Maria Mourani

[Air Canada, March 27th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, hundreds of Aveos workers are on Parliament Hill today, and they want the government to listen to what they have to say. They want Air Canada to keeps its aircraft maintenance operations in Montreal, as stipulated in the Air Canada Public Participation Act. This government, which makes a great show of championing law and order, is collaborating with this delinquent company and breaking its own law.

By order in council, the Minister of Finance is responsible for enforcing the legislation. Will the minister stop hiding, start doing his job and compel Air Canada to obey the law? Will he stop being complicit in this financial sham?

[Request for Emergency Debate, March 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on March 19, Aveos shut down all of its operations in Montreal, Mississauga and Winnipeg, while maintaining the operations of its subsidiary, Aeroman, in El Salvador.

This will be devastating for about 3,300 unionized and non-unionized employees, and constitutes a direct threat to maintaining Quebec and Canadian expertise in the maintenance of jumbo jets and in high tech. Montreal has been hit especially hard, with the loss of about 2,400 unionized and non-unionized jobs.

In 1988, as one of the conditions for privatizing Air Canada, the Conservative government insisted that maintenance centres would have to remain in Montreal, Mississauga and Winnipeg. These conditions were included in the Air Canada Public Participation Act. The importance of the aerospace industry is one of the reasons why the Minister of Finance is responsible for enforcing the 1988 legislation, which is why I addressed my question to him today.

Furthermore, on March 20 the Quebec premier threatened to take legal action against Air Canada because it violated the 1988 act, and against the Government of Canada because it failed to enforce the legislation.

The mayors of Montreal, Winnipeg and Mississauga also highlighted the importance of acting quickly and bringing the parties together in order to preserve the infrastructure and the high tech jobs. The mayors reminded us, correctly, that Air Canada is not an average private company, but rather our national carrier. We therefore need to come up with solutions in the spirit of the 1988 legislation, under which Air Canada must keep its maintenance centres in their municipalities—not in Windsor, but in those municipalities.

In this unstable context, Air Canada pilots have also publicly expressed their concerns about the safety of the planes they are flying. It is all very worrisome.

There is also an urgent need to debate this matter because of the dubious negotiations surrounding this shutdown and the entire issue of the depletion of Air Canada's assets since 2005. On March 19, 2012, Aveos filed for CCAA protection, stating that, “its main client reduced, cancelled and deferred maintenance work...which resulted in about $16 million in lost revenue in less than two months”.

Experts agree that Air Canada had to have known that its service provider was in trouble. But instead of helping Aveos, Air Canada took work away from it. Yet Air Canada has a contract with Aveos to maintain its planes until 2013. Why did Air Canada push Aveos to the brink of bankruptcy? And why did Aveos allow Air Canada to do so and not demand that the company honour its contractual obligations?

Air Canada's parent company is ACE Aviation Holdings, which plans to pay its shareholders a final bonus of nearly $300 million on April 25. According to economic reporter Martin Vallières, by liquidating various parts of Air Canada, including its technical services, ACE Aviation Holdings has managed to pay its shareholders roughly $4 billion over the years, through stock redemption and other procedures.

By failing for years to compel Air Canada to obey the 1988 act—this is not a new situation—the Government of Canada has been a willing accomplice in liquidating the assets of a Canadian company to benefit shareholders who, increasingly, are foreign, including Robert Milton, ACE Aviation Holdings' president, who, as the instigator of this shady financial operation, has paid himself $52 million in salary and bonuses since 2006.

In conclusion, unless this situation is turned around, this government's inaction will leave Air Canada a sick corporation, a pale imitation of its former self, a company that failed to meet its legal obligations to maintain, primarily in Montreal, its top-quality aircraft maintenance expertise.

Mr. Speaker, I therefore request an emergency debate, because what is happening is completely lacking in common sense.

