Michel Boudrias

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, April 29th, 2019]

With regard to federal spending in the riding of Terrebonne, for each fiscal year since 2010-11, inclusively: what are the details of all grants and contributions and all loans to every organization, group, business or municipality, broken down by the (i) name of the recipient, (ii) municipality of the recipient, (iii) date on which the funding was received, (iv) amount received, (v) department or agency that provided the funding, (vi) program under which the grant, contribution or loan was made, (vii) nature or purpose?

[Employment, April 5th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, every year, Quebec businesses worry that the temporary foreign workers they need will not arrive on time. These business owners pay Service Canada thousands of dollars to ensure that their file is processed quickly, but people on the other end are asleep at the switch.

Again today, business owners are losing contracts because their application is not processed on time and the workers do not arrive on time. Those who were due to arrive last Monday are still waiting. The bureaucracy in Ottawa is unrelenting. It hinders and constrains businesses here at home.

What will the minister do today, not tomorrow, to ensure that temporary foreign workers arrive immediately?

[Fisheries and Oceans, April 5th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, an American company, AquaBounty, has begun producing genetically modified salmon in Prince Edward Island in order to eventually produce it on an industrial scale.

No one wants giant salmon, or “frankenfish”, and no one wants these industrial products on their dinner plates. Too bad, people will wind up eating them anyway, since there is no labelling.

What will it take for the federal government to understand that Quebeckers want to know what they are eating?

When will the government finally ensure proper labelling, as most other industrialized countries do—

[Canada Revenue Agency, April 5th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, the Minister of National Revenue is failing in her duty. The net was supposed to tighten around the Panama papers fraudsters, but that has not happened. The minister was supposed to hire 1,300 new international taxation auditors, but that has not happened either. She was also supposed to recover $25 billion from tax havens, but we are still waiting because, again, nothing has happened there.

Since we cannot rely on the minister, can she at least give the information to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, so that he can shed some light on this and reveal just how complacent the government has been?

[Transportation, March 22nd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, my guess is that 15% is a knock-on effect of marijuana legalization.

We now know that the Apollo ferry is a rickety and dangerous old boat that should have been pulled from service long ago. This information should have been available before now, because Transport Canada is responsible for inspecting vessels.

Apparently Transport Canada rubber-stamps vessel certifications without inspecting or investigating the vessels thoroughly.

Will the Minister of Transport take responsibility, get serious about inspections and compensate Quebec, whose only mistake here was trusting the Minister of Transport to do his job properly?

[Public Services and Procurement, March 22nd, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, in the budget, the government just announced that it will be procuring three new ferries. That is a good thing. The timing is great, because Quebec's Davie shipyard has had to lay off 1,200 workers due to a lack of federal contracts. These 1,200 workers lost their jobs because the Liberals and the Conservatives have chosen to spend the past 10 years enriching shipyards in other provinces, even though those shipyards have not delivered a single ship in 10 years.

Could the government finally restore justice and fairness by awarding the ferry contracts to Davie?

[Official Languages, March 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I will remind the minister that it was her government that closed Royal Military College Saint-Jean.

This government does not respect francophones, as evidenced by how the RCMP treats them.

In the past five years, the RCMP has not promoted a single unilingual francophone member.

Why does the government allow Quebec and Canadian francophones to be treated like second-class citizens in the RCMP and in our armed forces? When will it provide equal opportunities to everyone, no matter what language they speak?

[Official Languages, March 19th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the government does not respect francophones, as evidenced by how our armed forces treat them. Specialized career development courses, particularly in intelligence and special forces, are available in English only.

If francophone service members want to be promoted and specialize, they have to abandon French and automatically use English in many cases.

When will the government provide equal opportunities for francophone service members by offering and guaranteeing training in French—

[SNC-Lavalin Employees, February 27th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, the SNC-Lavalin crisis is in its third week. All parties are doing their best to make the crisis last as long as possible, not resolve it.

Not once has anyone talked about protecting jobs. Despite its “workers' party” persona, the NDP has not said a word. It is ready to sacrifice 3,000 jobs in Quebec to win seats in British Columbia.

Our Conservative colleagues have not said a word either. They say they are all about the economy, but they are ready to sacrifice a major head office in Montreal so they can spend one more day raking the Prime Minister over the coals.

We have not heard much from the Liberals either. They could resolve this crisis with a remediation agreement, but they are lying low in hopes the storm will pass.

It goes without saying that Quebeckers are not getting the kind of federal representation they deserve when their representatives are willing to hold 3,000 families hostage for weeks just for the sake of engaging in petty partisan politics.

This needs to stop now.

[Business of Supply, February 5th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, we are debating a proposal that would benefit all Quebeckers. We have repeated ad nauseam that Quebec's National Assembly reached a unanimous consensus. There are 78 Quebec MPs from all parties, who represent voters of every stripe and from every walk of life. In the last election, they voted in favour of a proposal to file a single tax return.

Maybe my colleague could help me with something I am wondering about. How can certain parties, especially the Liberal Party and the NDP, not be willing to uphold the unanimous consensus of our voters and our provincial counterparts in Quebec City?