Sylvie Boucher

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 5th, 2016]

I am pleased to see you want to stand up for them. However, they have to stop telling Quebeckers fairy tales. The other day I was talking about unicorns, and today I am talking about fairies. What I am trying to say is that at some point you have to stop dreaming and start being honest with people. It’s fine to consult with them, but you also have to listen to them. A consultation is not a monologue. On the contrary, it is a dialogue with the people.

The Liberals are holding consultations all over the place, but they are not listening to anyone. They are not listening to anyone because they are the best. The Liberals are the good guys, until it all blows up in their face. Before getting to that point they should think about the ordinary Quebeckers and Canadians who are having trouble making ends meet. Thanks to the Liberals, those people find themselves cut adrift.

Let us just consider the infrastructure bank. Who will benefit from it? The Liberals’ friends and those who can invest $100 million. You do not see too many $100-million projects in a little community like Saint-Urbain or Saint-Irénée. However, it is the small communities that need help. We can help the big cities like Montréal, Vancouver, Ottawa, or Québec, but we also have to help the regions.

The Liberals have forgotten one thing. Unfortunately, I must be honest and say that every political party for the last 25 or 30 years has forgotten it as well. It is the country that feeds the city, not the other way around.

Today, our small communities are being choked in the interests of the big communities, of friends who have money and millionaires. I am truly proud to be a member of a political party that cares for the regions and the smaller municipalities, a party that works for ordinary Quebeckers and for those who don’t have millions of dollars in the bank. I am a member of a party that also takes care of those who do community work, but who come from the same place as the people sitting here today. I salute them.

I remember a time when I myself was poor and in need of money. I have to vote against this bill being proposed today, because it will not help poor people, just the opposite. There is a lot of talk about the middle class, but they are in the process of bleeding it white.

The Liberal Party will make the middle class of today into the poor of tomorrow. I think that is unacceptable. One need only visit the food banks and volunteer at Christmas dinners for the less fortunate to realize that the face of poverty has changed over the last 20 years. Poor people are no longer just those who live on the street; they are also people who work and struggle to pay for electricity, rent, or anything else. They are taxed and squeezed dry again and again.

I must therefore vote against Bill C-29, because it offers no solution to the problem of poverty and the problems of the rural world, from which I come.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House. “Pleased” might be a bit of an exaggeration, but I always like talking about bills in the House.

When it comes to Bill C-29, it is sad to see that Canadians have been taken for a ride, and I am not talking about a ride in Santa's sleigh. The Liberal government omitted some things. Opposition members here in Ottawa are not the only ones questioning Bill C-29. Members of the Quebec National Assembly are too. The Quebec National Assembly even passed a unanimous motion, which is saying a lot because it means that friends of both the Liberals and Conservatives supported it. I know a member of the National Assembly in Quebec City who is probably not very impressed at having to work against his natural friends.

The motion of the National Assembly reads as follows:

That the National Assembly reiterate the importance of preserving the strong consumer protection regime enacted in the Quebec Consumer Protection Act;

That the National Assembly call on the federal government to remove the provisions of Bill C-29, A second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on March 22, 2016 and other measures, that would render inapplicable the provisions of the Quebec Consumer Protection Act that govern the relationship between banks and their clients.

This comes from the Quebec National Assembly. So it is not just the opposition here in Ottawa that has questions about Bill C-29.

At the launch of the campaign in 2015, the Liberals promised us just a small deficit of $10 billion. This has now become an enormous deficit of $34 billion. It is surely going to skyrocket yet again, because the Liberals forgot to tell Canadians and Quebeckers that, when they were given power, they were also given the power to spend like drunken sailors.

They are not consulting us. They spend, and then they say they have made a mistake that is going to prove expensive. They should have thought of that before, or consulted Canadians to see whether it was the right thing to do.

It is a shame, because today’s Liberals have not changed much from the Liberals of 10 or 11 years ago. One need only think of the preferential access to ministers at a cost of $1,500. I am not sure the people in my riding are prepared to pay $1,500 just so that a business can get the help it so badly needs.

