Rémi Massé

[The Budget, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am always surprised to hear this kind of negative attitude from the other side of the House. As I said, the people I met were extremely proud of the budget presented to them. They see the concrete measures that will help them make ends meet.

We talked about the Canada child benefit. That is a promise we made during the election campaign and a promise kept. This promise will give families in our respective regions extra money that they can use to make ends meet. That is the kind of promise we made and what we committed to Canadians. I am very proud of that.

[The Budget, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I would say the response has been extremely positive. I met with a number of stakeholders and elected officials during the two weeks I spent in my riding. Once again, the response was very positive. Some of the people I talked to called our measures historic. We have covered a whole range of important issues, including employment insurance, infrastructure, arts and culture, and our indigenous communities.

I have three indigenous communities in my riding, and they are delighted with the investments we are making to help them. They were satisfied with the way we handled consultations both before and after the budget to arrive at the major initiatives we announced. The response has been very positive.

[The Budget, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, what our workers need is jobs. They want to work 52 weeks a year. People in my region need that. They do not want to resort to employment insurance, but they have to periodically or temporarily because they lose their jobs or their industry is seasonal. Once again, we are very proud of the improvements we announced, such as investments to speed up employment insurance claims processing.

When I was campaigning, people told me that getting their first cheque took a long time. I am very proud that, in this budget, our government decided to invest in speeding up employment insurance claims processing.

[The Budget, April 12th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Toronto—Danforth.

I am delighted to rise in the House this morning to speak to the budget tabled by our government a few weeks ago. While we were in our respective ridings recently, I had the opportunity to present our budget to some of the chambers of commerce in my region. I met with just over 200 people to share the budget's main points with them.

To answer my colleague across the aisle, I would like to talk about what the budget will do for our regions and our communities. This budget includes some very positive things for our rural communities and regions like mine, such as eastern Quebec and the Gaspé. That is what I want to talk about here in the House this morning.

First I would like to paint a picture of my region's socio-economic situation. My riding covers an area of about 16,000 square kilometres and has 57 municipalities and as many elected representatives. As for population density, one of the counties has about 6.5 people per square kilometre and therefore has a vast expanse of land. The population is relatively evenly distributed in terms of age. There are about 2,500 people aged zero to 14, 2,000 people aged 15 to 24, and 4,000 aged 25 to 44.

My region has a negative migration flow, which means that it is slowly losing its population, and this saddens me. The same is true for three of the four municipalities in my riding. In addition, the population is aging, and the employment rate is 69%.

In my riding, per capita disposable income is $23,000. It is one of the lowest average disposable incomes in Canada, if not the lowest. It is a particularly tough economic situation. When the budget was brought down, I was very proud of the tangible measures that the Minister of Finance and our government put in place to help those in great need who are having a hard time making ends meet. Solid commitments were presented and announced in the budget to address this. We also talked about lowering taxes for the middle class. It is quite an achievement.

We also committed to presenting tangible measures for families, young people, and seniors. I would like to quickly mention those. The first pillar of budget 2016 is the Canada child benefit. Many families in our region need this benefit. It will allow families with children under six to receive up to $6,400 per child. Families with children between six and 17 will receive up to $5,400 per child. That is a lot of money for families in our regions who need extra money to make ends meet. We clearly indicated in the budget that these benefits would not be taxable, which is very important.

As far as young people and students are concerned, we announced a 50% increase in student grants, meaning an extra $1,000 for students from low-income families. We are also very proud of this measure.

We also announced a student loan repayment exemption for students who earn less than $25,000 when they enter the labour market. In other words, students will not have to repay their student loan until they are earning at least $25,000 a year. That is an increase of $5,000. It is very important for them to have a small financial cushion before they have to start paying off their student debt.

We announced the creation of many student jobs under the Canada summer jobs program. We committed to increasing the number of jobs in the regions. We estimate that this could represent 350 more jobs for students in my riding. We are very proud of that.

Obviously, we did not forget about our seniors. These individuals are proud, active members of our community who do volunteer work. We announced a 10% increase in the guaranteed income supplement for single seniors. Our government's excellent approach in this regard seeks to recognize the financial difficulty that some members of our population are experiencing. These are practical measures that will affect our communities.

Other measures have also been put in place, including improvements to the employment insurance program. That is important in my riding. Unfortunately, people sometimes may need to rely on employment insurance, whether it be on a temporary or a periodic basis. Significant improvements have been made to the program, including the reduction of the two-week waiting period to one week and a decrease in the number of hours required to be eligible for EI benefits. New entrants and re-entrants to the labour market had to accumulate up to 910 hours of employment to be eligible for EI benefits. We recognized that that was a problem and now, in our region, they will have to accumulate only 420 hours to qualify. We are very proud of that measure.

