Nicole Demers

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 3rd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that we can put this argument to rest. My hon. colleague for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin has said it well.

This coalition is unprecedented in this chamber. The various parties are putting partisanship aside and joining forces to act on this economic crisis, at last, so that our constituents do not have to take action and so that they can be sure of having a normal Christmas.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 3rd, 2008]

Madam Speaker, I am constantly in contact with people in my riding, with associations and women's groups, and all without exception have congratulated us on what we have done and on our desire to work together in a coalition government.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 3rd, 2008]

Madam Speaker, I would remind my honourable Conservative colleague that Mr. Jarisklowsky has painted a depressing picture of the current economic situation. He does not say that the Conservative government has helped the country to recover. He even urges the parties to reach an understanding and establish a crisis government as they would in wartime. This is no trifling matter: he urges the parties to reach an understanding and establish a crisis government, as they would in wartime. This is reality, this is not fiction. This is an economist speaking, a financier highly regarded by his peers, and he knows what he is talking about.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 3rd, 2008]

Madam Speaker, I have to say I am a little embarrassed and a little ashamed to be in this House this afternoon listening to everything going on and everything being said. I am talking about the Quebec bashing, the disparaging of the Bloc Québécois and francophones. Personally, I find it very difficult to witness everything said today, everything said during and after question period. If find it personally very difficult.

We have had calls from people who live in Quebec and in other provinces of Canada. They are asking what is going on and why the government is displaying this kind of obstinacy, this kind of contempt for francophones in Quebec and Canada. Maybe the government is not aware of what is going on right now, but I can assure it that this may leave deep wounds that will take a long time to heal. People will remember this.

This so-called economic statement is really an ideological statement. It shows us how little respect this government has for the members of this House, and for the people of Canada, whether or not they voted for it. The entire voting population of Canada, in the last election, voted for a government to be serious and pay real attention to the economic and financial crisis we are experiencing.

It there is any doubt remaining in the minds of our Conservative colleagues, I can assure them that Stephen Jarislowsky, at least, a well-known billionaire financier and investor, said today at the Montreal Board of Trade that he supported a coalition government and that this was probably the most important and most useful thing at present in Canadian politics. At this point, a government has to make major investments, and he criticized the Prime Minister for not doing that in a crisis as serious as this. When a man as well versed in finance as Mr. Jarislowsky tells us something, I think we should listen, whether we are sovereignists or not.

When we chose to form an alliance with the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party to create a coalition government, we did it in good faith, as we have acted in good faith for the 15 years that the Bloc Québécois has been in this Parliament. The Bloc Québécois, a sovereignist party, as always shown scrupulous respect for the protocol, rituals and members of this House. The Bloc Québécois has always taken its role seriously and fulfilled it responsibly.

Today, we see members trying to lay their own strategic mistakes at the doorstep of the Bloc Québécois because they are incapable of getting traction for the right-wing ideas we do not want, and nobody in this country wants, either in Quebec or in Canada. They are arguing from weakness and condemning the parties that have done their job properly.

In the past, we have made a number of proposals to the Conservative Party to ensure that the people we represent could get the help they need and would be able to say that their government was genuinely concerned for their welfare. Now, the only thing they can say is that the government is extending its hand and going right for their pocket. It has forgotten about the welfare of the people. When they tell seniors that 25% of their retirement income will not have to be withdrawn this year, that is not very much. This will be a very hard year for seniors who have to live on their retirement income and have to withdraw money from their RRIF. We would have hoped that the government could have shown some compassion and raised the age when they would have to withdraw money from 71 to 73.

We hoped that it would understand that people who have lost their jobs over the past few weeks and those who will be losing their jobs in the coming weeks need immediate access to employment insurance benefits to support their families.

We hoped that the government, despite its incomprehensible right-wing ideology, would understand that women have the right to pay equity, not equal pay for equal work, but equal pay for work of equal value. Women in Quebec have had pay equity for 10 years now, and they do not have to worry about taking pay equity cases to court. It is a de facto right, it is non-negotiable, it belongs to us and we are entitled to it. Pay equity is one of our rights.

