Sylvie Boucher

[Veterans Affairs, September 21st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, it is unacceptable. Christopher Garnier was found guilty of murder and interfering with a dead body in the death of Constable Catherine Campbell. He is getting benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs to treat his PTSD, when he never served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

In their answers yesterday, none of the Liberals mentioned the police officer who was the victim of this barbaric act.

Will the Liberal government reverse this appalling decision and side with victims instead of criminals for once?

[Entourage of an MP, September 21st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we often make no mention of the people who help make us who we are. Today, I want to take this opportunity to thank them.

Since my return to Ottawa in 2015 and in the ensuing years, these people have become my second set of eyes and my second voice. They support me in what I do and they guide me. Without them, I could not give the best of me. I am referring to my assistants and to my associates.

I want to thank Denis, Guylaine, Thomas and Suzanne, who do fantastic work in my riding. Here, closer to my day-to-day work, Isabelle and Mikhaïl guide me through the grinding business of Parliament every day. I thank them. I would also like to thank my entire Conservative family and my leader, who inspire me to fight even harder against this Liberal government of failures.

I want to thank all these people for being there for me.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, September 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague.

We are in the inner sanctum here tonight. We are basically the only ones here, as my colleague said.

I understand the difference between someone who enters the country legally and someone who is seeking refuge in Canada. However, I am talking about illegal immigrants. We need to distinguish between the two, and that is where the problem lies. People do not understand that.

On August 25, 2018, in a letter to the Canadian Bar Association that was published in a newspaper, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship admitted that the number of refugee claimants far exceeded what the current system can handle.

The National Post noted that the letter's tone was unusually strong for the minister in question, who often describes Canada's immigration and border control system as strict and efficient. The article talks about two different realities.

I personally have been asking for quite some time—

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, September 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we have been asking questions about asylum seekers and Roxham Road in Quebec for months now. Quebec has asked us to be proactive. Many asylum seekers have been coming to Canada since the Prime Minister's tweet, and we need to know how to differentiate between illegal migrants, refugees and legal immigrants. Everyone seems confused about this. We are talking here about illegal migrants, those who enter Canada illegally at a breach in the border.

On television—more so on French television than on English TV—we have heard that people are flying from Haiti to the United States and then crossing into Canada at Roxham Road. That is a problem. We know that the members opposite will tell us that fewer people are doing that now. That may be true, but there are still people crossing the border illegally and that is causing problems in ridings like mine. Allow me to explain.

At the beginning of the summer, a family in my riding was reunited. An immigrant who settled in my riding 15 years ago separated from his wife and she moved to England. They are both African. This summer, he called me in a panic. He and his wife share custody of their daughter who comes to Canada every year at the end of May to spend the summer with her father. However, this year, she was denied a visa because she had had not been back to Canada for a year. That was only natural because her mother had legal custody and all the papers.

In short, at Roxham Road, I asked the following question a number of times. Given the unprecedented crisis created by this infamous tweet, does the Prime Minister think it is acceptable for people to break the law by crossing the border illegally?

[Ethics, September 20th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, what a wonderful summer we had. It was filled with warmth and good spirits, but they were cut short. It was the end of sunny ways: a summer of failure and broken Liberal promises.

We would all have applauded a memorable G7 that brought about meaningful economic spinoffs, but that is not what happened. Many economic players in my riding suffered because of it, not to mention the legacy project to install cell towers that do not work. What a failure.

A month ago, the government rejected my leader's request for an emergency debate on free trade, but now, the Prime Minister sees it as critically important. We were prepared to come back, but not him. What a failure.

I also want to talk about this government's loose ethics. It creates rules, gets caught by the commissioner, and never learns from its mistakes. What a failure.

The biggest travesty is that this government—

[Marijuana, June 19th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, no one can claim that the Liberals are champions of provincial jurisdictions. One of their favourite slogans is “Ottawa knows best”.

The Liberals do not listen to the provinces or the Senate. Quebec and Manitoba are refusing to allow home growing of cannabis. They want the federal government to respect their jurisdiction over the regulatory framework for home growing.

Will the government respect provincial jurisdictions, yes or no?

[Latin American Heritage Month Act, June 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, this evening, I am very pleased to speak to Bill S-218, which seeks to designate October as Latin American heritage month.

Thanks to my two daughters, Mélinda and Marie-Catherine, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about Latin American culture. When they were teenagers, my daughters became very close friends with the wonderful Cornejo and De Leon Velasquez families from El Salvador and the equally wonderful Neto family from Mexico. I was therefore able to discover this unique culture and often share delicious meals with these families. I remember Ms. De Leon Velasquez's delicious pupusas and tamales and the Neto family's amazing guacamole. What can I say about Latin American culture? Its music brings back memories of girls nights with my daughters and friends. The music of Ricky Martin, Marc Anthony, Luis Fonsi, and Shakira, among others, made us dance, sing, and most importantly helped us discover the beauty of Latin American heritage.

