Thierry St-Cyr

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, that is a position few people in Quebec would support. It is true that Quebec's securities commission operates differently; that is why we want to keep it. We want to continue putting forward our unique approaches. No one in Quebec sought help from the magnanimous federal government; no one spoke out on this. This is a rather blatant example of the paternalistic federalism of the Liberals and the Conservatives. Ottawa knows best. It will find the solution to our problems.

We do not want any Canada-wide securities commission. The federal government should look after its own areas of responsibility. It has plenty to do in Ottawa; there is no need to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions.

[Business of Supply, February 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House to speak to the Bloc Québécois motion put forward by the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain. I will take the time to read the motion again:

That, in the opinion of the House, the government should immediately renounce two measures contained in the recent budget:

(a) establishing a national securities commission, because establishing such a commission would constitute an intolerable intrusion into Quebec’s jurisdiction, and the current passport system functions very well; and

(b) unilaterally amending the equalization formula, since the Prime Minister, in a letter to the Premier of Quebec dated March 19, 2007, promised that transfers to the provinces would be predictable and long term, and should also comply with the government of Quebec’s request to give the revenues generated by Hydro-Québec’s transmission and distribution activities the same treatment, regardless of the equalization calculation, as that given Hydro One’s revenues.

I wanted to reread the motion to underscore these two aspects, which are fairly disparate, but which share a common element—they show us once again the limits of federalism. They show that Quebeckers, even though they all agree, even though the 125 members of their National Assembly voted unanimously on a matter, cannot go forward and cannot build the nation or country they would like because they are restricted by a federal framework in which they are a minority.

As a Bloc MP, I will obviously continue to convince my fellow citizens that the best way to get out of that is to become a sovereign country, to become a nation like Canada. It is a big and beautiful country. It is simply not Quebeckers' country and not the country where they can realize their full potential.

Since we must, let us have a closer look at the two parts of this motion and see what it means for Quebec. I will begin with the second part, the one involving the equalization formula. When we meet our electors and talk to them about our work in Ottawa, equalization is rarely the topic they find most exciting or appreciate most. To be honest, it involves a lot of figures and theory. Still, it is vitally important. In theory, this formula should allow each province to provide equivalent services and to set equivalent rates of taxation. In theory, the formula should be based on a number of principles, with the primary one providing that the provinces' fiscal capacity—their ability to tax and gather revenue—be evaluated. Those provinces whose fiscal capacity is less than the average will receive the amount of equalization that brings them up to the average.

That is the theory. The problem is that, for years, there have always been one-time agreements that stray from this principle. These agreements, surprise surprise, always penalize Quebec, no matter how you look at it. By way of example, I offer the decision to exclude a portion of non-renewable natural resources from the calculation of equalization. Once again, it may seem quite technical, but it means in simple terms that the provinces producing oil or other non-renewable resources appear poorer for the purposes of equalization calculations. And so they are entitled to more money. Conversely, provinces like Quebec, which relies primarily on renewable resources, appear richer than they are in fact. In the end, they get penalized.

This is what we explain at the end of the motion. We refer to the federal government's latest brainwave, which is to treat the revenues of Ontario's Hydro One and Quebec's Hydro-Québec differently. Oddly enough, once again, Quebec loses out in equalization payments by $250 million.

And what does it mean for Quebeckers?

First of all, it means that we have a system that does not take our reality into account, and second, it means that our government is unable to predict the revenues it will be receiving from the federal government. Incidentally, those revenues come from the income taxes paid by all Canadians, Quebeckers included. Equalization is not a gift, but a mechanism for redistributing the wealth drawn from our very taxes. So we find ourselves in a situation where, according to Ottawa’s mood, these transfers to Quebec are going to change.

At the beginning of the previous mandate, when the Conservative government announced in this House that it had resolved the fiscal imbalance, the Bloc Québécois immediately said that it had not. First, the size of the amounts involved was insufficient, but basically, there were no tax transfers. When the people on the Séguin Commission convened in Quebec and introduced this concept of the fiscal imbalance into the public arena, they were not drawing two words at random from a hat. They called it a fiscal imbalance because it was an imbalance of a fiscal nature. The solution inevitably was to restore the balance with a fiscal solution.