We also hoped that the government would understand that families that have to work, single-income families that need two incomes, need more than $100 per month to take care of their children. The government failed to understand that. According to its ideology, a woman's place is in the home. We have seen it do things for the sole purpose of sending women back home. Every woman in this country, like every woman in Quebec, has the right to a job, the right to work, and the right to earn an income that belongs to her, not a virtual income. Under the government's proposed new programs, a woman who stays at home could virtually receive a portion of her husband's income.

As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois has always stood by its commitments to the people it represents. As I said earlier to the Conservative member, we want to build one country, but that does not mean that we want to destroy another.

Many of my family members live in the western provinces, many of them live in eastern Canada and many of them live in Quebec. Never would anyone in my family think that I bore them any ill will. Never would anyone in my family think that I want to destroy this, the most beautiful country in the world. That is not what we want, but like all people and all nations, we have the right to self-determination.

In closing, I truly hope that we will one day have a government that understands that the members in this House have a duty. They have a duty towards the people who elected them and not towards the government, which claims to have all the answers and to know better than anyone what Canadians want or what Quebeckers want. We must listen to our constituents more closely and we must—I hope the Prime Minister will take this into account in his address tonight—work together and do everything in our power to get through this economic crisis together, growing stronger, in order to really help our citizens pull through this crisis.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 3rd, 2008]

Madam Speaker, I think it is not acceptable for a member to make assumptions about what a party will do and say that a party wants to destroy a country because it wants to build its own.

I would ask that the member withdraw his remarks.

[Status of Women, December 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, since this government has been in power, women have been muzzled in a number of respects. The latest outrage is withdrawal of their right to go before the courts in cases relating to wage parity.

Today, does the Prime Minister realize that women stand to gain from the imminent creation of a new government where the parties have managed to set partisan politics aside in order to ensure women's economic rights?

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, November 25th, 2008]

Madam Speaker, please excuse me, I caught a cold when I was in Winnipeg. We had to go outside in order to return to our rooms; we could not get to our rooms from the inside. I thought I would be able to get to my room easily, so I did not wear a coat that morning. I had to go outside. It was very cold in Winnipeg and I caught a cold. Our good friends, the Conservatives, are responsible for my cold.

The federal government is having trouble meeting needs when it comes to its own responsibilities in terms of health care, particularly for veterans, aboriginal communities and communities in Nunavut. The federal government is not able to meet these needs. There are still problems that persist. How can the government meet the needs of people in the provinces when it does not know what the needs are and when it is so far away? It is an impossible task for the federal government.

Provinces and territories are responsible for health, not the federal government.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, November 25th, 2008]

Madam Speaker, of course I would like all Canadian families to have access to day care services as good as those we have in Quebec. However, day care services fall within provincial jurisdiction. When the Liberal Party unveiled a program, it decided that Quebec could opt out of the agreement and receive the money needed to continue with its own program.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, November 25th, 2008]

Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying how happy I am to begin my remarks in this House with the words “Madam Speaker”. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the member for Trois-Rivières. I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank the voters in the riding of Laval who resisted the siren song of my Conservative opponent, who was most loquacious, and placed their confidence in me for the third time.

I wanted to say a few words in the House today about the throne speech, but I do not have good things to say about it, nor am I happy with it, nor will I be voting for it. Those who know me well know how important women's issues are to me and to the members of the Bloc Québécois.

Yesterday, in her remarks, my colleague from Laurentides—Labelle referred to those who were left out of the throne speech. Today, I would like to spend some more time talking about those people, particularly women. I was not surprised to find no references to women in the throne speech.

The week before that, my colleagues from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert and Gatineau and I were observers at the Conservative Party convention in Winnipeg. When I arrived in Winnipeg, I was excited and all fired up. I was eager to see what would happen, to hear what people had to say about various things, to see how people would use the meetings to set their party's agenda and priorities. I wanted to get some idea of what we would be talking about here in the House once we all came back.

