Jean-Yves Laforest

[Bill 101 and the Canada Labour Code, April 28th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-482 calls for Bill 101 to apply to the 240,000 workers in Quebec governed by the Canada Labour Code. If recognizing Quebec as a nation means anything, then its culture and language have to be protected.

Can the Minister of Labour and member for Jonquière—Alma tell us what his policy is for Quebec: French as the language of work or bilingualism?

[Broadcasting and Telecommunications, April 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that the minister's answer will do anything to satisfy the groups that defend Quebec's cultural interests.

Moreover, when he was Minister of Communications in Robert Bourassa's cabinet in Quebec City, the current Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities asked for the power to regulate broadcasting and telecommunications because the Quebec nation was vulnerable within North America. That has not changed. Yesterday, the same minister said exactly the opposite.

Are we to understand that once he got to Ottawa, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities forgot all about Quebec and decided to serve his own interests and those of the rest—

[Broadcasting and Telecommunications, April 17th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, culture is the cornerstone of the Quebec nation, and broadcasting and telecommunications content should be regulated in Quebec City. This power can be transferred by means of an administrative agreement, without a constitutional amendment.

If recognizing that Quebec is a nation really means something to the Conservatives, then what is the government waiting for to walk the talk and allow Quebec to create its own broadcasting and telecommunications commission?

[HEC Montréal, April 15th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the Standard Life—HEC Montréal fund team took first place at the eighth Redefining Investment Strategy Education (RISE) Forum. Created in 1999 with a $2 million donation, the fund now has a market value of nearly $4 million, making it the second-largest student fund in Canada.

The students managing this year's fund were awarded this prestigious international prize as part of an annual competition organized by Dayton University in partnership with the United Nations Global Compact program.

The funds are evaluated on the basis of their performance, and the HEC fund came out on top in the international category, with a 10.83% annual return. The students manage the fund through a management committee and act as portfolio analysts and managers.

On behalf of my Bloc Québécois colleagues, I would like to extend our most sincere congratulations to the HEC students for this top prize.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for the question. He asked me if he would have our support on certain measures that have been cancelled by the Conservatives.

I remind him that each time bills are put forward—bills about reinstating programs—we evaluate each one thoroughly, and we will continue to do so.

However, I remind him that we will continue to do so if we can see that there is something in it for Quebeckers. If we believe that these measures will allow Quebeckers to continue to access good services and that they can benefit from the measures he is talking to me about, eventually and with the right to change our mind, there is a strong possibility that we will support him. We have presented very important demands about social housing, the environment—greenhouse gas emissions—and about the justification for providing the homeless with better services.

In my opinion, that is what I believe to be the party line.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2008, April 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to pick up on what I was saying the day after the budget was brought down, when we heard a number of Conservative MPs say that this budget was extraordinary and good for Canadians. Again, it may be good for Canadians, but it is not good for Quebeckers. We came to that conclusion after a rather careful analysis. There is practically nothing in the budget that corresponds to what the Bloc Québécois asked for before it was tabled by the Conservative government.

This Conservative government is showing us through its right-wing ideology that it is truly quite far removed from the interests and values of Quebec. With this budget we truly feel that the government did not meet the expectations expressed by the Bloc Québécois' with respect to its interests and values. Hon. members will recall that the day after the budget was tabled, the vast majority of the daily newspapers and media in Quebec gave their impression on this budget, and it was clearly unfavourable.

Mr. Dubuc's column in La Presse read:

This lack of vision can be explained by the conservative philosophy of the prime minister's government, which does not believe in the role of the state and avoids economic intervention like the plague. It is an outdated, dogmatic conservatism that is not found anywhere else in the west.

The Bloc Québécois made its requests a long time in advance and on many occasions. These requests focused on the manufacturing and forestry industries, which are currently dealing with an unprecedented crisis in Quebec. These requests have been completely swept aside and forgotten in this budget, as though they were not important.

This budget lacks vision. The Bloc Québécois will most certainly vote against the budget implementation bill we are currently discussing.

I come from a riding, Saint-Maurice—Champlain, where the problem in the forestry industry I was just talking about is extremely serious. Pulp and paper companies are closing one after the other. There is some doubt as to whether the ones that are still around will get through this crisis. The many sawmills in the north of the riding, in the La Tuque area, are closing one after the other, some temporarily, others permanently.

We had hoped that the Conservative government would truly hear and acknowledge the Bloc Québécois demands. It should provide much greater support to the manufacturing and forestry sectors to help them through the current crisis. But the only assistance to the manufacturing sector went to Ontario. That is truly deplorable. Quebec was quite obviously forgotten in this budget.

