Roger Pomerleau

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 4th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I continue to be somewhat surprised, astounded, flabbergasted when I listen to those members who will be in opposition shortly. Day after day they repeat that democracy is in jeopardy in this Parliament. I would like to remind my colleague, who does not seem to understand what type of parliament we have, that we do not live in a parliamentary democracy but in a parliamentary monarchy. They are not the same thing. The Canadian people are not the sovereign ruler; the Queen of Canada is and she is also the Queen of England. The Bloc Québécois does not agree with it but that is the reality.

My colleague needs to understand the distinction. As members, before sitting here, we did not pledge allegiance to the people of Canada; we swore an oath and pledged allegiance to the Queen of Canada. When President Obama, takes the oath of office, he will do so before the American people and he will be responsible to the American people. That is not the case here.

When we adopt laws in this place, they are not valid until they are signed by the Queen of this country or by her representative. The laws we draft may be adopted in the other chamber, where individuals who are not elected but appointed in accordance with rules established by the Queen can veto these laws or amend them as they wish.

We do not have a parliamentary democracy, we have a parliamentary monarchy.

What does that mean? That means that people here have the right—and only that right—to elect the Parliament of Canada. In this Parliament, the party that obtains the confidence of Parliament may govern. The current government has just lost the confidence of this Parliament and that is why it should resign and step aside. The Prime Minister acted like a complete amateur and was assisted by a band of amateurs.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, my friend from Brandon—Souris just talked about the fact that members are receiving a lot of emails. All my colleagues on this side are also receiving those emails and we can see that a lot of people are angry and dissatisfied with the whole situation.

The words being used tell us that most Canadians believe in three assumptions concerning Quebec and the Bloc Québécois: First, that we are a bunch of troublemakers who are never happy with what we get; second, that we receive much more money from Canada than we put in; and, third, that we are the source of a lot of problems.

The finance minister said this morning that we in the House were dealing with the devil.

If all those assumptions are true, the sovereignty of Quebec should appear to all my colleagues as a good way to solve a problem once and for all, while making a lot of money out of it. Why is it that my colleagues are making so much effort to keep us in the system?

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have heard my colleague's long-overdue lecture on the British parliamentary system. I am dumbfounded by the fact that we have to give our colleagues across the way a political science primer, Politics 101: the British parliamentary system.

The first thing a minority government has to do is get the consent of enough opposition members to pass its bills and retain the confidence of the House. If it fails to do so, it cannot fulfill its duty and, according to our system, must automatically be removed from its role as the governing party.

The problem we are dealing with today is not the opposition's fault. It is the fault of an inept Prime Minister of Canada. That is the problem.

I would like to know what my colleague has to say about that.

[Economic and Fiscal Statement, December 2nd, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, from the remarks of my colleague and the member on the other side of the House who spoke before him, it is clear that some people in this House are still demonizing the Bloc Québécois. We are evil separatists; indeed, some have even used the word “devils”.

I would like to point out that we have been demonized in this House since we first came here. I was here in 1993, and the first thing published in the local papers, in the Ottawa Citizen, was that 54 boneheads had been elected to Parliament. We were new to the House, but the Bloc Québécois members were not quite like all of the other boneheads. That was when things started. In the week that followed, a Mr. Aaron from Toronto sued us for $500 billion. That was when everything started. I told the people at Guinness World Records about it because I thought it was so amazing, but they refused to publish it because they said it was too crazy to be for real.

When we went to the Supreme Court of Canada to settle the matter—I am pleased to say that the Liberals did it—we were simply told that—

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, November 20th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, as this is my first speech in this chamber, I am certain that you will allow me to begin by addressing my fellow citizens and thanking them for choosing me as their representative and spokesperson in this place. First, I would like to say thank you and tell them that I will be sure to honour the trust they have placed in me.

I would also like to thank the leader of the NDP who just gave a rather important speech. Before asking him a question, I would like to make the following point. Yesterday, my colleague for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert noted that it was very strange that the government was announcing some rather vague measures to assist industries in trouble at the same time that cuts were being made to industries that are doing very well, such as the cultural industry. There is a dichotomy here.

