House of Commons photoLost his last election, in 2011, with 35% of the vote.
The Conservative Government December 3rd, 2008
Mr. Speaker, the actions and ideology of the Conservative government have triggered the present political crisis. The government has indeed lost the confidence of the House.
Is the Prime Minister going to face the confidence vote in the House next Monday instead of avoiding it by asking for prorogation?
Points of Order December 1st, 2008
Mr. Speaker, I do have a point of order.
During the election of the Speaker, you yourself and all the other candidates for Speaker acknowledged it. As well, during the discussions involving the whips of the four recognized parties in the House, the feeling was unanimous that we had to improve order and decorum in this House. Unfortunately, we have to recognize that in these turbulent times, some unacceptable language has been used.
As proof, I would like to point out that earlier, when the leader of the Bloc Québécois asked a legitimate question, the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages used the term “traitor”, followed by the surname of the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie. We heard it clearly on this side of the House, and not just once, but three times.
This is a clear violation of Standing Order 18, which states that no member shall use offensive words in this House. I therefore ask the Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages to withdraw what he said immediately.
Point of Order November 20th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, I would like to deal with something that happened during question period. I would like to know if there was a problem with interpretation when my colleague and House Leader of the Bloc Québécois, the member for Joliette, asked a supplementary question. My colleague was directing a question to the Minister of Finance on retirees who are worried about their savings literally evaporating because of the economic crisis and it was the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development who gave us a canned answer about employment insurance. Her reply had nothing to do with the question about retirees' savings directed to the Minister of Finance.
Committees of the House June 18th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting my colleague, but it seems as though the whole house did not hear “resuming debate”, which would explain why my colleague did not rise. Here, we really did not hear “resuming debate”. I would ask you to please call it again.
I think the Liberal member had the floor.
Canada Elections Act June 16th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, in law, this is what we call the principle of surety. A guarantor is responsible for the debts incurred by a third party. We wonder why, if the guarantor did not witness the expenses—in this case, the political party did not witness the ineligible expenses—it should be held responsible for expenses made unbeknownst to it by a third party.
Canada Elections Act June 16th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, it is a shame that there are only three or four minutes left in the debate. I almost wish I could seek unanimous consent to talk about this for another 20 minutes, but I will be reasonable.
I will explain to my colleague that the problem stems from the fact that a local candidate could incur expenses to get nominated or elected, expenses that the party could be completely unaware of, expenses that could be considerable. The individual could declare bankruptcy, and the party would be liable for the debt.
My colleague is a member of the Liberal Party. There will be 308 candidates in the next election. Some of them might end up spending excessive sums of money to get their nominations.
Why should the party be responsible for expenses that it did not even know about? That is the problem.
I see that my colleague, the member for Hull—Aylmer, is here. I managed to get an amendment in the committee to raise this absurd possibility. Unfortunately, we have to go back to the original starting point as it was set out in Bill C-29 at first reading.
Canada Elections Act June 16th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. It is the principle that I have adapted to fit this situation: tell me who your backers are and I will tell you who you are. Human nature being what it is, it can be easy to reward or help those who helped us. It is called returning the favour.
If everything was done in the full light of day for everyone to see—in an open and transparent manner—it would not leave any questions unanswered.
The same thing could be said for the Couillard affair. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, you will invoke the relevance rule to interrupt me, but you will be interrupting me in the next few seconds anyway. By not allowing the ministers and the Prime Minister to appear before the committee, the government is sowing the seeds of doubt.
Last weekend, I took part in eight events. People are asking us what the Conservatives have to hide and why they do not want to tell the truth.
It could be the same for leadership races.
Canada Elections Act June 16th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, my colleague has raised some serious issues. However, we remain convinced that the problem lies with the wording. It is all about the interpretation. Given that we are about to pass this bill, we believe that it would have been advantageous to improve the final wording of the bill in order to clear up any misunderstandings or errors of interpretation.
That is precisely why we have courts, to interpret the laws passed by parliaments. While travelling by plane, I had the opportunity to speak with a superior court judge, who told me that if parliamentarians would pass good, clear laws, there would be no need for the courts to interpret them. We recognize the independence of the judiciary and the executive. The judiciary only interprets the laws that are drafted by this Parliament.
It would have been better to have obtained further clarifications. However, I greatly appreciate my colleague's comments.
Canada Elections Act June 16th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, somebody keeps yapping and that is distracting me. I realize that you yourself are so distracted that you cannot take down any notes about my speech.
So there could be a breach of the spending limit. The party might not know anything about it but would be responsible for the expenditures of this insolvent person. That is the point of this amendment. I have difficulty seeing the logic of my colleagues from the other parties.
