Roger Pomerleau

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is right in saying that it is all the same and that these two parties have concocted it, if you will. My colleague for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie gave a brilliant speech on the specifics of this bill.

My colleague knows perfectly well that in developing countries such as Colombia, where the people are poor but the country is rich, the only way for the people to have real power and development is through their government institutions, their government and the people they elect.

By signing the free trade agreement with Colombia, by including a provision similar to NAFTA's chapter 11—which gives real power not to the people, not to the government institutions, not to the public representatives but first and foremost to investors—and by allowing investors to go back to the government at any time to obtain financial compensation, the Canadian government will weaken the government in power to such an extent that we can truly speak of exploitation and colonization.

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

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my hon. colleague's speech, which I found very interesting.

Like her, no doubt, I have many Colombian political refugees in my riding of Drummond. These people were beaten and sentenced to death. Most come here suffering horrible after-effects. They were tortured, shot in the face and so on. I would not say I see them every day in my office, but several times a year, I see serious cases.

We often hear the government on the other side talk about law and order. It seems that they always use those words to describe what they would like to do in Canada.

I want to ask my colleague a question. Does she not think that when it comes to other countries, instead of talking about law and order here in the House, the government could be quicker to get involved and try to address problems?

[Xavier Dolan, May 25th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, Xavier Dolan, a young Quebec filmmaker, swept three of the four prizes awarded during the Directors' Fortnight, a sidebar to the Cannes Film Festival.

Dolan wrote the script for his film, J'ai tué ma mère, at 17, then directed it at 19, starring in the film alongside Anne Dorval. His feature won the independent cinema programmers' Art Cinema Award, the Société des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques prize for best French-language film, and the Regards Jeunes prize, for a first or second feature film.

Flabbergasted, the young director said of his largely self-financed film, “Never in my life have I felt so proud and so happy to belong to our nation, the Quebec nation”.

Now it is the Bloc Québécois' turn to tell him how proud we are of him and of the honour he has brought to Quebec at Cannes. We wish him a tremendously prolific career.

[Drummondville Voltigeurs, May 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, our local Quebec major junior hockey league team, the Drummondville Voltigeurs, made history on the ice at the Marcel Dionne Centre in front of a record-setting crowd yesterday by winning the President's Cup for the first time in 27 years. After weeks of intense work and tremendous effort, their determination paid off because this win gives them a chance to play for the Memorial Cup.

I would like to express our admiration and appreciation for what they have accomplished so far. Their achievement is a significant contribution to sport throughout the Drummondville region.

Let me say it one more time: the Voltigeurs are our heroes. I would just like to wish them the ultimate honour: leaving their mark on the trophy after the 11-day celebration of the 91st anniversary of the Memorial Cup.

Here's to the cup!

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, May 12th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, my colleague began his speech by talking about the fact that a few years ago, in his beautiful riding of Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, the RCMP detachments were closed. People are still shocked by that today.

I would remind my colleague that RCMP detachments were closed in a number of ridings in Quebec. There were even attempts to do so in my riding, Drummond. At the time, there were—and there still are—large crops of marijuana in all the fields around our region, for kilometres at a stretch. At the time, that is why we disputed the closure of the RCMP detachment. We managed to stop the closure thanks to a great deal of hard work.

The House will remember the MP for the riding next to mine, Yvan Loubier, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe at the time, who denounced the marijuana crops so strongly that he was forced to have 24-hour protection from the RCMP for several weeks because of the threats he received.

In my riding of Drummond, the House will remember Ms. Picard, my predecessor, whom I worked for at the time, who fought like the devil to keep the RCMP detachments in our riding. In the end, she won. Not only did we keep our detachments, but they were actually strengthened, which was a great victory for her.

My question for the member is as follows. With everything that is happening within the RCMP and the problems its members currently face, does he not believe that defending the RCMP, to ensure that its members enjoy the same rights and privileges as all the other police forces in Canada, will help increase the morale of the troops and indirectly help fight organized crime?

[Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superannuation Act, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have listened very carefully to my colleague's speech. In it he commented that the government is claiming to be tough on crime, but in fact is preventing RCMP officers from having salaries equivalent to those earned by members of other Canadian police forces. At the same time, it is preventing them from having the same democratic rights, that is the right to unionize. That is an absolutely fair right.

We know that crime today is far more organized and complex than it used to be. There was a time 50 years ago when the mafia was top dog in the organized crime scene, but now we have the Chinese triads, the Japanese yakusa, the Russian mafia, the biker and street gangs, and all of these criminal groups demand increasing expertise from police forces, at a time of staff cutbacks. Yet they are still claiming to be tough on crime.

My question for my colleague is this: since the Liberals were in power before, what did they do to get tough on crime and to treat the RCMP properly?

[Cree-Naskapi (of Quebec) Act, May 7th, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague over there for his excellent work and the speech he has just given.

He knows that the Bloc Québécois will support the proposal for this new agreement because we recognize that the aboriginal peoples have the right to self-government, as far as possible. SInce he has mentioned the James Bay and northern Quebec agreement, he ought to acknowledge that, from the point of view of Quebec, the purpose of that agreement signed by Mr. Bourassa, the Cree, the Inuit and perhaps the Naskapi, was in large part to ensure that the lands did indeed belong to Quebec. A clear right was necessary before embarking on anything like the James Bay project.

Will the components we wish to build now come in conflict with this, or be in continuity with it? I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on this.

[Energy Efficiency Act, May 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to thank my colleague from Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel on his brilliant speech, in which he demonstrated how much Quebec has contributed to Canada to develop energies outside Quebec, whether Atomic Energy of Canada or Hibernia's oil fields. Quebec never got a red cent, though, to develop its own industry, even though it is cleaner than all the others. That is a good point my colleague made.

In response to what my colleague said, we were told by members on the other side that the Alberta oil industry creates lots of jobs in Quebec. I would like my colleague to tell us about all the jobs created in Quebec when the rising price of oil caused the Canadian dollar to soar and reduced Quebec’s exports.

[Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, May 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his remarks.

I would like to remind him that, as members, we all know of numerous organizations and non-profit organizations in our ridings that do incredible work. So we have all come across volunteers and seen them working every day. However, during election periods, we have an outstanding volunteer working for us, the official agent.

In my view, he is, in some ways, the ideal volunteer who meets all of the requirements of the new act we have been discussing. The hon. member was just explaining the merits of Bill C-4 and why we will be supporting it.

This bill will simplify the constitution of non-profit organizations. A volunteer agent could be chosen from among everyone in the organization.

It will clarify the duties and responsibilities of the directors. A volunteer agent's role is laid out in the elections act in a way that it is not generally explained to the members of society.

It will establish lines of defence for the directors and officers in liability cases. An official agent's role and responsibilities are very well explained, as are the ways in which he is to fulfill those responsibilities.

It will give members more rights, allowing them to be involved in their organization's governance. We know that the official agent's documents are clearly printed and made public a few months after an election.

It will establish a better mechanism for monitoring the organization's accountability. We know that the financial agent must keep the books according to a specific method and that they are examined twice before being made public.

Can the hon. member tell me if he does not see that by adopting Bill C-4 we are perhaps making the people and volunteers in these organizations and non-profit organizations a little more like financial agents during an election?

[Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, May 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my thanks also go to the hon. member fromBerthier—Maskinongé for his overview of the bill that is before us today. As he described, not-for-profit organizations have always faced a number of problems, such as raising funds, finding directors, having countless forms to fill out.

Now it has been decided to update the act. The Bloc Québécois is going to vote for the bill in order to make the act more transparent and to improve governance and make the sector easier to manage.

The hon. member points out that, given the increasing poverty and the increasing age of the population, this is urgent. We know that it is good in theory, but, given that he has worked with organizations on many occasions, what exactly does he think of it in practice?