In Quebec, there was therefore a unanimous demand that revenues be transferred to the Government of Quebec. They could have transferred tax points, or a field of taxation like the GST. This was not done. They transferred a sum of money and confined themselves to that. Today, with a stroke of the pen, the federal government can say that this year it is dropping transfers $991 million below what Quebec had expected, that the Government of Quebec will have to make do with that. We saw this in 1995. The Liberal finance minister of the time slashed transfers of all kinds to the provinces. So we have always had to live with this sort of problem.

Obviously, within the current federal framework, the Bloc Québécois will continue to defend the interests of Quebeckers. In the long term, the only way to fully control our financial resources is to become a sovereign country, like Canada. We must become a country that is able to participate in the world community in order to decide where our revenues will be allocated each year and to carry out long-term planning.

The second part of the motion concerned the securities issue. Once again, there is a consensus in Quebec, that is, total unanimity, from the unions to management, on the left and on the right. Imagine what you will, because everyone says and maintains that the securities commission must remain an exclusive jurisdiction of Quebec. And yet a Canadian securities commission is to be imposed on us.

No one in Quebec is fooled by the government’s trick of saying that this will be optional. The choice will be clear for a foreign company coming to set up operations in Quebec, for example, a company that will have the choice between the national securities commission and the Quebec commission using passport systems. Quite possibly the other commissions will eventually wither and die. The choice will be obvious. If two regulatory bodies are in competition, the one that imposes the fewest restrictions on companies will attract the most companies. This makes no sense. This trick of saying it is optional is window dressing. The reality is that they want to make the Commission des valeurs mobilières du Québec disappear and centralize everything in Ontario, principally Toronto.

For Quebec, it means losing powers and leverage when it comes to influencing economic decisions that are important to us. In the current Canadian framework, we are nowhere near open federalism or any attempt to seek additional powers; we keep going backwards. My guess is that, sadly, this motion will not be passed, because the two main federalist parties will not support it. This motion reminds us, however, that the only choice for Quebec is to become a sovereign nation, a great country like Canada. Then, our countries will be able to work together on new bases.

[Petitions, February 13th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to present this petition signed by the constituents of my riding. In large numbers, they are demanding that Canadian troops withdraw from combat zones in Afghanistan in February 2009, in other words, immediately. There have been three votes in this House on the issue. Unfortunately, because of the successive support of the Liberals and the NDP, the government was able to extend the mission past February 2008.

The people of my riding will get together on February 23, 2009, to call attention to the fact that Canadians are still in combat zones in Afghanistan because of the irresponsible actions of the Liberals and the NDP, who allowed the government to pursue this unjust war.

[February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I will ask my question again but perhaps I can be more specific. Naturally, I realize that the department does not give instructions to the members of the board. It would be ill-advised and would constitute interference.

However, what about the officials who are interested parties. I do not wish to refer to a specific case. Suppose that the Border Services Agency issues an inadmissibility report. Are the department's instructions to accept the request to change the language of proceedings to French or, on the contrary, to refuse the request? There are two parties before the Board. The government is one of the two parties.

What instructions are given by the department in the matter of language? That is where it can intervene. I want to know what its instructions it are.

[February 12th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be able to take part in this adjournment debate, which will give us an opportunity to shed light on a situation I condemned last week in this House.

More and more, immigration lawyers in Quebec are reporting that they are having difficulty proceeding in French before the Immigration and Refugee Board. This situation has been dragging on for several months and reached a head recently when a lawyer was denied the right to proceed in French.

He was denied that right even though he had complied with procedure by giving five days' notice as required by law, even though the board member was francophone, even though the hearing was taking place in Quebec and even though the lawyer was proceeding in French at his client's request.

In this House, I asked the minister whether he intended to take action. He consulted his officials and spoke to us again in committee this week. Today, the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration unanimously condemned this situation, which is completely unacceptable.

It was a unanimous decision. There is not agreement, however, as to whether the government can and must act. The minister told us in committee that he could not intervene directly in a board member's ruling, since it is a quasi judicial proceeding. The board member therefore plays the same role as a judge. I am not kidding.

However, the Canada Border Services Agency and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration act as interested parties in such cases. The government can therefore do something by instructing government representatives to encourage the use of French and accept French as the language of work.