We are eliminating the requirements that forced claimants to accept jobs at lower rates of pay and with longer commuting times. That was a very obvious problem in my riding. These sorts of measures, which were brought in by the Conservatives in 2012, have been eliminated. That is a promise that we made during the election campaign, and I am proud to see it in the budget. The people in my riding are very happy that these types of changes have been made.

We have also undertaken to extend the working while on claim pilot project to August 2018. That is very important to us. We have also decided to continue and increase investments in skills training, and we have increased that budget to $675 million. Obviously, I am also very proud of the fact that we are reinstating the 15% tax credit for labour-sponsored funds. That is another important element of our platform that is being implemented with this budget.

There has been a lot of talk about infrastructure. We believe these investments are important because they can benefit our communities. For example, we have allocated $1.5 billion over two years for affordable housing. It is very important to be able to access such housing in our communities. Another example is the $342-million investment over two years for cultural and recreational infrastructure. It is important for our communities to have cultural and recreational infrastructure.

We will be investing $2 billion over four years to immediately improve water treatment and distribution infrastructure. We are even committing to paying 50% of eligible costs.

Different measures for infrastructure are very important to us. Once again, we are very proud and we believe that investments in Quebec could total up to or over $700 million.

There were some big announcements in the budget for arts and culture, such as increased funding for CBC/Radio-Canada. There was also more funding for the Canada Council for the Arts, Telefilm Canada, the National Film Board of Canada, and Showcasing Canada's Cultural Industries to the World. Cultural organizations in our region welcomed these reinvestments in arts and culture. We are very proud that these measures are in the budget.

We have heard a lot about SMEs. We obviously want to support them with technology and help them improve and modernize their organizations and businesses. These SMEs also want contracts, to help keep their businesses going. By investing in infrastructure, we think we will be in a position to create jobs that will generate economic spinoffs in our regions and encourage people there to spend and invest. For example, they may buy a pair of skis or a bike this summer, which will have a direct impact on our regional businesses.

We also promised to invest $197 million over five years in Fisheries and Oceans Canada to increase monitoring and research activities. That is very important to us. The Maurice Lamontagne Institute is in my riding and is one of the top francophone research centres in the world. We are very proud of this institute, and we obviously hope that this measure will benefit the Maurice Lamontagne Institute.

In conclusion, I am very proud of the budget that was presented. This budget will help my community and our municipalities develop economically and create jobs. Once again, this is a step forward for us.

[Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, February 25th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, my riding's economy is struggling. Three companies in my riding have shut down in recent months.

Residents could have decided to throw in the towel, but instead, 50 entrepreneurs in the region, led by François Rioux, the president of Groupe Bertrand-Rioux, developed a fund to create new companies and new jobs in the RCM of La Matanie.

These 50 entrepreneurs collected $300,000 in a show of entrepreneurial solidarity. Our entrepreneurs care about stimulating our region's economies. Now is the time to be inspired by Mr. Rioux and to be a positive, unifying leader for the business community.

We have a vision for our region. The community is prepared to work together and to be actively involved in the region's economic recovery. I am counting on our government to support this initiative, which will help create sustainable jobs. I salute Mr. Rioux for his initiative. This is a concrete example of how to create an environment that supports economic recovery in our region.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I am surprised that the Conservatives are taken aback by our decision to withdraw the CF-18s, since that was one of our campaign promises.

I want to thank my colleague for his brilliant remarks. We did indeed commit to co-operating with the coalition, and I wonder if he could talk about the benefits of such a collaboration in a context like this one.

[Natural Resources, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, faced with a very difficult economic situation, my riding and the Gaspé were able to develop recognized expertise in generating electricity from wind power.

In fact, our region has some 20 wind farms, which produce almost 1,000 megawatts of electricity from wind energy and create many jobs.

Could the Minister of Natural Resources share with the House the commitments made by our government to support producers of clean renewable energy and create jobs for Canadian workers?

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is very important to support Iraq in its efforts. We said so earlier. We will be there to triple Canada's train, advise, and assist mission in northern Iraq in order to improve the autonomy of local security forces. We have also undertaken to increase intelligence capabilities.

These efforts will help the people and the coalition forces and will firmly establish a new strategy and our contribution and ensure that we degrade ISIL.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, as I said regarding the issue being debated today on redefining the mission in Iraq and Syria, the changes being made will help us support the coalition and the United Nations in this initiative that seeks to weaken and ultimately eradicate the armed forces of the Islamic State.

I listed a series of initiatives. Our approach is informed and based on the consultations that we had over the past few weeks with the coalition and our partners.

[Canada's Contribution to the Effort to Combat ISIL, February 22nd, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to hear the member of the opposition talking about stepping back. Maybe he has not listened to what I said earlier about the increases we are making in the redefinition of this new mission. We are increasing the number of military from 650 to 830. We are doubling the investment in humanitarian aid.

We are working in partnership with the coalition to identify the needs clearly. Having identified those needs, we defined an informed approach that takes into account all the requests we received.