My colleague, the member for Saint-Jean also noted that the government announced that it was putting measures—fairly vague measures—in place to support the economy, but that it was refusing to require a portion of military expenditures to be made here. My colleague, the leader of the Bloc Québécois, pointed out that billions of dollars are lying dormant at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and yet they refuse to build public housing or to take measures to kickstart the economy by building public housing.

Several Chinese companies have made investments in Drummondville, in my riding. It was not on the recommendation or with the assistance of the federal government, but through the efforts of local people who made many trips to China to seek out these companies. One of these companies pulverizes tires and sells the product to another company in Drummondville, Soprema. The latter obtained Chinese contracts to build the green roof for China's Olympic stadium. Remarkable efforts were made to identify these companies, make them profitable and work with China, and then the Prime Minister refused to attend the Olympic Games. He almost created a diplomatic incident, making China lose face and probably casting doubt on all the work done to that point.

In light of these examples, does it not seem to the leader of the NDP that the government is acting like a pyromaniac firefighter? It has announced some very vague measures to stimulate the economy and at the same time is adopting measures that will destroy it.

[Goods And Services Tax, April 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, Mr. McKenna was at the Château Champlain, in Montreal, at 12.30 p.m. today, no doubt in order to praise the merits of his province in the taxation area and thus rob us of our businesses and our jobs.

Does the government find it normal that the premier of a province should use some of the money paid by Quebecers to come and draw Quebec's businesses away, businesses that Montreal needs so badly to counter poverty?

[Goods And Services Tax, April 24th, 1997]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Minister of Finance.

When he left the room where the Standing Committee on Public Accounts that was supposed to be sitting late in the afternoon yesterday, the auditor general described the GST harmonization formula which, as we know, gave $1 billion to the maritimes, as a political decision. This squares exactly with what we have been saying about that formula since it was announced. It we fully apply the McKenna formula to Quebec, Ottawa owes Quebec $2 billion, which the Quebec government has been asking for, as was demonstrated in black and white in the last provincial budget.

Why is the government persisting in not treating Quebec the same way as it is treating the maritimes?

[Broadcast Act, April 22nd, 1997]

That is not wrong. What you are saying is totally unreasonable. Why then would we be rejecting an amendment moved by the Senate? It is because the Association des consommateurs du Québec went to the Senate and said in its brief that the bill did not meet the objectives it was supposed to meet and, furthermore, that it would create a lot more problems than it would solve. In the bill, there was no mention of jurisdictional encroachment, and that is a second factor.

I will read a few quotes from the Association des consommateurs' brief: "We recognize that the objectives which led to the introduction of this bill may have been worthy and beneficial to English Canada, but we are convinced that the authors of the bill never examined or understood the disastrous consequences of this bill for francophones in our country".

I will conclude with this remark. I think our colleagues should reread this report which describes exactly why francophones-

[Broadcast Act, April 22nd, 1997]

My remarks are very relevant, Mr. Speaker. We reject the amendment proposed by the Senate because it does not bring the bill into conformity with the objectives of the Broadcasting Act with regard to French language services.

If motions have to be moved at every turn, we will see to it.

What we have shown here is that the bill is strictly a measure against francophones in Canada and Quebec. If our colleague wants to introduce a bill to solve the problem, he should do so in the provincial legislatures and not here.

[Broadcast Act, April 22nd, 1997]

The Bloc has excellent reasons to move this motion today. Our motion rejects the Senate amendment because:

-in the opinion of this House, it does not bring the bill into conformity with the objectives of the Broadcasting Act with regard to French-language services.

We know that services must be provided in French exactly as they are provided in English; there are two official languages in Canada and they are equal everywhere.

To settle the problem of negative option billing in Canada, which should be settled through provincial legislation, my hon. colleague is proposing a federal bill that would reduce French language television programming.

My colleague should have asked the provincial legislatures to pass the regulations now before this House. This is an area under provincial jurisdiction. Thus, first, this is not the place to solve this problem and the bill has the disadvantage, when the provinces do not do their job, of allowing the federal government to encroach on provincial jurisdictions, which Quebec has always been opposed to.

So, not only do we not solve a problem correctly by raising it in a legislative assembly that does not have proper jurisdiction, but once again Quebec is being had, and forced to fight these motions when the Constitution provides quite clearly that this comes under provincial jurisdiction.