Jean-Yves Laforest

[Harmonized Sales Tax, September 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the federal government will soon have compensated three maritime provinces, Ontario and British Columbia for harmonizing their sales tax. But the federal government is refusing to give Quebec the same treatment, claiming that the GST and the QST are not perfectly harmonized. Yet according to Privy Council documents, the federal government acknowledges that Quebec has harmonized its sales tax. Quebec took action 18 years ago.

What is the government waiting for to pay Quebec what it is owed?

[Taxation, September 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, tax havens are responsible as well for the erosion of government revenues. This is a matter for the minister. Instead of dipping into the pockets of the unemployed, as the Liberals so often did, the government should begin by going after those who are not paying their taxes.

Will the Minister of International Trade commit to not signing free trade agreements with the countries accused by the OECD, as is the case at the moment with Panama?

[Taxation, September 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is necessary to go after tax havens to ensure that white collar criminals cannot hide there the money stolen from small investors. The Liberals and the Conservatives have shown absolutely no desire to go after tax havens.

In the most recent budget, for example, which the Liberals supported, the Conservatives reneged on their promise to go after the practice of double deduction and continue to refuse to go after the tax schemes involving Barbados.

Will the minister finally establish measures with teeth to deal with the problems of tax havens?

[June 19th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I listened to the question and, if I have understood correctly, the member is talking about a problem in his riding regarding transportation. We also noticed during the spring that the government was boasting about 80% of the projects being implemented already. We see that there was poor planning and poor organization. I completely agree with him that efforts were not made to ensure that it would all come about in an orderly fashion in order for the work to be completed in a reasonable period of time.

[June 19th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this matter, namely the vote on the estimates, the outcome of which we will know shortly.

I am announcing that all members of the Bloc Québécois will not concur in the estimates. There is a very simple reason for this decision. The estimates are closely related to the entire budget tabled by the Conservative government and supported by the Liberals. As we said when the budget was passed and during debate on the budget, we realized that the budget was not good for Quebec, that it was bad for Quebec. That is why we will be voting against the estimates because the implementation of this budget deprives Quebec of significant means to ensure its development.

A number of reasons justify what I have just said. We have realized that, contrary to the unanimous will expressed on a number of occasions in Quebec's National Assembly, the Conservative budget, once again supported by the Liberals, does not help Quebec at all in the way desired by the National Assembly of Quebec, which unanimously asked for certain measures.

On January 15, 2009, Quebec's National Assembly passed a unanimous motion calling for more help for workers, communities and businesses affected by the downturn, and for significant support for the manufacturing and forestry sectors, which are going through a particularly hard time.

In that regard, the Conservative budget, which was recently increased, was completely unfair. In its budget, the party gave the auto sector nearly $4 billion, and has since increased that amount. Now the auto sector will be getting almost $10 billion.

That same budget allocated just $270 million over three years to the forestry sector across Canada. But in every region of Quebec, forestry companies, paper mills, sawmills and softwood lumber companies are facing serious challenges, and thousands of people have lost their jobs. Yet the Conservative government gave us a budget that ignores them all.

Early this week, the government announced a new measure that Quebec is unanimously against. The government would have us believe that its new measure will solve a bunch of problems, but that is not true. It is not true because what the Conservatives announced will help just eight plants in Quebec, while nearly 50 of them need loan guarantees. The Conservative government is stubbornly insisting that it cannot provide loan guarantees because that would upset the Americans.

The Americans, for their part, are doing as they please, working to help their businesses and standing up for them while this Conservative government, with Liberal support, is not. People in the regions are paying the price. They are the ones having trouble making ends meet and making their mortgage payments. Quebec's forestry sector has been in trouble for a long time now. But the Conservatives have left people in the forestry sector and people in the regions of Quebec to their own devices.

In the motion I talked about earlier, the Quebec National Assembly also asked for improvements to the employment insurance system. There is something that does not make sense in the current situation, since we know that the system's funds were cut drastically in the 1990s by the Liberal government. Nearly $50 billion was taken away from unemployed workers. The Liberals did that, with the Conservatives' support. Now that they have taken and spent the money that belonged to the workers and employers, they are incapable of saying here today that we should give back the money taken from workers who are going through tough times.

But no, no one is doing that. Nothing is being done. We thought for a moment that the Liberals were beginning to wake up. They asked for an EI eligibility threshold of 360 hours. We thought they were perhaps beginning to understand. But that is not the case. They dropped the ball again. We saw the birth of this new coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberals. But once again, the Liberals returned to their normal ways. They tried to project another image, but no one was fooled. They tried to give a different impression, but quickly went back to their old ways.

The Liberals and the Conservatives made a conscious decision to ignore the demands of Quebec. Instead of helping Quebec, they decided to deprive Quebec of substantial means to deal with the crisis. On the contrary—and this is what bothers Quebeckers most about the Liberals, who support the Conservatives, and the Conservatives themselves—they decided to respond to the wishes of Ontario and the west.

The auto sector is in trouble; no one is denying that. However, when one sector is offered $10 billion and another sector is offered only a tenth of that, even though it is also struggling and has just as many workers, that is completely unfair.

The government offered $10 billion to the automotive industry and $1 billion to the forestry industry, which does not even suit the different companies in Quebec. It is completely unfair. It is fortunate that the Bloc Québécois is here now to defend people from the regions, the workers of Quebec, the different companies. We hear them, we understand their needs and we will defend them. We are prepared to put our seats on the line. We will vote against the estimates. The Liberals have wiped themselves out by creating a coalition and a bogus working group that at the end of the day will go nowhere.

