Pierre Nantel

[Canadian Heritage, February 14th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, 7,000 people across Quebec have signed a petition calling on the Prime Minister, the Minister of Canadian Heritage, and the Minister of Finance to take urgent action to support our media and our journalism. Seven thousand people is a lot of people.

Journalists came to Parliament today to present this petition. Unfortunately, only one Liberal was on hand to welcome them. What a shame. This sector has shed 16,000 jobs and now our media, journalists, and democracy need urgent measures.

Will the Prime Minister commit to include urgent measures in his next budget?

[Media Industry, February 12th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, everyone agrees that our print media are facing a crisis. It is imperative that this year's budget include solutions for that sector. Meanwhile, Ottawa is spending less on advertising in our local media, choosing instead to pay over half of its advertising budget to companies like Google and Facebook. I would remind the House that all that money is going out of the country. In other parts of the world, governments support their media and make sure that web giants pay their taxes. Ottawa, however, is doing the opposite and giving the web giants whatever they want.

Why?

[Canadian Heritage, February 1st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, after a number of access to information requests, the government finally released 773 pages of emails exchanged between the government and Netflix, but 90% was redacted. It almost seems as though the government has something to hide. Is that possible?

In his year-end review, the Prime Minister had the nerve to contradict Céline Galipeau. Regrettably, he went and said that it would be impossible to charge GST on Netflix, when we know that is not at all the case. Everyone knows that.

Why is the government so determined to mislead the public about the Netflix deal? Why is it afraid to make the deal public? Is it afraid that we will be proven right?

[Parks Canada, January 30th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Parks Canada is inexplicably planning to relocate treasured artifacts from Quebec City to Gatineau, over the protests of Quebec's National Assembly and the City of Quebec. These artifacts should stay in Quebec's national capital. The same goes for artifacts from the Mi'kmaq nation or any other community targeted by this plan. I am thinking of Acadia in particular. Last week, ethnologist Louise Cyr even referred to this project as “cultural deportation”.

Why move historically and culturally significant assets to a city where they do not belong, when we could be working to keep them in the place they came from? It seems like common sense to me.

[Canada Labour Code, January 29th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague.

A unionized workplace with very clear protocols that explicitly define the type of behaviour that is not acceptable is a very good example. I would like her to provide other examples where this type of code is in place, setting out that this very specific type of offence is not to be committed. I would like her to tell us how helpful this would be.

Quite honestly, I was even surprised many times during her speech by the shocking statistics on workplaces where certain rules of silence exist. Am I naive or just lucky to have never heard about them? Earlier, another colleague told us that, according to a certain intern, working here was literally akin to working in a snake pit.

I would like my colleague to speak a little more about a code and the definitions of what should be added to this bill.

[Canada Labour Code, January 29th, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her intensely personal speech. Her story about her godmother or her aunt who was so devoted to these issues until her last breath was really quite moving.

I can assure you that we are all happy to see that all parties and nearly everyone here welcomes this bill and realizes the critical need for it.

A few points have been addressed more than once today, including, for example, the fact that the bill does not define what needs to be regulated. The courage it takes to report this behaviour was brought up many times.

Does my colleague believe that if we came up with a clear definition of these actions, we could create better awareness campaigns that would point specifically to the exact kind of “off-colour” behaviours that we want to stop?

[Canada Labour Code, January 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech.

Indeed, it is nice to see everyone in the House of Commons united around a bill that we all seem to agree on.

I heard my colleague say that she would like to set limits and get rid of some exceptions. Quite often, and rightly so, I believe victims are praised for their courage and told that they will be believed. That is wonderful. Victims must be supported. However, if we were to better define the crimes in question, I think that would help make reporting them less of an act of courage. It would just be enforcing the law. I cannot help but think that a publicity campaign or information campaign needs to be defined.

I am 55 years old. When I was little, no one even talked about seat belts, and people smoked in cars with the windows closed and with kids in the car. Some things are just not done anymore. We do not throw stacks of paper in the garbage. There have been awareness campaigns.

An awareness campaign should force men to look in the mirror and realize that they need to make some changes. Could this be defined in the context of this bill? Can we expect this to be addressed in committee?

[Canada Labour Code, January 29th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her articulate speech. She is very well suited to address this topic. She is well versed in labour relations and she is a woman. Every member of the House can be proud of the tone of this debate.

Obviously, everyone supports good initiatives. Fortunately, my colleague took the time to conclude her speech by acknowledging the need to help people talk about this subject. She then immediately switched to the need for more definitions in the bill. I think about the #EtMaintenant movement. My own daughter has been handing out yellow hearts in bars to raise men's awareness of the situation. My colleague also touched on awareness raising in her speech. However, the definitions are crucial because without them there can be no awareness raising.

I would like my colleague to elaborate on that.

[Salaries Act, December 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague opposite if the bill simply validates something that already exists. As far as I know, ministers of state already receive this salary.

If we are here to validate decisions that you have already made, I can suggest other bills, such as bills on charging and collecting taxes and the GST that undermine our entrepreneurs.

If you want to change things to suit you and put the House at your service, say so right away.

[Salaries Act, December 12th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it does not take a rocket scientist, only a good head of hair.

My colleague talked a lot about SMEs. With all the backpedalling the Liberals do, making decisions and then changing laws accordingly, would he not expect them to come here with some sort of legislation? I would like to see them put in writing that we are gearing up to shortchange our small businesses and retailers so we can blithely give major international corporations a tax break on GST and provincial sales tax.

While they are at it, they should put in writing that they prefer to help American giants.