Sylvie Boucher

[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.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. In the past we were accused of not working for workers. In my riding I recently held a town hall on the spring gap and employment insurance. Indeed, we have hit a wall. It is becoming increasingly urgent to tackle this wall. We have to reform the system or see the situation in a different way. It is not just in New Brunswick that people go through the spring gap or end up going to the churches. It is in small communities like mine that people survive on seasonal employment. We have to look at this closely and work together to find a tangible way to counter the effect of the spring gap. That is extremely important. In my riding alone, there is a suicide prevention centre. The centre is getting a growing number of calls from people who are financially strapped. The employment rate varies from region to region. In the Quebec City region, the unemployment rate is 5%, which is very low, but people there get only 14 weeks of employment insurance. The rest of the time they end up in the spring gap, and that is a problem for many people and families in my riding.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. I am very pleased that he is shining a spotlight on the Liberal government's lack of transparency. Let us think back to the election platform. I am not the one who originally said that written words are more powerful than spoken words. It is in black and white that the Liberals said they wanted to do things differently and to be transparent. Being transparent when we want to do things differently means opening the books. They state clearly in their election platform. However, every time we receive a file, it is redacted. We cannot get the whole truth.

We learned today that the government redacted or kept secret correspondence concerning all the questions we asked about the Aga Khan's travel. More than 80% of the hundreds of pages of correspondence exchanged by representatives of the Aga Kahn during the three months preceding the meetings between the Prime Minister and the super-rich leader were redacted. That is the case for many files. We highlighted certain files.

They say they want to do things differently, but I would just like to point one thing out. I think they are obsessed with Mr. Harper, which is a compliment to him. Unlike them, however, Mr. Harper said what he was going to do and did what he said he would, even if people did not like it. The Liberals said they would do things differently, but they are actually doing things worse than us. That is a shame, because that is the line they fed people. They told people to vote for them, but now we know it was all a charade.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Madam Speaker, as I was saying earlier, the thing that really disappoints me about Bill C-74 is that it leaves out the people from the rural regions, where I am from. In its 2015 election platform, the Liberal government said it wanted to do things differently and that it did not want to use omnibus bills. Bill C-74 is an omnibus bill. The election platform states, “We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny.”

Since the Liberal government came to power, it has been promising heaven and earth to Canadians. However, we do not always get heaven and earth. I will explain. Every time the Liberals said that they were transparent, we realized that they were pulling a fast one on us. Without really knowing it, we all became millionaires yesterday with the purchase of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline.

I am very disappointed that, after conducting so many consultations across the country, the Liberals did not listen to ordinary Canadians who live in remote areas. This budget contains nothing for them. It is too bad, because we have to remember that it is people in rural areas who feed our cities, and not the other way around. It is people who live in those small communities who could really use a bit of help.

As for employment insurance, the Liberals invested $10 million to provide training to the unemployed, but only 26 people in my riding were eligible. Furthermore, the training offered is not appropriate for the rural community I represent. What we need in our rural communities is manual labour, like farmers and seasonal workers, in other words, people who have to deal with the EI spring gap. These people need training that reflects their reality, not the reality of a few people who draft legislation and who have never set foot in our ridings.

Every region is different. In my riding alone, we have six different realities. There is an urban reality, a semi-urban reality, a rural reality, agriculture, tourism, and many other different things. This budget, however, does not correspond to the reality of ordinary Canadians. It is more suited to the reality of people who work in an office in the Liberal universe.

In closing, I am very disappointed and I will not be supporting this bill.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 1, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to take part in this discussion today.

I do not know whether to laugh or cry, but yesterday or the day before, I unwillingly became a millionaire, since we are all now owners of Kinder Morgan's infamous Trans Mountain pipeline. Everyone is pleased. I see all my colleagues smiling. I did not expect that. We are used to a government that claims to be extremely transparent, but it is anything but. This government is about as transparent as a bottle of Pepsi.

That being said, I would like to talk more generally about the Liberals' supposed transparency when it comes to the budget or to any bill, for that matter. They promised in their 2015 election platform that they would do things differently from Mr. Harper and the NDP member for Outremont. That is the first thing they said. People may not like Mr. Harper, but one must admit that he had one good quality, and that is that he always did what he said he would. That was his trademark.

The Liberal platform, which I have here, sets out a number of promises. I will quote from it because spoken words fly away, but written words remain. It reads, and I quote:

We will run modest deficits for three years so that we can invest in growth for the middle class and credibly offer a plan to balance the budget in 2019.

Excuse me for telling the truth, but that is what is written here in black and white. I feel as though I am acting in some sort of comedy. Not only are those words untrue, but the deficit is three times higher than the Liberals promised it would be. Again in the Liberals' election platform—not in ours since we do not make promises that we cannot keep—it reads, and I quote:

The foundation of the fiscal plan over our mandate is a planning framework that is realistic, sustainable, prudent, and transparent.

I have a hard time believing that, since the Liberals are using taxpayers' money to buy pipelines without asking permission here in the House and they are promising to make changes to the EI system.

By the way, the Liberals recently threw $10 million at the EI spring gap and provided some training. In my riding, many people are affected by this gap, but only 26 of them were eligible for the training. However, what bothers me the most is that, when the Liberals announced the $10-million investment, it was really appreciated, but then they held so many consultations that I think they forgot to consult the regions.

When you live in a remote area, an English or a computer course is not what you need the most, especially since very little English is spoken in Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. We mainly speak French. Manual labour is what rural regions need the most. This $10 million should have been used to fix the spring gap by providing training adapted to the actual needs of the people in the regions who were requesting it, rather than providing the training that public servants, who do not know anything about our regions, thought they needed. In my mind, that was the greatest loss.

I studied the budget from cover to cover and found very little for rural areas, whether for the Gaspé or my region of Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d'Orléans—Charlevoix. It focused a lot on the Maritimes, which have many MPs. However, there are just as many MPs in rural areas who received nothing, because they are not Liberals.

The rural regions just want to be heard. It is not a partisan issue. When the government spends taxpayer money to consult people over and over again, it should take what they say into consideration. I recently consulted my constituents and wrote a report on the spring gap in my riding. I met with the unemployed, business people, mayors, and municipal councillors, and we all came to the same conclusion: today's employment insurance system does not reflect what we would expect to see in 2018. It is outdated. It needs to be modernized.

The Liberal government has claimed to be transparent from the start. However, every time we hold the government to account, it never responds. The Liberals are as transparent as a bottle of Pepsi: dark and impossible to see through.

[Public Safety, May 31st, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, we know the Prime Minister is eager to show my wonderful riding off to the whole world during the G7 meeting. We also know that events like these attract protesters and vandals.

We all deplore that type of violence, and the Prime Minister must stop denying its existence. He needs to step up and provide assurances to people affected by the G7.

Can he tell us if his government has set aside a special fund to compensate the people who end up being victims of vandalism?