The Liberals had promised to reduce the small business tax rate. That is another broken promise. The Liberals are still telling us many wonderful things, but it is what the Liberals do not say that is dangerous. That is what they fail to tell Canadians every day. Not everyone reads the fine print.

We are here in the House and we watch them in action, but Canadians watch the news and learn that there are fewer and fewer full-time jobs available for our young people. However, the Liberals promised a year ago to create a whole raft of new jobs. We have a job, but our young people need full-time jobs. Not all young university graduates want to go to work at McDonald's, even though it may be just fine to do so.

They took courses and got their degree, and they want to work in their field. However, thanks to the taxes and surtaxes imposed by the Liberals, they have no employment. There has been a decline in full-time youth employment.

People everywhere are asking questions. The president of Option consommateurs has wondered whether Bill C-29 is not perhaps a way for the federal government to open the door for the banks to circumvent Quebec law. There are Quebeckers sitting opposite us, on the other side of the House. The 40 elected Quebeckers—they can hear the people of Quebec. Can they rise in the House to defend Quebeckers?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, December 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her fine speech. Everyone in the House is quite aware of what is happening in other countries. That is all well and good, but what about Canadians who today are struggling to support themselves?

I would like the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development to tell me, above and beyond the ideals of helping others, why are we not starting at home?

[Canada Pension Plan, November 29th, 2016]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his eloquent speech. Earlier, he talked about a young woman who would collect $17,000 in 40 years. That is pretty much peanuts.

Can he explain why the government is in such a hurry to pass this budget?

[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, November 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, during the many consultations held by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, CBC/Radio Canada asked the government to provide an additional $400 million and to depoliticize its funding by indexing it to inflation

I imagine that the minister will grant all the corporation's requests because, as she herself said, “That's easy: Radio-Canada”.

Is this government going to play Santa Claus for its friends and unfairly spend another $400 million of taxpayers' money?

[November 28th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question.

Indeed, I could speak at length about women living in poverty because I was poor at one point.

This bill brings into focus the situation of a segment of the population that is already struggling. The bill never refers to these people and that bothers me. We have heard some fine speeches. However, as I already said, will repeat, and will continue to say, it is what the Liberals have left unsaid that frightens me.

They never once mention women living in poverty or single women with children who struggle day after day. I know what that means because I struggled my entire life. I was a single parent when I was 28 years old and now I am a member of Parliament.

I am so proud to stand with the Conservatives for the simple reason that I have come to understand something: when you struggle in life, you end up succeeding; but if you rely on promises that are not kept, like those of the Liberals, you can go on being poor for a long time, because those promises are just empty words.

[November 28th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. I will be honest, this is not only about the Conservatives.

The hon. member might be under the impression here in the House that it is just the Conservatives who are against this bill. However, when we go around some of the poorer ridings, we see that people do not understand what the Liberal government is trying to accomplish with this because the money is needed now, not 40 years from now.

I am glad to know that my colleague across the way would have liked the Conservatives to do something. Unlike the hon. member, we think that makes a lot of sense. The Liberals do not believe in Canadians, but I do. I believe that Canadians are the only ones who can say what they want to do with their money, but the Liberals do not believe that because they always think they are above everyone else.

As the saying goes, when the Liberals stand up, the good Lord rests. I am sorry, but when the Liberals stand up, I sit down because I do not believe a word they say.

[November 28th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House to speak once again to Bill C-26, which seeks to expand the Canada pension plan.

We have always known that the Liberals do not listen to anyone except their cronies. Although they like to stand up and tell us that they are defending the middle class, I have my doubts. In fact, the more they talk about defending the middle class, the more they raise taxes, and the more money they take from taxpayers' pockets, which does not help the middle class.

Every time the Liberals introduce a new bill, we can expect taxpayers to be forced to fork out more for a new tax. We all pay taxes. The government is taking even more money out of taxpayers' pockets.