I was surprised to find out that observers were not allowed to observe. I was surprised to learn that, as observers, we were relegated to a little coffee shop on the second floor and were not allowed access to any of the rooms in which meetings were being held. Even so, there were leaks. Even parties governed by a culture of secrecy are prone to leaks. Thanks to those leaks, we were kept up to date throughout the day about decisions made during the meetings.

The first decision was made following a debate, and I was very disappointed to learn that it was about Resolution P-207, a resolution that reopened the abortion debate.

Then another resolution was passed and it stunned me completely. The resolution called for equal pay for equal value. It did not stipulate equal pay for work of equal value. What a giant step back for women.

All day long, we heard about similar kinds of resolutions. We could not believe it and wondered what was happening. We were anxious to see what was really happening and to get to the plenary meeting, which we were told we could attend.

When we left Winnipeg—I left on the Sunday morning—I knew this government would do no more for women than it has done over the past two and half years. The rights of women in Canada and Quebec have suffered a terrible setback.

This was confirmed last week when the World Economic Forum, which is based in Geneva, announced that Canada now ranks 31st out of 130 countries that were assessed based on whether the gender gap is increasing or narrowing. In 2006, we were ranked 15th. In 2007, we were 18th and now in 2008, 31st. It will not stop there. This is not surprising. We saw the cuts to Status of Women Canada; we saw the cuts to the court challenges program; we saw the changes to the Women's Program at Status of Women Canada, which made funding available. This will not stop here.

The United Nations commission charged with eliminating all forms of discrimination against women published a report indicating that Canada lags far behind and is struggling with serious problems of violence against women.

When all is said and done, the fact remains that, in last year's throne speech, the Prime Minister stated that there would be a plan for women, a specific and special plan of attack, which would advance the rights of Quebec and Canadian women. There is not a word about that in this throne speech. Evidently, because last time around nothing was accomplished. They only talked about it, nothing was done, they did not take action and things have not changed.

In times of economic uncertainty such as these, when we do not know what will happen in two or three months—because things are changing so quickly and there is a new surprise or disappointment every day, and something else turns up each day—a government must make investments that will yield the greatest return. It must invest in people, in infrastructure, invest in what will yield a return as quickly as possible.

This government could not be bothered to come up with a social housing plan, when there is $8 billion available in the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation fund. This government could not be bothered to make changes to employment insurance so that seniors who lose their jobs have access to a program that will help them transition into retirement after stopping work.

This government also could not be bothered to change the eligibility criteria for employment insurance. Yet there is currently $44 billion in the employment insurance fund, money that could be used to help the people who earned this money and invested it in an employment insurance fund, so they would have something to fall back on if they were to lose their jobs.

When we want the economy to run smoothly, we invest in infrastructure. Of course, the Prime Minister told us that he would invest in infrastructure, but between saying and doing, between talk and action, months go by and nothing is done. We have already thought about programs that should be put in place immediately, and not in three months come budget time.

The situation with the economy requires us to start thinking about people and the economy and to invest now where it is most important. Infrastructure projects are a source of many jobs and opportunities, and this would ensure some short-term jobs, which would get the economy rolling.

Furthermore, if a woman loses her job and is not eligible for employment insurance or welfare benefits because she has assets, then she is really out of luck.

The Speaker has informed me that I have only one minute remaining. I do not know which direction to take, because I have so much to say about what is lacking in this throne speech. There is so much to say about this government's lack of social conscience. The word “equality” was even removed from Conservative Party documents. They did this at their convention last week. This goes to show the ongoing contempt that this government has for women.

I am not wrapping up on a very encouraging note, but I certainly hope that the government will show some openness this time and try to go a bit further towards fixing the mistakes it has made in the past.

[RESUMPTION OF DEBATE ON ADDRESS IN REPLY, November 24th, 2008]

Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to the speech given by my hon. colleague, Labelle des Laurentides, and I must say her tone is completely understandable. Everything she said accurately represents what was said—or not said—in the Speech from the Throne.

I wonder if my hon. colleague would share her thoughts about the Conservative government's desire to abolish the gun registry.