Earlier, I was speaking about the media. The members will recall that, the day after the budget was tabled, the Quebec Minister of Finance also said that the budget did not meet Quebec's expectations. She said:

I am disappointed because there was a $20 billion margin in the context of an economic slowdown. We were hoping the government would do more for older workers and for the manufacturing and forestry industries in Quebec.

Ms. Jérôme-Forget's comments were made the day after the budget was tabled. There was a surplus of $10.5 billion available. The government could have allocated a sizeable amount, as the Bloc Québécois has been recommending since last fall, to support businesses, plants and workers. It could have allocated $3 billion to debt repayment, which would have been reasonable in any case. But it has acted according to the Conservative ideology. The Conservatives did as they pleased and applied $10.5 billion to paying down the debt, which, in light of what is going on in Quebec, is unacceptable.

As I said earlier, considering these obvious facts and the positions taken in the budget that go against the interests of Quebec, the Bloc Québécois will certainly not vote in favour of implementing this budget. The 2008 budget does not meet any of the conditions set out by the Bloc Québécois. We stated our conditions for supporting the budget, but hardly any of them were met.

As I was saying before, this budget does not provide any direct and immediate assistance to the manufacturing and forestry industries, which are experiencing a major crisis, or to the workers and communities affected by this crisis. The biggest problem of the crisis is that individuals, the people in the cities, municipalities and regions, are the ones hardest hit by the crisis, in terms of their family, personal and community lives. They are the ones who have trouble making ends meet at the end of the month or who cannot pay back the bank drafts and loans they took out, often to purchase equipment in order to work. I am talking about self-employed forestry workers, for example, who must take on the cost of the required machinery themselves. The government has done nothing to help these people.

There is no assistance for workers and communities, except the $1 billion trust over three years, of which Quebec will see only a small part. We are talking about approximately 24%, which is not even representative of the size of the manufacturing and forestry industry relative to Canada. Quebec will have access to only a small amount, while the sectors that are not even affected by the manufacturing and forestry crisis—or barely—will receive a share of the $1 billion on a per capita basis. This is assistance they do not need because they already have an industrial structure to help them through such crises. This is not the case in Quebec.

There is another reason why the Bloc Québécois will not support this bill. It has to do with the whole issue of seniors. During the election campaign, the Conservative Party promised to give full retroactivity to people who had not received the guaranteed income supplement, which the Liberals clearly and deliberately kept quiet about. Thousands of seniors in Quebec do not receive the guaranteed income supplement. They were receiving their old age pension, but they did not know they were entitled to a supplement.

The Liberals did not tell them. The Conservatives, on the other hand, promised them full retroactivity. However, once in power, as soon as they formed the government, their memories failed them and now they forget. This situation once again penalizes our most vulnerable citizens, seniors. How could the Bloc Québécois support such a Conservative budget? We find it completely unacceptable.

There is another factor to consider and another reason why we will not support this budget: the environment. This budget continues to favour polluters in the regions that pollute the most. They are implementing systems that allow industries and businesses, particularly oil companies, to benefit from tax credits and continue to pollute even more. As we all know, since 1990, many communities and businesses in Quebec have taken steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. Instead of being rewarded, these efforts by Quebec businesses are being penalized and more is being given to those who pollute the most.

This is absolutely unacceptable. Once again, it is part of what we call this right-wing ideology, which favours certain areas, such as natural resources, including the oil sector.

Another important element for the Bloc Québécois is culture. This budget does not contain any measures to promote cultural development in Quebec. The film industry is penalized, and funding has been cut once again. Yet the whole cultural, literary and artistic realm in Quebec is a flourishing industry. It needs substantial support from the federal government, which would give meaning to the whole question of the Quebec nation. Developing Quebec's culture would develop its distinctiveness, but the government is not interested.

Once again, a parallel can be drawn between a budget proposal such as this one and the recognition of the Quebec nation, which the government likes to boast about. Yet when the time comes to walk the talk, the government forgets all about it and does not take any real action. It just pays lip service to the idea.

There is another especially important element. I am talking about the government's will, as expressed in this budget. The Minister of Finance has announced that he intends to create a single securities commission, even though the whole financial community in Quebec is against this idea. This is absolutely unacceptable. Moreover, this issue has already been dealt with. This is one budget measure that is a huge stumbling block for us. It is a real source of conflict for us.

I could go back to all the elements in the budget. I was talking earlier about the manufacturing and forestry industries. Even after the vote on the budget had taken place, the Conservative members on the Standing Committee on Finance agreed to hear a series of people to really understand the extent of the crisis in the manufacturing and forestry industries.

