Sylvie Boucher

[Government Appointments, June 9th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it would be naive to think that Ms. Meilleur withdrew from the process on her own, without pressure from the Prime Minister's Office. Now we know why the government had been acting shady for the past three weeks.

The Liberals now have a second chance as they appoint the next ethics commissioner and official languages commissioner.

Will the government assure this House that the next appointments will not be limited to candidates who happen to be Liberal Party donors, and that it will consult the party leaders before imposing its choices on us?

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, they are gutting our regions. We had regional ministers who were up to date on what was happening in our regions. Now, we are left with one minister from Toronto. If I talk about a salmon river in Charlevoix, I hope he knows that I am talking about salmon because I am not sure he has travelled very far in Charlevoix.

That is where I have a problem: they are robbing Peter to pay Paul, to make a cute photo, but doing so creates inequality. Our regions are being deprived of ministers who need to be in our regions.

Whether it is in the regions of Quebec, of the Atlantic or of Newfoundland, they are regions. Now, there is just one minister responsible for them. He is in Toronto, and while he certainly may travel, he is not familiar with the regions.

I was looking at the current cabinet list and there are very few people from the regions. Most of them are from urban areas. That means that our regions have been forgotten.

I have nothing against gender equality. I have nothing against equal pay for equal work. A minister of state and a minister do not have the same responsibilities. If we support Bill C-24, not only will ministers and ministers of state be equal, but everyone will ask for equal pay. All the members, critics, and the opposition will want the same salary as those opposite. We will have parity.

As women—I am not minimizing the role of women, far from it—we have already been in government and we had the ear of our prime minister. Today, I will tell you that I am going to vote against this bill, because it is an empty shell.

We are giving the Liberals a blank cheque and we do not know what they want to do with it. There have already been enough scandals on that side of the House. We do not want more of them. The Liberals are still giving money to their friends who do good work for the Liberals, but not necessarily for Canadians.

We are all different in the House: there are Conservatives, NDP members, Liberals, those in the Bloc, the Green Party. However, when we come to the House, we speak for all Canadians; we are not supposed to be partisan.

Today opposition members are being asked to vote on a bill on pay equity for positions with entirely different responsibilities. Pay equity is equal pay for equal work with the same responsibilities. A minister of state and a minister are not the same things. I would hope that women are not being appointed to these positions to fill some sort of quota to achieve parity. It is insulting to women to say that a position is vacant and needs to be filled by a woman to make the pictures look good.

I have never been superficial and I am not going to start now. I am here because I am a woman of character and I can go wherever I want by opening the doors that I want. I will never say “because I am a woman”. I am here because I am qualified to be here.

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, this is a rather special evening. I have worked hard in life to get to where I am today. I have never been singled out for anything because of my name or gender. I have always tried to get jobs because I was good at what I did, not because I am a woman. The problem I have is with the parts of the bill that talk about parity. For me, that does not mean appointing the same number of women as men.

For me, parity is about action. Parity is not just taking a nice photo with 15 men on one side and 15 women on the other, while the rest of the time the men are telling those women to shut up and look pretty. That is not what parity means to me.

I have a problem with this bill because it would mean giving the Liberals a blank cheque. We would be telling them that we agree that they should appoint people, three ministers, without even knowing what their titles will be. Meanwhile, you are causing our regions to empty out. Everywhere—

[Salaries Act, June 8th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I entirely agree with her. Pretending that we have parity in a photograph is not going to give us true parity in the government. A minister of state and a minister are not the same thing. They do not have the same responsibilities.

Would raising the salary of a minister of state and making it equivalent to a minister’s salary actually mean that the ministers are “of lower quality”?

A minister's responsibilities are different from those of a minister of state. They seem to be telling Canadians that a minister is no longer as important as before.

[Salaries Act, June 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, listening to my colleague across the way, I was compelled to rush over to comment on what she said.

My colleague talked about the Liberals. She said that everyone here speaks on behalf of Canadians. Let us talk about it, then. We too were elected to represent Canadians, and we too want to have a voice. It is not just the Liberal Party who speaks on behalf of Canadians. The Conservative Party does as well.

The member should know that, on this side of the House, we have the respect of Canadians. When we talk about transparency, we want actual transparency. We want to have discussions here, not on behalf of the Liberal Party, but on behalf of all the parties, because they all have a voice in the House.

[Government Appointments, June 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, none of that is true. The Liberals never consulted the opposition parties. Our party leaders received letters two days in advance.

I want to ask the Prime Minister a simple question. Will the next process be non-partisan? Will the candidate be someone who does not donate to the Liberal Party?

[Government Appointments, June 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I just heard the good news. Ms. Meilleur is withdrawing her candidacy. She finally saw the light. Now it is up to the government to restart the process and make it truly transparent, open, and non-partisan.

Can the Prime Minister promise the House that he will consult the opposition parties so that we can have a non-partisan official languages commissioner that we can all agree on?

[Government Appointments, June 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, what a joke.

The more Ms. Meilleur talks, the deeper she sinks and brings the government down with her. She is hell-bent on taking the job, but she does not understand that Canada has two official languages.

When answering questions yesterday regarding what she would do for anglophone minorities, she replied using examples from the francophonie. She has no clue what anglophone minorities in Quebec need. It is therefore not surprising that she is declaring herself the new French language commissioner.

When will this shameful circus finally end, in order to start from scratch—

[Government Appointments, June 6th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Canadian Heritage keeps saying that Ms. Meilleur never talked about the commissioner position with Gerald Butts or Katie Telford.

However, yesterday, in committee of the whole at the other place, Ms. Meilleur stated the opposite yet again, and even confirmed that they talked to her about the process. It is patently obvious that this appointment was decided long before the so-called rigorous but highly suspicious process.

When will the government apologize for continuing to mislead the House and when will it start the process over again?

[Government Appointments, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, the beginning of yet another week sees us still waiting for answers.

Just imagine if I had given $5,000 to the Conservative Party and $500 to Mr. Harper's leadership campaign and soon afterward been selected to serve as official languages commissioner.

Just imagine the Liberal Party's reaction. The Liberals would have been up in arms. It is about time they realized they are not above the law.

Do we need to call for a public inquiry into this process?