[Air Canada, March 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, this is what the then-minister of transport said on March 2, 2011, about the arrangement to transfer aircraft maintenance employees from Air Canada to Aveos:

...we have been dealing with Air Canada on this for months. We wanted assurances. Are the jobs going to be secure? Will the maintenance facilities in Mississauga, Winnipeg and Montreal be maintained? Will the employees be saved? Will they have the same pension benefits, entitlements and so on? The answer is yes on all fronts.

Will the Minister of Finance, who is responsible for enforcing the law, acknowledge that his government was played, and will he enforce the law?

[Justice, March 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, after making comments about the death penalty and inciting inmates to hang themselves, Senator Boisvenu has done it again. He has criticized Quebec's justice minister for not caring about victims. It is clear that this Conservative senator does not understand that rehabilitation and prevention will protect victims. Once again, he has missed an opportunity to keep quiet.

Does the Prime Minister condone his senator's unacceptable remarks? If he does not, will he ask the senator to apologize to Quebec's justice minister?

[Status of Women, March 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, diaper changing tables were installed in this Parliament building yesterday because I stood up and asked for them, with the support of my Bloc Québécois colleagues.

What is obvious to us now has not always been clear. Women's rights have improved over the years, but only because we fought for them. Even still, the status of women remains precarious. The vast majority of victims of poverty and domestic violence are still women.

One of the first things this Prime Minister did in 2006 was to eliminate funding for women's rights organizations. One day, this institution will have as many women as men. For now, we must continue to take umbrage when anyone tries to prevent the most vulnerable—the vast majority of whom are women—from asserting their right to a dignified life and hope for the future, for themselves and their children.

Our struggle is not over.

[Intergovermental Affairs, March 6th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, with the federal budget just around the corner, it is becoming increasingly clear that this government will not consult anyone and will do whatever it wants, even though its choices will create a huge shortfall for Quebec. Regardless of the enormous burden imposed on Quebec because of the government's unilateral decisions with respect to health care and the cost of the omnibus crime bill, the Conservatives keep saying the same thing: suck it up.

Does the Minister of Finance understand that it is not up to the people of Quebec to pay for his government's absurd choices?

[Business of Supply, February 28th, 2012]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague thinks of the provisions in this bill, which I believe give excessive powers to CSIS and the Competition Bureau, two agencies that are not police forces. Furthermore, we recently learned that the government issued a directive to CSIS allowing the agency to use information obtained through torture.

How are we supposed to trust these people?

[Public Safety, February 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, as of January 2012, more than 420,000 criminal records still had not been updated. Worse yet, criminal offences that should be in the criminal record repository have apparently never been entered. This situation is unacceptable when we consider that a pedophile could be working at a daycare because his record has not been checked.

Instead of putting on a show with ineffective legislation that costs the taxpayers a pile of money, will the Minister of Public Safety finally take action, having already been informed of this situation?

[Firearms Registry, February 15th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, today is a dark day, the day the gun registry is being destroyed. Yet the Conservative members seem to think that a celebration is in order. This is an insult to the memory of the victims and to the groups that are fighting for better gun control, an insult to the memory of the women murdered at École Polytechnique and Dawson College. Quebeckers who remember these terrible tragedies do not feel like celebrating.

I am calling on the government to show them dignity and respect by not attending tonight's ridiculous party.

[Black Communities in Quebec, February 14th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, for more than 300 years, Quebeckers from the black communities have been sharing their know-how and talents with Quebec. As a child of Africa, I am proud to honour the memory of those who have distinguished themselves.

In 2011, two remarkable persons passed away. There was Ousseynou Diop, a pioneer of African and Senegalese Montreal, and a host for 25 years at Radio-Canada International. He played an active role in creating the Vues d'Afrique festival in the early 1980s. And there was Papi Djo, a cultural revolutionary who left Haiti for Montreal in the 1960s. He was involved in creating a new Haitian folklore group, Mapou Ginen. In 1979 he returned to Haiti and became a host at Radio-Soleil, a station whose broadcasts helped bring about the fall of the Duvalier regime.

Long live the black communities of Quebec and Happy Valentine's Day to all Quebeckers.