The Liberal mindset is this: I am, I demand, and I think for Canadians. We on this side of the House believe in Canadians and the middle class. We believe that taxpayers need their money. We know perfectly well that Canadians, not the government, are in the best position to manage their own money.

If the Liberals had listened to what anyone other than their cronies had to say, they would realize that not everyone agrees with them.

I have some quotations from certain people to share. On May 31, 2016, the senior director of economic, financial and tax policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said:

...we're worried a big tax increase is headed for the middle class like an elbow to the chest....This comes at the worst possible time—an economy reeling from weak commodity prices and slower consumer spending will be lucky to eke out growth of 1.5% next year. It’s difficult to stimulate the economy while pulling money out of the pockets of Canadians.

On June 20, 2016, the president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business said:

It is tremendously disappointing to see that finance ministers are putting Canadian wages, hours and jobs in jeopardy and willfully moving to make an already shaky economy even worse.... It appears that jobs and the economy are not particularly high priorities for the governments that have signed off on this deal.

We have been talking about seniors a lot. The basic principle is not a bad one, but seniors who are 70 years old now will not need help in 40 years. They need help right now. Seniors who are 70 now will never get this help because it will not be available for another 40 years. The Liberal government is bringing in a law that will not take effect until 2019, which is so interesting because that is when the next election happens. That is a very Liberal way of doing things. The Liberals never really cared about the middle class. They cared, as always, about themselves.

It is one thing to hold $1,500 fundraising cocktails and invite a bunch of millionaires, but the middle class is having a hard time making ends meet. The economy is faltering. All of those grand Liberal principles are just a smokescreen. The Liberals talk about giving this to people, and they think we are not politically savvy enough to see through their little game. If changes are to be made, it should not take 40 years.

It is good to think about the long term, but we also need to think about our seniors who need help now, not 40 years from now.

That is why I will be voting against this bill. It is full of holes. It is not what the Liberals say that worries me. It is what they never tell the public. They give nice speeches and make headlines, but what scares me the most is what the Liberals are not saying.

Middle-class families are being taxed to death and are struggling to make ends meet. Many of them will now have a harder time. For example, it will now be even more difficult for new graduates to pay back their student loans or buy their first home. The Liberals did away with the old rules, and now young families will be unable to buy their first home. It will also be more difficult for companies to create jobs and increase wages.

Every time I hear the Liberals talking about their plans, I worry about what they are not saying because that is what is dangerous. No one is against virtue, but the bill before us says in black and white that it will take 40 years for the system to work properly. Not even I will see that money, and I am in my early 50s. In 40 years, I will probably be too old to remember that the Liberals implemented this measure. Our seniors need help today, not in 40 years.

What is more, the same question keeps coming up: where are the Liberals going to find this money? The Liberals are giving out money hand over fist to everyone right now. However, as far as I know, money does not grow on trees. Everyone dreams of a better future, a better life, and a better situation, but that takes money. It is not always pleasant to live on credit. As taxpayers, if we were to live on credit, the bank would not hesitate to come and take our money and our assets when the bill comes due.

I would therefore like someone to explain to me what the Liberals do not understand. We will not vote for this bill as long as it does not produce an immediate effect. The effects of this bill will not be felt for a very long time. However, our seniors need help now, not 40 years from now.

[Ethics, November 28th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, what did the Liberals learn during their ten years in purgatory? Absolutely nothing.

In 2004, the Gomery Commission shed light on the sponsorship scandal. A few days ago, we learned that Chinese billionaires are donating to the Liberal Party in order to gain privileged access to the Prime Minister and his ministers.

Will there be another inquiry in the wake of these revelations of conflict of interest ?

[Ethics, November 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, today we learned that Canada 2020 just introduced some rules to provide a framework for fundraising activities involving the Prime Minister and Liberal ministers, recognizing that there is a serious problem.

Given that Canada 2020 recognizes this important problem, why is it that the government opposite finds it impossible to also recognize that there is a problem and that it is breaking the ethics rules that the Prime Minister himself put in place?