Julie Vignola

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as we know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Without calling this budget hell, I can say that it is paved with good intentions, but also with interference.

My colleague talked about financial support for people living with disabilities. In my constituency, people wrote to me saying they had high hopes for this support. As it turns out, they are now writing me to say that the amounts provided are nothing short of an insult.

Everything that has to do with social support belongs to Quebec and the Canadian provinces. Does my colleague believe that the federal government should respect its own areas of jurisdiction, which it currently manages very poorly, and that it should leave it up to the provinces to support their people who are struggling?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I actually agree with my colleague on several points. We are not necessarily voting against measures that are good for Canadians. Rather, we are voting against jurisdictional meddling and interference.

I would like to hear my colleague thoughts on the importance of upholding a contract, especially the most important contract of all for a country, namely, a Constitution.

[Protection against Extortion Act, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I will try to give a nuanced speech, without too much partisanship, because partisanship too often hinders debate.

Bill C‑381 fulfills a promise made by the leader of the Conservative Party. The Bloc Québécois supports Bill C‑381 in principle. This bill aims to reinstate mandatory minimum sentences for extortion crimes, particularly crimes involving weapons. My colleagues have gone into a lot of the details. I will avoid repeating the same things they said.

In this speech, I will briefly go over the position that the Bloc Québécois took during the study of Bill C‑5. I will reiterate our position on minimum sentences for crimes. Lastly, I will suggest a few avenues for tackling the sources of the problem.

When Parliament was studying Bill C‑5, which is now law, the Bloc Québécois was in favour of abolishing mandatory minimum sentences, except in cases involving crimes against the person. It is very important to mention that. We were in favour of abolishing minimum sentences, but not for the same reasons as other colleagues in the House. We were in favour of this because mandatory minimum sentences do not take into account the context in which the crime was committed. For some people, mandatory minimum sentences can take away their hope of improving themselves, of repenting, of getting their lives together. It also removes the potential discretion judges should have.

One of the reasons mandatory minimum sentences were removed is that certain populations are overrepresented in prison. The Bloc Québécois acknowledges that as well. However, is the problem really mandatory minimum sentences, or does it go deeper than that? For example, is it tied to socio-economic issues? Would removing mandatory minimum sentences really solve the underlying problem? We have to ask ourselves those questions. It is important to do so.

I am going to fumble my way through some of Thomas More's thoughts in Utopia. He basically says that punishing a crime without tackling its root cause simply ensures it will happen again. The more modern way of putting it is that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. If the same punishments are continually handed down in a broad, indiscriminate way and we fail to see any results in terms of helping people get their lives together and improving their socio-economic situation, then it should come as no surprise if repeating the same actions fails to achieve the desired results.

It is important to understand what is causing a particular problem. Several years ago, a father was sentenced to six months in prison because he was caught stealing medicine for his children, who had colds. It was an unarmed robbery, but he was caught stealing, and stealing is a crime. No consideration was given to the context of his crime. Nevertheless, he was sent to prison, which made his family's situation even worse. That is why it is important in some cases to contextualize and understand what happened. In other cases, the crime might be serious enough to warrant a mandatory minimum sentence.

It is a well-known fact that overcrowding is a problem in our prisons right now. We all know the impact that overcrowding has on people. The impact can be significant, particularly on mental health, but also on the physical health of inmates. These effects have been linked to an increase in violence and they undermine inmates' ability to integrate into the community and engage in good behaviour.

When prisons are overcrowded, inmates are always on high alert. When people's thoughts are focused mainly on their safety, they spend a lot less time thinking about empowerment or getting their lives back on track, even in prison.

Yes, we support minimum sentences for crimes against the person, but with some allowance made to depart from them in exceptional circumstances. The word “exceptional” is important because it refers to an exception, something that very rarely happens. If used indiscriminately and without regard for the circumstances of the offence or the situation of individuals, minimum sentences can create injustice. It seems quite a paradox that the justice system could ultimately create injustice.

We must ensure that our justice system does not cause injustice. Nevertheless, we believe that maintaining mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes is justified, because we believe that legislators have the legitimate authority to rank crimes in order of severity and that mandatory minimum sentences ensure that the penalties reflect that ranking. It should be noted that the rate of violent crime in Canada has increased over the past few years, especially firearm-related violent crime. In Ontario, there were 1,016 more cases, or a 24% increase; in New Brunswick, there were 64 more cases, or a 24% increase; in British Columbia, there were 194 more cases, or a 12% increase. This is serious, and we must take action. I will come back to how we might do that.