That being said, I consider that we are democrats in the Bloc Québécois, and we will acknowledge the democratic decision of the House. Allow me, however, to express some misgivings that I have.
With regard to the general thrust of Bill C-29, the Bloc Québécois remains in favour of it on the third reading. We consider that it contains some interesting, though perfectible elements, given that by definition perfection does not exist in this lowly world.
We are in favour of it for two main reasons. First of all, we think that it is necessary to provide a framework for loans so as to avoid people getting around the spending limits. We realize this on analyzing certain leadership races, among both the Conservatives and the Liberals.
For example, the member for Toronto Centre, the new Liberal Party critic for foreign affairs, apparently received loans totalling $705,000, including a loan from his brother, John Rae, a former vice-president of Power Corporation, for $580,000 at 5% interest. He apparently lent himself $125,000.
The same goes for the current opposition leader, who is supposed to have received loans totalling $655,000 from various people: Mamdouh Stephanos, Marc de la Bruyere, Stephen Bronfman, Roderick Bryden, Christopher Hoffmann. In all, they amount to $655,000.
Since we are including everyone, the current Prime Minister still refuses to reveal who his contributors were during his run for party leadership in 2002. He refers us the web site of the party once called the Canadian Alliance. That party has changed names many times. First it was the Reform Party, then the Canadian Alliance, and now the Conservative Party. It reminds me of the new Coke: it is the same recipe, but in an improved version. It is actually quite confusing.
In any case, a Globe and Mail article on October 2, 2002, revealed that the current Prime Minister spent $1.1 million on his leadership campaign in 2002. According to the article, the Prime Minister said he had posted a partial list of his contributors on the Canadian Alliance web site, but in fact only those who contributed more than $1,075 were listed. Thus, there are many grey areas.
As for election spending limits regarding contributions from individuals, we know that corporate financing is no longer allowed. We support this. Such limits have always been a traditional demand of the Bloc Québécois, that is, since 1993, for one simple, good reason. The Act to govern the financing of political parties has been in force in Quebec since 1977 and has proven effective. It has helped clean up political and electoral funding practices.
I can still vividly recall former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien paying homage to the legacy of René Lévesque, who gave us Quebec's act respecting elections and referendums in municipalities and the referendum act, among others. I am sure it was not easy for Jean Chrétien to pay homage to René Lévesque.
It is not necessarily logical, and certainly not every day, that Mr. Chrétien would pay tribute to René Lévesque.
That is basically what I wanted to say in my allotted time. Question time is approaching, and I am sure that some of my colleagues have some interesting questions for me. I will be pleased to answer them to the best of my knowledge and abilities. I want to stress that we still support this bill, and that we will likely vote in favour of it.
However, we see some serious problems with the fact that parties are responsible for expenses incurred by candidates at the local level. It should be a given that when someone agrees to run for a particular political party, that individual takes responsibility for his or her own expenses.
It is also important to remember that election campaigns are fast-paced. People who work on an election campaign have a hectic life from morning to night, and that includes the researchers who work nights. It is seven days a week. It is not always possible for all expenses to receive approval from senior party officials. That could mean that, although the party has nothing to do with the expense, it could end up being responsible, which does not make sense and is completely unacceptable.
But regardless, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill overall.
Canada Elections Act June 16th, 2008
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-29.
I am shocked by my colleague for Burnaby—New Westminster's response to my colleague for Chambly—Borduas in terms of a party's responsibility for loans contracted by candidates. My colleague just said that he was not in favour of this third amendment. I should point out that the amendments to the bill before us are a direct result of the NDP's change in position.
I do not necessarily want to dump on the NDP. We agree on certain things, but not in terms of this bill. There was a prior agreement. Given that I sit on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, I succeeded in getting this amendment in order to withdraw this provision. It has now returned to the bill, which means that the responsibilities and debts contracted by local candidates will become the responsibility of the party in the case of insolvency.
I am on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, a committee which is incidentally inoperative at the moment. A Conservative colleague was elected to replace the chair and member for Cambridge, whom a majority of the members had to kick out. Apparently he was not doing his job properly and impartially. A new chair was elected. Unfortunately this new chair resigned, and this means that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, because of the Conservatives, is inoperative.
On reading the bill, I noted this problem. I agree that a local candidate has a party banner to defend. Still, in the case of the Bloc Québécois, there are 75 ridings. There are more in the case of the so-called “national” parties. The Bloc Québécois is the national party of Quebeckers. We run candidates in the 75 ridings of Quebec. When we talk about 308 ridings and 308 Conservative, Liberal or New Democratic candidates, there is a coordination problem. How do we find out what is happening at the local level? An ill-advised candidate could make excessive, extravagant, totally crazy and inappropriate expenditures. I would even go so far as to say that he might exceed the limit provided for.