This Conservative-Liberal plan is a failure. The unemployment rate is still very high in Quebec—we have heard it is 8.7%—and the second progress report shows that the Conservatives have not even been able to provide what they promised. They are boasting that 80% of the plan is already being implemented. But when we are talking about a plan to support businesses, workers and families during a recession, an economic crisis, 100% of the program should be up and running right now, and that is not the case.

Building Canada, which we have heard so much about, was passed in the 2007 budget. We are still waiting for building Canada projects to be announced and carried out. It makes no sense. Here is an example. We are still waiting for the Super PEPS in Quebec City, which was announced as part of the building Canada program.

We saw what happened this week with this new coalition. I think that the people of Quebec realize that the Liberals and the Conservatives are one and the same and always will be.

They said that they would fight for the unemployed who were going to starve this summer, but the following day they sat down and said they would create a working group. In the meantime, the people they said would starve during the summer have nothing. They just hope these people will not starve while waiting, but it will be fall before we see any concrete action.

And even then, the working group will submit its report in the fall, but how long will it take before anything happens? What does the government, supported by the Liberals, really want to offer to Quebeckers, to people who are struggling? One has to wonder.

I repeat; we will be voting against the estimates.

[Business of Supply, June 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague on his excellent speech.

He referred to the member for Lévis—Bellechasse, because he had heard him make some rather inconsistent statements. I heard the same thing. But one thing surprised me in that member's speech: when he said, arguing in favour of a single securities regulator and telling us how wonderful it would be, that he completely agreed, for example, with putting British Columbia in charge of regulating and controlling securities in the mining sector.

Everyone knows that Quebec is very well represented in the mining sector. It seems as though the member for Lévis—Bellechasse completely forgot about the Quebec mining sector, which needs its own regulator, currently located in Quebec, that defends the sector perfectly well.

[Business of Supply, June 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely to the speech by the Conservative member opposite.

He got a few good ones in, even though we are not laughing. I was surprised to hear him say, first of all, that international organizations are asking Canada to create a single securities regulator for us to be taken seriously. That is hard to understand when the OECD places Canada second in the world for the quality of its securities regulation. If there is one organization that can be called international, it is the OECD.

Second, the member said that the plan to create a Canada-wide securities regulator respects the constitutional jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec. I would like to know if his party consulted the Government of Quebec on this issue. It seems to me that Quebec's National Assembly unanimously adopted two motions stating that it rejects the idea of a single securities regulator. In addition to being unconstitutional, the matter falls under provincial jurisdictions.

I fail to grasp how the member can say that Quebec is turned inward and does not take businesses into account. Is the member suggesting that each and every member of Quebec's National Assembly representing every region in Quebec is not concerned about the businesses in his or her riding? That makes no sense.

[Business of Supply, June 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague for her excellent speech. She spoke with much passion about the motion we put forward today.

She finished her speech by saying that, very clearly, this Conservative government, supported and even preceded by the Liberals, wants to deprive Quebec of its voice on the international scene, but also of the jurisdictions it already has by virtue of the Constitution. Everybody knows that the real aim in depriving Quebec is to transfer some of its jurisdictions to Toronto or to Ontario.

I would like to ask her how people in Quebec react to such a situation. There is a form of unanimity at the National Assembly, but are people in agreement with that? She was talking about the Conservative members from Quebec who will have to think very carefully before supporting the position of the Conservative government. The same thing goes for the Liberals. I would like to hear what she has to say about this.

[Business of Supply, June 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I was listening to my colleague opposite deliver his message that I think is nothing but hogwash. He quoted a former Bloc member who said the Bloc is uncomfortable with economic issues. I would tell him that, on the contrary, the Bloc is very comfortable with its role of representing Quebec's interests and with the idea of defending an issue that was the object of a unanimous resolution by the National Assembly. When he tells us that he does not understand why the Bloc does not want a single securities commission, I believe it is precisely because, as he said himself, Liberal and Conservative members do not understand Quebec. They have a lot of difficulty with that. That is why they have been trying for several years to implement a measure that goes totally against the will of Quebeckers, as evidenced by two unanimous resolutions by the National Assembly, among other things.

I have a question for my colleague opposite. He referred on several occasions to the fact that today's global economy requires national agencies. How can he accept the idea of creating a single securities commission because a national agency is supposedly needed when the Conservatives themselves have recognized the Quebec nation? The Quebec nation has the right to have its own securities regulator. The two ideas are irreconcilable.

[Business of Supply, June 15th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for that question.

I in fact said this earlier at the start of my speech explaining my motion today. There is no doubt that a system where the provinces have responsibility operates smoothly. The Constitution gives them regulatory power. The bodies in each province have organized themselves. They are structured and have created jobs. The evaluations tell us our system works well.

When we realize despite all that, despite the unanimous opinion and the strong opposition in Quebec to a single securities regulator, that only Ontario does not want to be part of a system of passports as advocated by the International Monetary Fund, because Ontario wants to benefit from the creation of a single securities body in opposition to all that, we see that the present government and the Liberal government before it wanted to favour Ontario over Quebec.

The whole question my colleague is raising is the question of the job losses Quebec will suffer in this matter and the question of those jobs going to the Ontario financial sector, in Toronto, which unfortunately would happen—and I use "would happen" advisedly, because it is not a done deal and we will oppose it—despite the fact that small investors are currently well protected. We are not sure they would have the same degree of protection. We have serious doubts in this regard.