Latin Americans brought colour and flavour into our lives. They shared with us their way of life and taught us to be more open to a people who may have had difficulty integrating into our society when they first arrived in Quebec or Canada. They are now quite well integrated and are sharing their culture, music, and food with us.

By designating a Latin American heritage month, we will be opening ourselves to the world. We will be opening ourselves up to new cultures and a new vision of who we are as Quebeckers, Canadians, and in my case, as a French Canadian woman.

Unfortunately, I have not learned the language. I only know two words in Spanish, hola and qué tal. My daughters and my grandson speak Spanish. My seven-year-old grandson has friends from Mexico. I think it is great that at age seven he is learning French, English, and Spanish, and that he is discovering Latin American culture. I think it is great that this bill highlights the importance of Latin American heritage.

What can we say about these Latin Americans who come here to lend a hand? In 2015, 9,000 Mexican and Guatemalan agricultural workers arrived in Quebec to help us in the fields. In my riding alone, there are many Guatemalans and Mexicans, especially in Île d'Orléans for the strawberry harvest. In the winter, more and more Mexicans come to Quebec to enjoy everything that our winters have to offer. We can learn a lot about ourselves from Mexican or Latino culture. Through their eyes and their friendship I realize how fortunate I am to spend time with them. They helped open my eyes to the world. They explained their culture and religion to me; how different they are from mine. Thanks to my daughters, they helped me discover the splendour of the Latin American community. That was in my old riding. In my new riding, I have a larger number of agricultural workers.

When I was the MP for Beauport—Limoilou, there was a very active community in Saint-Pie-X. There were always Guatemalans, Mexicans, and Salvadorans at Parc Bardy. All those wonderful people formed a community together with francophones from Ivory Coast and people from Senegal. My riding was multicultural. Multiculturalism is a great way to engage with the world. When my girls were teenagers and we went over to the Cornejos' or the De Leon Velasquezes' place, we got used to watching telenovelas. I told them I thought the shows were cheesy, but really, they were no cheesier than American tabloids.

The Latin American community is very tight-knit and family-oriented. Quebeckers are pretty family-oriented too, but we are more self-absorbed, and that is a shame. Latin American families offer a different perspective.

My girls are 29 and 30 now, and they still have the same friends. I knew Neto when he was 13 or 14, and now he is a young man with two daughters of his own. I think that is wonderful; they are just so beautiful. From my grandson's perspective, they are a kind of bridge between what we are and what they are. That community's culture is very important to me.

Usually, it is parents who raise children, but I am grateful to my girls for teaching me to be open to the rest of the world. When we take an interest in another culture and try to understand where people are coming from to see where they are going, when we understand that despite their differences other people can complement us, that changes everything.

This kind of bill may seem unimportant to some people, but it is very important to me because it underscores something very special: we are open to all communities. Today, our focus is on the Latin American community.

Today I would like to send greetings to Neto and the Cornejo and De Leon Velasquez families. I thank them for introducing me to their magnificent culture.

[Public Safety, June 1st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, not all law enforcement in charge of ensuring public safety at the G7 are ready nor do they have the all the equipment that they need to deal with the various potential forms of disturbances. The media has had a lot to say about that.

Can the Liberals take responsibility, deal with this worrisome situation immediately, reassure those affected by the G7 summit, and tell the public that it will be adequately protected and that the government will compensate taxpayers for any adverse consequences?

[Public Safety, June 1st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, we are a few days away from the opening of the G7 meetings and many questions about public safety remain unanswered.

Yesterday we learned that special constables have not received any training to contain the anticipated demonstrations and that the customs officers that will be on duty during the summit will be unarmed, which happens only when there is zero risk.

Can the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness assure us that law enforcement agencies will be adequately deployed during the G7?

[Victims and Survivors of Crime Week, June 1st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, Victims and Survivors of Crime Week is coming to a close. Sadly, nothing significant was announced by the government this week, or since it has come to power, to advance the rights of these people. The government has a pretty dismal record on this issue, especially since it boasts about being egalitarian and feminist. Unfortunately, the human trafficking and sexual exploitation act is still not in effect.

Furthermore, there are still judicial vacancies and the position of ombudsman for victims of crime has remained unfilled for seven months. The Liberals refused to protect this position, which is the official voice in Parliament for victims, by voting against my bill to protect the position by making it permanent and independent, equal to the position of correctional investigator. That would have been a decisive step towards balancing the rights of victims and criminals.

For a theme like “Transforming the Culture Together” to make sense, the Liberal government must first transform its own culture.