill C-12, a bill to amend the electoral map, which would mean that once again, Quebec would have a smaller percentage of representatives in this House. Unfortunately, the Liberals supported this proposal, and lo and behold, even Liberal and Conservative members from Quebec support this bill, which will be detrimental to the interests of the nation they claim to faithfully represent.

This initiative to further reduce Quebec's place in the Canadian system says a lot about the fate that Canada is reserving for the Quebec nation, which is to live as a minority that will become increasingly smaller. Yes, an increasingly smaller minority is all that Canada can offer us for the future.

Beyond all the nice rhetoric used in this House to make us believe that we are considered with a minimum of respect, the polls reveal the real feelings of Canada towards Quebeckers' aspirations. The one that was conducted between March 18 and April 6, to which the hon. member for Saint-Jean referred, shows us once again the harsh reality.

While 73% of Quebeckers want the Canadian Constitution to recognize that Quebec forms a nation, 83% of the respondents in the rest of Canada reject the idea. In other words, only 17% of the Canadian population outside Quebec supports the idea that we, Quebeckers, form a nation and that Canadian public institutions should reflect that reality.

In any case, the willingness of Canadians to find a constitutional arrangement that would be acceptable to Quebec has never been so weak.

When asked if Canada should begin a new round of negotiations to find a satisfactory constitutional agreement for Quebec, 82% of Quebeckers said yes, while 61% of Canadians outside Quebec said no. Similarly, when we talk about negotiating a new division of powers and resources between Quebec and Ottawa to recognize Quebec's special status, close to three out of four Quebeckers, or 73% to be precise, are in favour of the idea, while more than seven out of ten Canadians, or 71%, are opposed to it.

Throughout their history, the protection of the French language and culture has been one of Quebeckers' main concerns. That is truer than ever, as the poll shows. Indeed, 82% of Quebeckers feel that the Quebec government should have more powers to protect the French language and culture on its territory, but almost seven out of ten Canadians, or 69%, oppose the idea.

The gap between the two visions on the linguistic issue is even more glaring when we ask whether the Government of Canada should respect, on the Quebec territory, the provisions of Bill 101, which makes French Quebec's official language.

According to this survey, 90 % of Quebeckers agree, while 74% of Canadians disagree.

I could go on and on about the drastic differences and oppositions between the Quebec outlook and the Canadian outlook which are highlighted in the survey.

Twenty years after the failure of the Meech Lake accord, is it not more evident than ever that it is about time our two nations draw conclusions from these irreconcilable differences?

Allow me to conclude on a more personal note. At the time when the Meech Lake accord failed, I was president of the Montreal Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste, which organizes Quebec national holiday celebrations in Montreal. What an extraordinary outpouring of fervour we witnessed on that day, with hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens following the parade down Sherbrooke Street in Montreal.

The failure of Meech was a test of truth, the kind of truth that is said to set us free. I remember Jean Duceppe, on the evening of the national holiday, shouting to a cheering crowd, “From now on, the future of Quebec will no longer be decided in Newfoundland, Manitoba or elsewhere. It will be decided in QUEBEC, by the QUEBECKERS themselves.”

The motion put forward by the Bloc Québécois today contributes further to the propagation of the truth, the truth that will set us free. Long live a sovereign Quebec. Vive le Québec libre.

[Omar Khadr, April 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, negotiations have been taking place on the sidelines of Omar Khadr's trial, in regard to his collaboration with the justice system. His repatriation was at the heart of these negotiations. Human rights are not negotiable. Omar Khadr is a Canadian citizen. He was a child soldier when these events took place.

Without passing judgment as to his guilt, why will the government not repatriate this citizen, the last westerner in Guantanamo, especially since we know that he has been tortured?

[Constitution Act, 2010 (Senate term limits), April 29th, 2010]

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

This bill does not take the Quebec nation into account at all. The Conservative government claims to have recognized the Quebec nation, but in reality, is it not disregarding the constitutional aspect of this national issue?

As other speakers have already said, in a federal system, this Senate reform cannot be passed without going through the constitutional amendment procedures.

Quebec was not consulted on this issue. The former Quebec minister for Canadian intergovernmental affairs, Benoît Pelletier, stated Quebec's position in 2007. He said:

The Government of Quebec does not believe that this falls exclusively under federal jurisdiction. Given that the Senate is a crucial part of the Canadian federal compromise, it is clear to us that under the Constitution Act, 1982, and the Regional Veto Act, the Senate can be neither reformed nor abolished without Quebec's consent.

