Luc Desnoyers

[Air Canada, October 6th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, Air Canada machinists are worried. The company wants to transfer the work of its machinists to a company called Aveos, yet Aveos is talking about moving some of its operations to El Salvador.

The Leader of the Government spoke about ongoing discussions with the companies involved. However, the Air Canada Public Participation Act is clear and requires that Air Canada maintain operational and overhaul centres in Montreal, Mississauga, and Winnipeg. Will the government enforce this?

[Petitions, October 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition signed by 891 people who want the government to make Quebec women governed by the Canada Labour Code eligible for preventive withdrawal.

[Employment Insurance, October 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government announced that five pilot projects would end this fall and that it is raising premiums. Contributors will pay more for a system that gives them less.

Rather than increase premiums to finance its deficit, as the Liberals did in their day, will this government promise to improve the system so that every cent of that increase will go back to unemployed workers?

[Employment Insurance, October 1st, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Finance announced a five-cent increase in the employment insurance premium rate. This could have been avoided had the government given back the $57 billion that has pilfered from the fund since 1990.

Why is the minister increasing premiums to be paid into a fund that was plundered for nearly 20 years, money that has yet to be returned? Is he planning to take unemployed workers' money to pay down his deficit again?

[National Defence, September 24th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, this government does not hesitate to spread misinformation to try to justify the absence of a tendering process for the F-35s. Claiming that that model was chosen by the previous government, the Prime Minister is completely misleading the House, because the deals reached with Lockheed Martin did not constitute a promise to purchase.

That being the case, how are we to believe the Prime Minister when he says that Quebec will get its fair share of the economic spin-offs, when he is manipulating the facts?

[Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act, September 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. It is 90 days or more in provincial jails. There would have to be an agreement with the provinces for this to be implemented. This would mean a lot of work. It would affect 600 inmates and the amount involved is nearly $8 million. The committee will conduct a thorough analysis of the impact of the bill on those involved.

[Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act, September 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher for his pertinent question.

As I have already said, the Bloc Québécois has been doing its homework on this issue since June 1, since this bill raises a number of questions and could have a significant impact on families—children and spouses.

In committee, the right questions need to be addressed to the various public servants who will have to manage this bill, which could have a significant impact on spouses. We must establish how this bill will protect a spouse under the age of 65 and the children of a man who was receiving old age security. We will have to pay particular attention to this issue in committee and establish all of the parameters and protections needed to ensure that the spouses, and especially the children, are protected.

As parliamentarians, we must work diligently when analyzing such bills and not backtrack, saying we forgot this or that or we are sorry but we did not think about how it might affect such and such a person.

We must take our time, do our work seriously and not rush when examining this kind of bill. There is no urgency. Our seniors need a substantial increase in the guaranteed income supplement in order to survive.

[Eliminating Entitlements for Prisoners Act, September 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on June 1, when the Conservative government introduced its bill aimed at eliminating old age pension benefits for prisoners, the Bloc Québécois clearly indicated that it planned on supporting this new measure. We will be supporting it, but only once we are certain that this bill, which was written at the last-minute, has been studied in detail.

Once again, the Conservative government, still severely blinkered by its right wing, Reform mindset, wants to pass this bill quickly to impress the voters with its ideology of stark, severe repression. It is hoping that the House will stand behind it and rush to pass this bill so that we can speed up the procedures needed to implement it.

The Bloc Québécois is not buying it. Let us be clear: this bill does not deal with an urgent issue. No one is in danger and no one is being unfairly penalized if this bill is not passed immediately.

I could list many urgent matters that are far more important than the measure proposed in Bill C-31, even if I only talk about current issues for seniors. I will stick to two of the seniors' issues that I feel are the most urgent.

Since last spring, advocacy groups for seniors' and retirees' rights in Quebec have taken to the streets to send a very clear message. Like the entire income security program, the guaranteed income supplement, or GIS, does not meet the basic needs of low-income seniors. In my opinion, it is far more urgent to pass legislation to improve the GIS.

That is why the Bloc Québécois has been proposing significant changes to the GIS for years. I sincerely hope that this Conservative government will hear the message that seniors will soon be sending them through petitions that the FADOQ network has been collecting since last spring to call for improvements to the GIS.

Despite the new indexing recently announced, the maximum amount paid in old age security benefits is clearly still not enough for seniors to pay for their housing, clothing, food and medication. Over 78,000 seniors in Quebec are living below the low-income line. The maximum GIS allowance is not even enough to get seniors out of poverty. I think this constitutes a genuine emergency.

For years now, the federal government has been unfairly depriving these people of the money owing to them. In order to access the GIS, one must apply. Tens of thousands of seniors in Quebec have been cheated because they have not applied for the GIS.

The Bloc Québécois will continue to work to improve the GIS in order to: increase the guaranteed income supplement by $110 per month; continue paying both pension and survivor benefits, for a period of six months, to a surviving spouse; automatically enrol people over 65 who are eligible for the GIS; ensure full retroactive payment of the GIS for all those who were shortchanged; and increase the surviving spouse's allowance to the same amount as the GIS.

I plan to address this matter again in the House in the very near future, because this issue is very important to me.

There is another urgent matter. In the previous budget, I reminded the Conservatives of the pressing need to bring back a real income support program for older workers, formerly known as POWA. Older workers who cannot find another job by the end of their EI benefit period are forced to turn to social assistance, now known in Quebec as employment assistance. They have to deplete all of their hard-earned assets to get that employment assistance.

Is that justice? Is that what we really want for the men and women who have spent years building our society? No, of course not. Urgent action is needed, but the Conservatives will not even consider it.