In the case before us, Mr. Handfield from Montreal asked, on behalf of his client, to proceed in French. The documentation produced by the agency was in English, and it is the agency that approaches the board. The agency therefore could easily say that it has no objection to proceeding in French, that it will translate all the documents and that it will also ask to proceed in French.

That is my question for the parliamentary secretary today. Are those the instructions that the government gives its officials? I am not talking about the board members, who, I realize, are independent.

Are officials instructed to give their consent to proceed in French when counsel so requests?

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is quite right. A number of arbitrary items have been introduced with respect to this formula for redistributing wealth. I cited a few in my presentation. All these arbitrary components, without exception, are detrimental to Quebec. An arbitrary item has never been introduced that would benefit Quebec. It is systematically to the province's disadvantage. Even though Quebec, in absolute terms, receives the largest share of equalization payments of recipient provinces, it remains the province that receives the smallest per capita contribution.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, it is true. My colleague's last comment made me think about the time I was on television with the member for Bourassa. He asked why I was always criticizing the Liberals. It is because while we had no expectations of getting anything from the Conservative government, the Liberals at least had the opportunity to get a little something in the process. What did they get besides a new cloakroom in the lobby and an end to the lawsuit against them? They got reports to monitor the government. I always thought it was the work of Parliament to monitor the government. In the end, the Liberal amendment is asking the government to monitor itself and to do the work we should be doing. The Liberals got absolutely nothing in this regard. It is quite sad.

As for the accusations of sectarianism, let us be serious. If sovereignty is a good thing for Canada, if it is good for France, Germany, Gabon and any other country in the world, why is sovereignty not good for Quebec? This comment seems a bit ludicrous to me. The comment was made, in France, on the same day that a Quebec premier was being honoured. It is even more ironic that France had already honoured two Quebec premiers in the past, and with higher honours at that. If we are to believe what the French president said, it would mean that they honoured sectarians. I obviously do not believe that. I think that his comments were unfortunate and uncalled for. I do not believe that they reflect the image the French have about sovereignists.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 11th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, during my speech yesterday, I emphasized the fact that we have gone from an opposition coalition to a Liberal-Conservative coalition. I gave a few examples of the unfortunate results this has had for all citizens of Canada.

I would like to continue today by talking more specifically about the negative impact of this coalition on Quebec.

I hope to demonstrate that, whether it is the Conservatives or the Liberals in power, or whether it is a coalition of the two parties, like the one before us today, Canada always practices politics based on partisan interests. However, all too often, the interests of Canada unfortunately go against those of Quebec.

In the end, we, as Quebeckers, cannot hope for anything from this federation. The only solution of course is for Quebec to become a sovereign country so that it too, like all countries, can practice politics based on its own interests. Furthermore, being a sovereign country will help Quebec by giving it all the necessary tools to get through this crisis and meet its own needs, rather than the needs of oil companies in the west, for instance.

My first example is equalization, the transfer payments the federal government makes to the provinces and Quebec. In fact, these payments are not gifts, because the money comes from the taxes we pay. The equalization formula is constantly being modified. During the last parliament, the Conservative government, wanting to appear open to Quebec, said it would try to correct the fiscal imbalance. Equalization payments to Quebec were increased, but only thanks to pressure from the Bloc Québécois and the government's minority position.

At the time, I was a member of the Standing Committee on Finance, and I repeatedly said in this House that the government had not corrected the fiscal imbalance because there had been no transfer of tax fields and that whenever it pleased, the government could backtrack, change the formula again, penalize Quebec and go back to the ways things were before.

Unfortunately, my words were prophetic, because that is exactly what happened. At times of economic crisis, when we are faced with serious problems, the federalist parties revert to type and promote the interests of Canada as a whole. I would even say this is not completely abnormal. What is abnormal is that Quebec is not doing the same thing and becoming a country so that it can promote its own interests, especially during an economic crisis.

Even though the equalization formula is a bit abstract and extremely technical for many of our constituents, it is even more revealing when we look at how it is calculated.

In the past, income from non-renewable resources like oil was excluded from the equalization calculation. Clearly, for the purposes of this calculation, provinces that generate such revenue appear poorer than they really are, and provinces that do not generate such revenue and whose economy is based essentially on renewable energy, such as Quebec, seem richer than they really are. These provinces are therefore penalized.