That same day, the Quebec National Assembly adopted the following motion:

That the National Assembly of Québec reaffirm to the federal government and to the Parliament of Canada that no modification to the Canadian Senate may be carried out without the consent of the Government of Québec and the National Assembly.

Is the Canadian government not being quite arrogant by completely ignoring the will of Quebec and avoiding any consultations with it on this issue?

[Democratic Republic of the Congo, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, is pressing for the UN peacekeepers to begin withdrawing from his country in June. But according to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Cormier and many NGOs, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not ready for the peacekeepers to pull out.

Will the government respond favourably to all those who want this important mission to continue?

[Afghanistan, April 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this government is doing everything it can to avoid shedding light on its complicity in the torture of Afghan detainees. Eight days of hearings of the Military Police Complaints Commission could be cancelled because of the Conservative government's failure to cooperate.

Is it not time to set up an independent public commission of inquiry to finally shed light on the torture of Afghan detainees?

[Italian-Canadian Recognition and Restitution Act, April 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, in addition to the merits of Bill C-302, which is about recognizing and redressing, albeit in a small way, the injustice done to our fellow citizens of Italian ancestry during the second world war, I have very personal reasons for rising here today and supporting it.

Since several members of the Italian community are no doubt listening to this debate, I would like to begin by saying a few words to them in their mother tongue.

[Member spoke in Italian ]

[French]

For the benefit of my hon. colleagues who are not bilingual, I will translate what I just said in Italian.

I was raised, both during and after the war, in Ville-Émard, Montreal. At that time, there were many residents of Italian descent in that neighbourhood, as there are today. These people were our neighbours. We children all played together. Our parents were all from the same social background—labourers like my father or small business owners, people who worked hard. When my parents spoke about the internment of Italians during the war, it was always with sympathy and indignation. I think that my parents, if they were alive today, would be proud to see their son speaking in the House about legislation to acknowledge the injustice committed against our fellow Canadians of Italian descent.

In a 1957 book in Italian, Father Guglielmo Vangelisti described what the Italian community experienced when war was declared between Italy and Canada. Here is my translation of a passage from his book titled Gli Italiani in Canada.

Faced suddenly with such dreadful news, our compatriots in Montreal were dumbfounded and had scarcely enough breath to exclaim, “Poor us.” From then on, against their will, they became enemies of their beloved country. And even though they had previously been held in high esteem and loved as cousins and brothers, they would be looked on as enemies and traitors worthy of the utmost scorn. The RCMP swung into action immediately. With a list of our compatriots in hand, they ran here and there, like hounds on a trail. They went into homes, stores and offices and picked out the heads of family and the most prominent people in our community. Once they had found them, the RCMP handcuffed them and loaded them into the van, as their appalled wives and children looked on, crying and wailing.

Meanwhile, other police officers searched the house from top to bottom. They searched clothing, beds and cupboards, leaving nothing untouched. Once a good number of our compatriots had been rounded up, the van sped them away to the city's jails, where they were kept prisoner under close watch. This process was repeated until hundreds of people were being held.

In the jails of Montreal, our poor prisoners remained isolated in cells for days before being transferred to the concentration camp in Petawawa, without knowing how or why they were to stay there for months or even years, separated from their families and the rest of the world.

In this city without women, as Mario Duliani described it in one of his books, the men were constantly filled with fear and anxiety. They yearned to be free and gave up hope even when freedom was within their grasp.

As the detention camps filled up, the government ordered the seizure of Italians' assets as enemy property. The Casa Italia was seized. Our compatriots' property was seized along with what little money they had scrimped and saved to put in the bank. How did their families manage to support themselves? They had to wait and try to save money as best they could. By the end of it, they were up to their ears in debt.

Mr. Vangelisti went on to say—I am still translating from Italian—that while the second world war had disastrous consequences for many of our families, it was just as bad for our churches and parishes. Cherished popular celebrations were no longer held, processions and concerts were prohibited, raffles and all organizations were banned, even for charitable purposes. We were not allowed to gather, even just a few of us at a time. Although Italian was not banned in church, many people at Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel in Montreal felt it was prudent given the overheated atmosphere to speak French instead. In Ottawa's Saint Anthony church, people began speaking only English.

We have come a long way. I believe that we are not always aware of just how fragile the protection that is supposed to guarantee our rights and freedoms is. Nothing will correct the injustices perpetrated on our fellow citizens of Italian origin some 70 years ago. Nevertheless, the bill introduced by our colleague from Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel will, among other things, make succeeding generations more aware of just how precious and fragile that protection is and of how important it is to defend and broaden it.

That is why I, like my Bloc Québécois colleagues, will vote for Bill C-302.