Lise St-Denis

[Business of Supply, April 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, those who support increasing the OAS eligibility age from 65 to 67 say that the new rules will not be applied right away and that people will have enough time to prepare for the changes. I guess they mean from an economic standpoint.

However, think about those who do physical labour, construction workers, steelworkers who work outdoors, winter and summer, those who work on their feet their whole lives at a grocery store, and those who spend their lives at a factory job, on a concrete floor. At age 65, these people are already absolutely exhausted. It is hard for them to work that long.

Has the government considered any measures for helping those who are already physically exhausted to prepare for the change in retirement eligibility from 65 to 67? The government should not wait 10 years to come up with a plan to help them, because these people will not be in better shape in 10 years than they are now.

[Ethics, April 23rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, when the Minister of International Cooperation attended a conference in London, a room was reserved for her at the conference site at a luxury hotel, but the minister insisted on being treated even more like a queen at another hotel at a much higher cost.

Will the minister confirm the name of the hotel and say whether it would be appropriate to recommend that hotel to the hon. members of the House of Commons?

[Ethics, March 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to come back to certain events that took place in 2009, when the Minister of Industry visited the private hunting cabin belonging to Marcel Aubut. The serious thing is that at the time, Mr. Aubut was involved in efforts to secure public funding for a new arena in Quebec City.

A “senior” minister should not have put himself in that kind of compromising situation.

I repeat: why did the minister do that? What was he thinking?

[Ethics, March 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this government keeps ending up in reprehensible situations in matters of ethics.

First there was the in and out scandal. Then there was the matter of electoral fraud, which keeps snowballing. Now it is the minister's turn to violate the Conflict of Interest Act.

Why are the Conservatives not doing anything about this? What will they do the next time this comes up?

[Health, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government has failed to fix the problem of prescription drug shortages. Sandoz decided to stop production in November 2011, and yet Health Canada did not bother sharing that information until last week. The provinces had no warning and now surgeries across the country have had to be cancelled.

Will the government apologize to the provinces and introduce the mandatory reporting system that they have been calling for?

[National Francophonie Week, March 9th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Semaine nationale de la francophonie begins today. I would like to remind the current government that we francophones—including Acadians, Franco-Saskatchewanians, Franco-Manitobans, Franco-Ontarians and Quebeckers—came from France over 300 years ago. We remain vibrant through our language and culture, and our children still dream in our ancestral language.

We remind you that we French North Americans are determined to be included in modern Canada.

We remind you that the federal government has stood up for our rights many times in the past.

We remind you that you have a duty to francophone communities in Canada, both large and small.

Our contribution to Canadian democracy can be measured by our presence in Canada, which has been uninterrupted since the 16th century. This is our home and we are not going anywhere.

[41st General Election, March 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we have learned that, in an act of despair, the Conservatives are reviewing all tapes of telephone calls made during the last election, even though they defended themselves by stating that they ran a clean campaign. The RCMP, not the party suspected of committing fraud, should be reviewing the tapes.

When will the Conservatives hand over all the documents to the RCMP?

[Canada-Panama Economic Growth and Prosperity Act, February 27th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for her speech. She spoke a little about the environment when she indicated that negotiating free trade agreements with certain countries is more important to the government than improving relations with the United States.

Does she believe that this government is using this indifference towards the environment to seek out contracts in countries that do not care about the environment and people's living conditions?

[Business of Supply, February 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am very familiar with the Wemotaci reserve. I met the chief on two occasions, and we ate together. When a band council receives a budget, it is an overall budget. The band council must meet all the needs with the budget that it gets. It can allocate 2% of it to education. In fact, it is almost as if the band council were a municipal, provincial and federal government at the same time. It must pay money in all sorts of areas. Therefore, it is wrong to say there is enough funding for education, because education accounts for only 2%, compared to 6% in the rest of the country.

[Business of Supply, February 16th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this morning, Carolyn Bennett pointed out that, during its last term, the Liberal government finalized the Kelowna accord, which is about education for all aboriginal communities. However, the current government ignored this agreement and completely forgot about it. Therefore, it is not because the Liberals did not do anything. They worked hard on this issue, but the Conservatives ignored this accord, which was so important for aboriginal communities.