During our study of Bill C‑5, lawyer Julie Desrosiers told us that if we decided to keep minimum sentences in some cases, we should also provide a possibility of making an exception to them in exceptional circumstances. What I suggested just now has the support of Julie Desrosiers. Her colleague Mr. Henry also mentioned it. If a minimum sentence is prescribed and the judge is not given the discretion to depart from it in exceptional circumstances, the sentence will not reflect the complexity of reality. Let us also focus on the sources of the problem, namely protecting our borders, education, social integration, socio-economic support. Let us not cause injustice from birth. I invite everyone to read Thomas More's very edifying writings on this topic.

Let us think back to the Heritage Minute about the Klondike, where the RCMP officer would not let anyone with a weapon into Canada. Right now, our borders are like Swiss cheese, and weapons that should not be crossing our borders are constantly being let into the country. Violence is unacceptable in Canada and Quebec, and the mandatory minimum sentences for serious crimes against the person serve as a reminder that it is completely inappropriate and unacceptable to use violence against others. That is also in keeping with our history, or at least the prouder moments in our history.

Lastly, the Bloc Québécois invites the government to keep the promise of Quebec and Canadian society, which is that everyone can succeed and live a good life within the law. In order for that to happen, the necessary foundations must be laid, and those who did not have those foundations must be given an opportunity to get back on track. Everyone has the right to a second chance, but we need to send the message that violence is unacceptable and that, eventually, something has to give.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we will vote against the budget, not because we are against pharmacare or because we are against the creation of a park or because we are against the creation of 2,000 jobs and more in the world of automotive technology. We will be voting against this budget because it creates duplicate services in Quebec and in the provinces that already have drug coverage, by refusing to grant them the right to opt out with full compensation. We are going to vote against it because, strangely enough, it disrespects the Constitution.

My question is this: Are we to understand that the government's refusal to respect the Constitution means that it wants to reopen the Constitution? If it reopens the Constitution this time, will it negotiate in good faith, which it did not do in 1982?

[Jean‑François Girard, May 8th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I want to once again praise the people of Beauport—Limoilou for their solidarity and their love for arts and culture. Tomorrow, these two themes will coalesce around Jean‑François Girard, the man behind Limoilou en Vrac and the organizer of Limoilou en Musique. Wherever there is talk of arts and culture, we can be sure that Jean‑François is not far away. Tomorrow, the opening event for Limoilou en Musique will be the shaved head challenge in solidarity with Jean‑François, who has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. We stand together with him.

We all have someone in our lives who has faced or is currently facing cancer. The people on my list include Jean‑François, my dad, my aunts Rosalyne, Marie‑Lourdes and Nathalie, my uncles Francis and Ghislain, and my friends Carolane, Luc, Kirsty and Patricia. Everyone has a list of people that they can think of. Everyone needs to support research and local organizations as Beauport—Limoilou is doing.

In solidarity with Jean‑François, in chorus and in music, we shall overcome.

[Stopping Internet Sexual Exploitation Act, May 7th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the subject that we are dealing with this evening is a sensitive one. My colleagues have clearly demonstrated that in the last couple of minutes.

We all have access to the Internet and we basically use it for three reasons: for personal reasons, for professional reasons and for leisure, which can sometimes overlap with personal reasons. Pornography is one of those uses that is both for leisure and for personal reasons. To each their own.

The use of pornography is a personal choice that is not illegal. Some people might question that. We might agree or disagree, but it is a personal decision. However, the choice that one person makes for their own pleasure may be the cause of another person's or many other people's nightmare. Basically, that is what Bill C-270 seeks to prevent, what it seeks to sanction. The purpose of the bill is to ensure that people do not have to go through hell because of pornography. This bill seeks to criminalize the fact that, under the guise of legality, some of the images that are being viewed were taken or are being used illegally.

I want to talk briefly about the problem this bill addresses and the solutions that it proposes. Then, to wrap up, I will share some of my own thoughts about it.

For context for this bill and two others that are being studied, Bill S‑210 and C‑63, it was a newspaper article that sounded the alarm. After the article came out, a House of Commons committee that my esteemed colleague from Laurentides—Labelle sits on looked at the issue. At that time, the media informed the public that videos of women and children were available on websites even though these women and, naturally, these children never gave their consent to be filmed or for their video to be shared. We also learned that this included youths under 18. As I said, a committee looked at the issue. The images and testimonies received by the committee members were so shocking that several bills that I mentioned earlier were introduced to try to tackle the issue in whole or in part.

I want to be clear: watching pornography is not the problem—to each their own. If someone likes watching others have sex, that is none of my concern or anyone else's. However, the problem is the lack of consent of the people involved in the video and the use of children, as I have already said.