What is more, from the environmental point of view, we wonder why this government, with the backing of the Liberals, wants to encourage industries that use non-renewable energies, when they should be doing the opposite and giving equalization premiums to provinces using renewable energies.

In the last budget, the imbalance was made even greater by the decision that Hydro One revenues in Ontario will no longer be included in the equalization calculations, although it was arbitrarily decided that those from Hydro Quebec will continue once again to be included. This will mean a loss of $250 million annually for Quebec.

We could go on to the example of the Quebec securities commission. Once again, the federal government, with the backing of the Liberals, wants to centralize finance in Ontario. We could also give the example of this government's environmental policies, which are clearly not in Quebec's interests. In fact, dependency on oil and gas impoverishes Quebec, while an independent Quebec could fully free itself of that dependency and be the richer for it.

Once again, we have a made-for-Ontario budget backed by the Liberals, who have a real partisan interest in Ontario. The big lesson the people of Quebec need to take from this is that, even when governments switch places, nothing can be expected from the federalist parties. Nothing from the Canadian federation either, not because it is bad, but simply because all members in this House, with the exception of the Bloc Québécois members, are looking after the interests of the Canadian nation, which are not unfortunately the same as the interests of the Quebec nation.

For the Quebec nation, the only solution is to do the same thing: acquire its own sovereignty, fly on its own, make its own decisions according to its own values, but also and particularly according to its own interests. The route to that goal is to acquire national independence, while continuing to cooperate with Canada as a good neighbour. Sovereignty will not be against Canada, and not because we do not like Canadians, but merely because we believe that the best ones to define what is good for Quebeckers are Quebeckers themselves. We will make decisions, sometimes good ones, sometimes bad ones, but at the end of the day they will be our decisions.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2009, February 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I do not have much time to address the House here this evening, but I would nevertheless like to summarize what has happened over the last few weeks regarding this budget.

A few weeks ago, three opposition parties did something rather exceptional. They completely abandoned their partisan interests in order to come together and do their best to bring down this ideological and dogmatic government, and provide Quebeckers and Canadians with a more interesting alternative. Unfortunately, a few days later, the Liberals pitifully caved in, putting their party's interests ahead of the interests of citizens, the interests of the people they represent. What we now have is a Conservative-Liberal coalition. This new coalition is especially shameful for the Liberals, who received nothing in exchange.

They proposed an amendment and got reports. They probably also got an end to legal action and a new coat rack in the lobby. They did not get much else. In their amendment, they asked for reports, which they said would help monitor the government. That is funny, because I always thought it was the role of the members of this Parliament, of this House, to monitor the government. If we understand the Liberal motion correctly, they are asking the government to produce reports so that they can monitor it. It is a bit ridiculous, and it does nothing for the people who really need help.

One might ask what happened to the Liberals' green shift. How could a party that supposedly campaigned on the environment support a budget that includes no environmental measures that are serious or worthy of the name? The only measure this government is trying to pass off as an environmental measure is the assistance to the oil companies for carbon storage, which is not nearly enough.

The coalition agreement drawn up by the three opposition parties talked about introducing the POWA, as it was formerly called, a program for older worker adjustment. Obviously, in the new Liberal-Conservative coalition, there is no such program. What was this program? It used to exist, but it was abolished by the Liberals and never reinstated by the Conservatives. This program enabled older workers who were victims of mass layoffs in their community to bridge the gap between the end of their employment income and the start of their retirement income. Now, people are forced to sell everything, give up all their assets and go on social assistance until their pension kicks in. I submit that this is a sad end for people who worked their whole lives to build this country, their country.

All we asked was that the government reinstate this program to enable these people, who worked hard, to live out their days in dignity. The Liberals failed miserably. They were not even able—

[Immigration and Refugee Board, February 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in response to pressure from the Bloc, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada has backtracked and postponed the hearing scheduled for next week, where a lawyer was being prohibited from arguing in French, as his client requested. In addition, the Board has announced that it will look at the issue of the language used during legal proceedings. However, it is asking the parties to submit additional arguments on this matter.

Should a person not be able to get service in French when he or she requests it? Especially since, in this case, the panel is sitting is Montreal, where, as the president of Montreal's Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste says, the use of French as a common language is key to integrating newcomers and securing the future of French.

The board must reverse its decision once and for all. That is why I invite the members of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration to support the motion I have put forward.