What is happening in the manufacturing sector in Quebec and elsewhere, but particularly in Ontario and Quebec? The budget does not provide anything more for this sector, but right after the budget passed, the Conservatives and the other members on the Standing Committee on Finance approved a motion introduced by my Bloc Québécois colleague, the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Finance.

The committee agreed to hear witnesses. The motion read as follows:

That the Committee, in view of the serious challenges faced by the forestry and manufacturing sectors, engage in a study on direct assistance measures and fiscal environment consisting of no more than four consecutive meetings—

For four meetings, we heard from people who came to tell us what they thought the manufacturing and forestry sectors in Quebec, and Ontario too, needed to get through the crisis. There was consensus.

We heard from Jayson Myers, president of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters; Claudette Carbonneau, president of the CSN; Pierre Laliberté, political advisor to the FTQ for the manufacturing sector; Avrim Lazar, president and CEO, Forest Products Association of Canada; Phil Vinet, mayor of Red Lake; Jean Laneville, an economist with the Quebec federation of chambers of commerce; Ms. Peterson, mayor of Thunder Bay; and Guy Chevrette, of the Forest Industry Council.

These people were nearly unanimous—nearly because they did not use the same words, but they all meant the same thing—in their assertion that the forestry and manufacturing sectors are going through such a serious crisis that the government must change its policy and its budget accordingly.

They also said that the government had to use part of its $10.5 billion surplus to help a dying sector. The witnesses all told us that the Conservative government is clearly taking the wrong approach with its budget and its plan, which offer no direct assistance to the industries in these sectors, and that it must change its approach.

Until now, we have not heard anything to suggest that it plans to change anything. We think that the Conservative government put forward a budget that favours oil companies because it offers corporate tax cuts. As we have said before, tax cuts for companies that are not making a profit are not really tax cuts. But when companies are making profits in the millions or billions, they do benefit from tax cuts. This brand of economic liberalism is hurting Quebec businesses that, as we know, for the most part, did not make a profit in the past year.

What to do? We could try to further analyze this budget and find some justification for it, but there is none. There is nothing in the budget, whether it is for the status of women—which garners just one paragraph, six lines, to improve the status of women—or for employment insurance, where the demands of the Bloc Québécois have been completely ignored.

With regard to aboriginal peoples, they have significant needs in terms of social housing in particular. But there is nothing for them.

That can be said about any area. However, the government has envelopes for defence. When you are in favour of increasing military action and you join forces with the American government to continue the war in Afghanistan, you will definitely put more money in those envelopes. However, what is important to Quebec citizens right now is the injection of additional dollars. More money could have been allocated to regional development so that the Government of Quebec, which is familiar with the needs of each region, could have taken much more targeted action to foster greater investment in regional development.

The budget has an impact on many areas. Unfortunately, it does not contain what the Bloc Québécois wanted, that is major investments in the manufacturing sector, as I mentioned earlier. For these reasons, it is quite understandable that the Bloc Québécois will not support the implementation of this budget.

[Business of Supply, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, it is very certain that when it comes to standing up for Quebec’s interests, opinion in Quebec is unanimous on this situation. The three parties in the National Assembly have adopted a motion stating that they are completely opposed to the bill to be introduced by the Minister of Finance.

[Business of Supply, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, the question my colleague is asking is about the Quebec nation and the position of Conservative members. My answer is that indeed, Conservative members, who bragged about recognizing Quebec as a nation, are now ready to take one of its exclusive powers away from that nation.

Presently, Quebec exerts this power through the Autorité des marchés financiers, which oversees securities transactions in Quebec. The Conservative members—and particularly the Conservative members from Quebec—are ready to go against the interests of Quebec and support the bill which the Minister of Finance wants to propose.

I must say that this is absolutely incomprehensible and unacceptable.

[Business of Supply, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will use the two minutes remaining to summarize the Bloc Québécois' position with regard to the Minister of Finance's intention to establish a single securities regulator.

It is very important to clearly understand that Quebeckers do not support this initiative. Securities fall under the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces. It is imperative for the government, and the Minister of Finance in particular, to realize that it will face a major obstacle, especially in Quebec, if it decides to proceed with this initiative.

The National Assembly of Quebec is unanimously opposed to the establishment of a common securities regulator. I find it difficult to believe that any Quebec members, whether Liberal or Conservative, would vote against this motion that defends the interests of Quebec by concurring with the National Assembly of Quebec.

We should also remember that establishing a common securities regulator would jeopardize the survival of trading activities in Montreal and, additionally, would favour the concentration of financial markets in Toronto. Once again, this situation is completely unacceptable to Quebec.