Today, we are being asked to pass at second reading a bill to amend the Old Age Security Act, which naturally deserves the attention of this House.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to fully explain the Bloc Québécois position to my fellow citizens. I believe this is a perfect example of the right approach to take when passing legislation that, for some, may once again reflect the rhetoric so often behind the bills proposed by our Conservative friends.

The Bloc Québécois will support Bill C-31 at second reading in order to study it in committee where, without rushing things, without blindly following the Conservative ship—which could soon sink as it navigates troubled waters—we will examine it in detail.

Passing legislation, establishing regulations and anticipating exceptions are some of the fundamental tasks that this House must carry out with diligence and discernment. Elected representatives must foresee all the effects and repercussion of the laws they adopt. That is the work of a good parliament and that is why, in this House, bills are customarily studied in committee after second reading.

Once the early enthusiasm disappears and calmer heads prevail, unfortunate gaps are sometimes discovered. Wisdom prevails.

This bill has three clear objectives. First, it precludes incarcerated persons from receiving old age security benefits when those persons are serving a sentence of two years or more in a federal penitentiary.

Once their sentence has been served, the person can notify the minister in writing of their release in order to re-register for old age security.

It goes without saying that the same applies to the guaranteed income supplement associated with OAS. With this measure that would affect roughly 400 inmates, the government hopes to save $2 million a year. We must, however, clearly identify here the pension program that Bill C-31 will affect.

The benefits that would be cut by this bill are not those from the Canada pension plan or the Quebec pension plan, which are benefits based on contributions received during years of work. Eliminated instead would be the benefits based on years of residence in the country, the benefits known as old age security, which also provide access to the guaranteed income supplement. OAS is given to almost everyone 65 and over.

It is therefore important to distinguish between the two plans and identify the real target of Bill C-31, namely OAS.

Second, Bill C-31 stipulates that an incarcerated person's spouse who is 65 or older be considered single. This would allow them to receive benefits as a single person, which are more generous than for persons married to a pensioner, in order to compensate in part for the drop in their household income.

The bill also allows an incarcerated person's spouse aged between 60 and 64 to continue receiving the spousal allocation even though in practice they no longer live together, again to compensate for the drop in household income. The Bloc Québécois feels that these are essential measures to avoid making spouses suffer unfairly for the incarceration of their partner.

Third, Bill C-31 proposes applying the same denial of benefits to persons incarcerated for at least 90 days in a provincial prison, if the province concerned concludes an agreement with the federal government. This type of agreement does not exist for now between Quebec and Ottawa.

If ever this type of agreement between Ottawa and each province went through, this could affect roughly 600 seniors held in provincial prisons and would save $8 million a year.

Those are the main points of the bill we are debating today at second reading. The Bloc Québécois has done its homework since June 1, and we have carefully analyzed the impact of this government bill, as we should.

Over the course of our analysis, three questions in particular came to mind.

First, does the practice of suspending social benefits exist in Quebec? Is it part of our social practices, and if so, how does it work?

In Quebec, pursuant to section 27 of the Individual and Family Assistance Act, and sections 19 and 26 of its regulation, an individual who is incarcerated in a penitentiary or prison is no longer eligible for last resort financial assistance as of the third month following the month of their incarceration.

Individuals become eligible again once they are released from the prison or penitentiary even if, for example, they are living in a half-way house as part of their rehabilitation.

Therefore, Bill C-31 does correspond to a practice that already exists within Quebec society.

The second question we have is the following: since this seems to violate the principle of the universality of old age security benefits, does Bill C-31 violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by creating a discriminatory measure?

It seems not to be the case. If someone made a claim of discrimination, they would have a hard time proving it, because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age, or mental or physical disability.

The discrimination established by Bill C-31 does not involve any of the grounds listed in the charter and could not be considered an affront to human dignity. Basically, Bill C-31 does not contravene the Canadian charter.

And the third question is this: what real effect will this punitive measure have on the spouses of incarcerated persons?

The effect will vary, depending on the age of the spouse. The bill allows spouses aged 65 or over to be considered single, which would allow them to receive higher benefits than those paid to someone married to a pensioner. In addition, they can receive the maximum guaranteed income supplement of $652.51, as opposed to $430.90 for someone married to a pensioner.

As for spouses aged 60 to 64, they can still receive their spouse's allowance even though, in practice, they do not live with their partner. The loss of financial support from the imprisoned spouse could then be partially compensated through an increased allowance of up to $947.86 a month.

The Bloc Québécois is in favour of Bill C-31, which would keep prisoners from receiving old age security benefits and the guaranteed income supplement. It is in favour of having this studied in committee. We still have some specific questions to ask, notably to the civil servants who created the bill, those who will implement it and those who work at the parole board.

The responses we receive to our questions will determine the amendments we can introduce, if necessary, in order to ensure that the bill works well.

[Infrastructure, September 23rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the March 31, 2011, deadline will prevent Saint-Eustache, where the work has been delayed by federal red tape, from rebuilding the Corbeil and Joseph-Lacombe bridges, which would qualify for almost $6.5 million in assistance.

Why is the government refusing, against all logic, to extend the March 31, 2011, deadline, which would make it possible for Saint-Eustache to rebuild its two bridges and have proper, safe access to Îles Corbeil?

[Annette Savoie, June 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to pay tribute to a remarkable woman in my riding and to highlight a very special event. On June 28, Annette Savoie will celebrate her 100th birthday.

In light of this occasion, Mrs. Savoie has started writing her memoirs, in which she will tell the story of her life as it relates to the history of Quebec and the evolution of women over the course of nearly a century. Mrs. Savoie's age has not dimmed her strong ideals or the force of her convictions. Still sharp as a tack, this amazing woman is the very antithesis of what we imagine when we think of growing old.

On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I wish Mrs. Savoie much happiness and good health for many more years to come.