I am sure that the vast majority of consumers of pornography were horrified to find out that some of the videos they watched may have involved young people under the age of 18. These children sometimes wear makeup to look older. Women could be filmed without their knowledge by a partner or former partner, who then released the video. These are intimate interactions. People have forgotten what intimacy means. If a person agrees to be filmed in an intimate situation because it is kind of exciting or whatever, that is fine, but intimacy, as the word itself implies, does not mean public.

When a young person or an adult decides to show the video to friends to prove how cool it is that they got someone else to do something, that is degrading. It is beyond the pale. It gets to me because I saw that kind of thing in schools. Kids were so pleased with themselves. I am sorry, but it is rarely the girls who are so pleased with themselves. They are the ones who suffer the negative consequences. At the end of the day, they are the ones who get dragged through the mud. Porn sites were no better. They tried to absolve themselves by saying that they just broadcast the stuff and it is not up to them to find out if the person consented or was at least 18. Broadcasting is just as bad as producing without consent. It encourages these illegal, degrading, utterly dehumanizing acts.

I am going back to my notes now. The problem is that everyone is blaming everyone else. The producer says it is fine. The platform says it is fine. Ultimately, governments say the same thing. This is 2024. The Internet is not new. Man being man—and I am talking about humankind, humans in general—we were bound to find ourselves in degrading situations. The government waited far too long to legislate on this issue.

In fact, the committee that looked into the matter could only observe the failure of content moderation practices, as well as the failure to protect people's privacy. Even if the video was taken down, it would resurface because a consumer had downloaded it and thought it was a good idea to upload it again and watch it again. This is unspeakable. It seems to me that people need to use some brain cells. If a video can no longer be found, perhaps there is a reason for that, and the video should not be uploaded again. Thinking and using one's head is not something governments can control, but we have to do everything we can.

What is the purpose of this bill and the other two bills? We want to fight against all forms of sexual exploitation and violence online, end the streaming and marketing of all pornographic material involving minors, prevent and prohibit the streaming of non-consensual explicit content, force adult content companies and streaming services to control the streaming of this content and make them accountable and criminally responsible for the presence of this content on their online sites. Enough with shirking responsibility. Enough with saying: it is not my fault if she feels degraded, if her reputation is ruined and if, at the end of the day, she feels like throwing herself off a bridge. Yes, the person who distributes pornographic material and the person who makes it are equally responsible.

Bill C‑270 defines the word “consent” and the expression “pornographic material”, which is good. It adds two new penalties. Essentially, a person who makes or distributes the material must ensure that the person involved in the video is 18 and has given their express consent. If the distributor does not ask for it and does not require it, they are at fault.

We must also think about some of the terms, such as “privacy”, “education”, but also the definition of “distributor” because Bill C-270 focuses primarily on distributors for commercial purposes. However, there are other distributors who are not in this for commercial purposes. That is not nearly as pretty. I believe we need to think about that aspect. Perhaps legal consumers of pornography would like to see their rights protected.

I will end with just one sentence: A real statesperson protects the dignity of the weak. That is our role.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about how progressive Quebec is and what great strides they have made, and he is right about that. The Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms came into force in 1976. Labour Code reforms to protect workers from scabs date back to 1977. Child care dates back to the late 1990s.

We have proven on more than one occasion that, when our tax dollars come back to us, we use them wisely for the good of the people. Why the ongoing interference in this budget?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2024, No. 1, May 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, there was a time when people who voted Conservative in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada could be sure that the autonomy of their government would be respected and that the interference would stop. However, the Conservative Party voted against our motion calling for an end to interference and for the right to opt out with compensation for the provinces that did not want to implement certain programs that they already manage. It is a matter of not duplicating bills.

Can my colleague explain this disconnect? In future, what will they do to avoid this?

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we all think that it is essential to ensure that everyone has access to housing and health care, especially when we are in our ridings and we see how hard life is for our constituents, those who are around us every day.

It is important that the federal government use its spending power to make the necessary transfers for infrastructure, particularly when it comes to housing and health care. The federal government is infringing on other jurisdictions by wanting to set conditions that the provinces and municipalities have to meet in order to get that funding.

Since the federal government decided to infringe on our jurisdictions, what conditions does it intend to impose before it will transfer money for housing to Quebec?

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am going to talk about interference again. We all understand that the federal government has a spending power. This power is provided by the taxes paid by the adults among the 38 million inhabitants. Nevertheless, there is a Constitution that is a fairly clear contract setting out the duties of each party, be it the federal government, Quebec or the Canadian provinces, and the territorial governments.

When will the government respect its Constitution and not use its spending power to interfere in jurisdictions that do not belong to it?