In closing, I would remind you that the World Bank and the OECD reported that the current system, governed by an agreement among all provinces except Ontario, provides for a market that permits exchanges. This system works very well and is more cost-effective than that proposed by the Minister of Finance.

For all these reasons, the members of the Bloc Québécois will definitely be voting in favour of the motion asking the Minister of Finance to abandon his initiative.

[Business of Supply, March 11th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Terrebonne—Blainville.

There is a good reason why the Bloc Québécois tabled a motion today calling on the government to desist immediately from trying to create a common securities regulator. This is a Quebec and provincial jurisdiction. In addition, this initiative has been universally criticized in Quebec.

When I say that there is a good reason, I mean that this is a fundamental issue for us, directly related to the status of the Quebec nation. The Autorité des marchés financiers is currently responsible for regulating securities in Quebec, and the system is working very well, thanks in particular to the passport system shared with the Canadian provinces except Ontario. This is a fundamental issue for us, therefore, because it is directly related to Quebec’s status as a nation, as recognized by all the parties in the House.

It is hard to imagine how the government could recognize a territory and a group of people and give them a certain status only to insist then on taking away a power they already had, especially as we are talking here about a key power that is vital for managing financial products and services within Quebec.

The Autorité des marchés financiers, which is responsible for managing securities in Quebec, has quite a diverse mission. It provides assistance to consumers of financial products and services and ensures that the financial institutions and other regulated entities of the financial sector comply with the solvency standards applicable to them as well as with the obligations imposed on them by law. It also supervises the activities connected with the distribution of financial products and services, supervises stock market and clearing house activities and monitors the securities market. Finally, it sees to the implementation of protection and compensation programs for consumers of financial products and services, and administers the compensation funds set up by law.

It is not immediately apparent, therefore, how the creation of a common securities market would improve a system that is already working very well. There are no doubts at all on the international level about the competence of the AMF or how well the system is working. As a matter of fact, the OECD’s most recent economic outlook puts Canada in second place when it comes to the regulation of securities.

Earlier, I heard the member for Charlottetown say that duplication does not work, to explain in part his disagreement with the Bloc Québécois' position. He said that duplication does not work and never will. I would point out to him that this is precisely why the Bloc Québécois is fighting for sovereignty in Quebec: duplication will indeed never work.

I would add that, in a report on global financial markets, the World Bank considered Canada as a leader in securities trading. This means that, at present, the securities commissions from every province and Quebec are allowed to make themselves heard at the International Organization of Securities Commissions. Given that the Canadian Constitution states that securities fall under the jurisdiction of the provinces, individual jurisdictions can legitimately represent themselves at the IOSCO without going through an intermediary. Quebec has to continue to enjoy this voice it currently has on the world stage.

In February, the government announced that an expert panel would be appointed to draft model legislation to establish a single securities commission.

The Conservative government's intention to create a single Canada-wide securities commission has been confirmed. The Conservatives are prepared to overstep Quebec's jurisdictions and we think that is unacceptable. What is more, how can we accept this intention when we know there has been consensus for a long time and there still is consensus in Quebec against this truly centralist idea of the Minister of Finance.

Following a motion tabled by Pauline Marois, leader of the Parti Québécois in the National Assembly of Quebec, the National Assembly unanimously passed a motion asking the federal government to abandon its Canada-wide securities commission project.

On October 2, 2007, Monique Jérôme-Forget, Quebec's finance minister, said that the Minister of Finance's proposal would drive up costs since this plan adds another layer of bureaucracy. We have enough bureaucracy, but they want to add more.

The Quebec federation of chambers of commerce supports the position of Quebec's finance minister and that of the Bloc Québécois. On February 28, 2008, Monique Jérôme-Forget sent a letter to the Minister of Finance on the creation of this expert panel. In my opinion, this letter sums up quite well the position of Quebeckers and the consensus in Quebec I was talking about earlier.

Ms. Jérôme-Forget said the following to the Minister of Finance:

I have noted the appointment of your expert panel charged with making suggestions and recommendations—

First of all, I reiterate that the existing regulatory system in Canada works well and satisfies both the needs of pan-Canadian participants and the interests of the various regions. Accordingly, I will continue to oppose the implementation of any model leading to the concentration of market oversight responsibilities in the hands of a common or single regulator, regardless of how you call it.

She also said that the passport system works quite well. In closing, she also said the following about the expert panel mentioned and included in the budget bill:

—I note that you have ignored the proposals made to you by the Provincial-Territorial Council of Ministers of Securities Regulation.

I will close by saying that, indeed, it does not make sense to go down this path.