Thierry St-Cyr

[Citizenship and Immigration, September 29th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in a recent decision, an immigration board member attacked the rights of francophones when he said that the right to obtain evidence in French is conditional on the demonstration of irreparable harm to the appellant. Yet an individual's right to be tried in French, in Montreal, is non-negotiable.

How can the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism accept the remarks of a board member who is saying that we are being deprived of our right to obtain documents in French, but not to worry, because this will not cause any harm?

[Immigration, September 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the same program, which the parliamentary secretary should have watched yesterday, featured three secretly filmed consultants who acknowledged the existence of a fraudulent strategy to get around immigration laws.

Has the government initiated investigations? Will it press charges against these three people?

[Immigration, September 18th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, facts revealed on Radio-Canada's Enquête program shed rather troubling light on the government's mismanagement of the immigration file and highlight the minister's blatant lack of transparency on this issue. He claims to be aware of the situation, but he is not doing anything about it.

Given yesterday's revelations, will the minister act swiftly to implement visitor exit controls, a solution that the Bloc Québécois proposed back in 2008?

[Immigration, June 19th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the media are reporting the case of John Plecko, who was born in Croatia and came to Canada at the age of five. After living here for 40 years, he now faces the threat of deportation because neither he nor his parents applied for his Canadian citizenship. Although he has served time in prison in the past, he is now a law-abiding citizen who has married and had children.

The minister has discretionary authority and can cancel the deportation order on humanitarian grounds. Will he do so?

[Criminal Code, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the presentation by my colleague from Hochelaga with considerable interest. His speeches are always very wise and moving. He stressed the importance of not making provisions that would enable the government to attack people's rights in a just and democratic society.

I would like his opinion on a concern I have. The government is already violating its own laws. It rejects the opinions and decisions of the courts. We have seen this with the Abdelrazik case recently, in which the court ordered the government to comply with its own laws and to honour the rights of this Canadian citizen who wants to return to his country and against whom there is no shred of evidence of his being a terrorist. With it not being permissible under the law but the government doing it all the same, what would it be like if the government were permitted to do this sort of thing under the law?

[Criminal Code, June 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague's comments.

He made an interesting comment about how laws that create the potential to violate rights give governments the opportunity to do so, and therefore we should not pass such laws. I would like him to comment on the fact that, even when we pass good laws that call on the government to defend and protect people's freedoms, the government still finds a way to violate people's rights. Mr. Abdelrazik's case is a good example. The court has ordered the government to respect this Canadian citizen's rights, but the government says that it could not care less about the law and the court ruling, and that it will not act in accordance with either.

Does my colleague find this as frightening as I do? If we were to wind up with laws that attack our individual rights and freedoms, this government, which does not even respect existing laws, would take advantage of the situation to openly attack our civil liberties.

[Border Service Agency, May 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the agency is so determined in its refusal that it prefers not to present evidence, rather than have it translated into French.

If the agency refuses to let francophone employees use the French version of evidence intended for a francophone board member, is this not quite simply because of its disdain for the French language?

[Border Service Agency, May 14th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, from the very start, the Border Service Agency has shown bad faith as far as the use of French before the IRB is concerned. Last February, it even preferred to postpone a hearing in Montreal for two months rather than get its evidence translated into French. Last weekend, people demonstrated in front of the IRB in protest of the agency's refusal to apply the law.

Does the minister find it normal, in the year 2009 and in Montreal, for people to have to hold a protest to gain respect for French by a federal agency and by the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism?

[Environmental Enforcement Act, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, here we are again with the same old paternalistic attitude from Ottawa. What Quebec is calling for, and yes, there was a unanimous motion in the National Assembly on this, from the Liberal Party and the Parti Québécois, is the true implementation of Kyoto, because that has economic impacts on our businesses.

We agree, of course, with the $300 million for the Government of Quebec. It is not enough, however, just to offer us a few little goodies in order to conceal the neglectful conduct of the federal government. What we want is a real change of mindset. That will not be forthcoming, however, quite simply because the economic interests of Quebec and the economic interests of Canada are not the same. Of necessity, given the nature of our institutions, Canada's interests will always win out over Quebec's interests.

A little earlier I referred to the Quebec members who are in the caucuses of other parties. The question from my colleague is a clear illustration of what I said. He did not rise in this House to defend the consensus of the National Assembly. He did not rise in this House to ask what could be done to ensure that the Quebec reality is better represented. No, he rose in this House to tell us just how good the federal government is and how nice it was to give Quebec $300 million. That is a ridiculous amount compared to the environmental and economic damage to Quebec and the Quebec economy caused by this lack of will to take action.

[Environmental Enforcement Act, May 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is true that the Liberals do not have many new ideas. Their new ideas are ones they copy from the opposition parties. For example, in the case of employment insurance, their proposals just rehash longstanding proposals made by the NDP and the Bloc Québécois.

That said, it is quite clear that we cannot expect anything more from the Liberal Party when it comes to defending the environment and implementing the Kyoto protocol with 1990 as the base year and absolute targets. Even in opposition, they are openly coming out in favour of expanding oil sands development, and they are being very timid about the necessary reforms and measures, which include a real carbon exchange in Montreal. They are in opposition.

When the Liberals were in opposition prior to 1993, they were at least a bit bolder. They said they wanted to do things differently from the Conservatives, but they did not. Now, they do not make such promises, and we know they will not do things differently. This party is just not reliable. It supported the latest Conservative budgets, despite their major flaws in terms of defending the environment.