Xavier Barsalou-Duval

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, May 3rd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, that question caught me a little off guard.

I would say that I take it for granted that every customs officer does their job professionally and that, regardless of their skin colour and religion, they are going to do as professional a job as any other customs officer.

Would forcing greater diversity among customs officers really bring about change? It seems to me this question actually assumes that someone would have a different way of working or be less professional because of their ethnic background or language. I hope that is not what my colleague is saying.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, May 3rd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-20, which deals with changes to the handling of complaints filed in connection with the level of service delivered by customs personnel or their possible misconduct.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise in the House for a second time this week, since I did have the opportunity to give another speech earlier in the week on the government's budget. I do intend to talk about the government's budget again, because it will bring me to Bill C-20. Members will soon see the connection.

The budget presented by the Liberal government this week was in fact historic. I say this because never before has a budget interfered so much in provincial jurisdictions or disregarded provincial powers to such an extent. In my speech, I criticized the government for not looking after its own jurisdictions and instead interfering in areas that are not under its responsibility. I also called out the Prime Minister for acting like the new self-proclaimed king. Perhaps he is inspired in part by his monarchist leanings and his somewhat theological view of Canada.

That being said, in the case of Bill C‑20 I must commend the government. That may surprise some people, but instead of always criticizing the government's bills, sometimes we have to acknowledge when they get it right. I am taking this opportunity to do just that. Obviously, once is not a habit and sometimes it is the exception that proves the rule. In this bill, there is certainly an exception. The exception is that the Liberal government is doing its job, it is minding its own business. It feels good to see a government staying within its jurisdiction. We would like to see more of that, I must admit. If that happened more often, this country might be better off. We are not going to deny it.

What exactly is Bill C‑20 all about? Sometimes ordinary people have to travel overseas. The vast majority of us have gone to another country. When we want to enter a country, the customs officers ask us all sorts of questions. How long are we staying? Where will we stay? Why are we here? They want to know if the travel is justified.

Customs officers work to try to prevent threats to national security. They want to know whether people are entering the country with good intentions, whether they are authorized to enter the country and whether their visit will be positive, rather than dangerous or threatening to the country. Customs officers do extremely important but also extremely sensitive work. That is why they are granted sweeping powers to ask us questions, search our luggage without a warrant or take us aside and detain us for a little longer. These are indeed considerable powers, which ordinary citizens may sometimes find intimidating. When they stand before a customs officer, most people always wonder whether they are guilty of something or whether they put something in their luggage that could be dangerous. Perhaps people do not have the right to bring lead pencils into that country. I am joking, but I think that members know what I mean. We never know the exact rules or all the laws of every country that we visit.

It is the same sort of thing for people who come here. Plus, there is an added challenge. People coming here often do not know what recourse they have against any abuses they might experience. They find themselves somewhat powerless in the face of a customs officer's authority. This authority is nonetheless a good thing, since the job of customs officers is ultimately to protect us from security incidents or, at the very least, from people who might break the rules and harm society's overall well-being by transporting dangerous objects.

For example, no one wants to see an individual pass through customs only to realize a little later that he is a member of an organized crime group and has come here to commit murder. Perhaps there are foreign agents infiltrating our country to exert undue influence, or people transporting drugs. These are all things we do not want to see happen. For these reasons, it is important that customs officers have the authority they need to do their job. However, situations can arise where these people abuse their power.

We hope that such situations are kept to a minimum whenever possible, but we know—considering the many cartoons about it—that some administrations in other parts of the world are less strict than our officers are here. We have almost come to expect to see abuses when we go through customs.

That is not what we want to see in the country where we live. We live in a western country, a G7 nation, that theoretically respects people's rights. In fact, ours is a country with a Constitution. Some well-known rights were enshrined in that Constitution by the current Prime Minister's father. Although we may disagree on these rights, or at least parts of them, we nevertheless hope that the people called upon to uphold the Constitution, once it takes effect, will respect it.

To digress just a little, that is also why we hope that this government will respect its own Constitution. When the government draws up budgets, it sometimes meddles in matters that are not its concern.

In the case of customs officers, these individuals are also government representatives, so they must remain above reproach as much as possible and as needed. When an officer opens someone's luggage and turns everything inside out, as customs officers are entitled to do, they are invading someone's privacy. Officers open people's suitcases and see what they wore the day before, whether they did their laundry and so on. These things can be a little uncomfortable. We always hope these procedures are carried out with respect for human dignity.

The same is true when an officer decides to search an individual. For example, a customs officer may decide to strip search someone to see if that individual has hidden prohibited items inside their body. Officers might even inspect that individual's genitals. No one wants customs officers to comment on anything like whether the person showered yesterday or how little they are interested in that person. They also should not say anything about the size, shape or colour of an individual. All of these things would be completely inappropriate in circumstances where the person being searched is in a vulnerable situation.

That is what Bill C‑20 tries to fix. Let us hope it is adopted. It is about recognizing that customs officers have rights and they need to enforce the law and protect society and the country. However, this power must also have limits and be regulated.

In the past, passengers could file a complaint. That recourse already existed. The problem is that a complaint about a customs officer or service was dealt with internally. It seemed like there was a lack of transparency or like there could sometimes be a certain form of institutional bias. For example, in my riding, we often heard people complaining about the noise and speed of the trains. They had to file their complaint with the company's police service. People felt like they were being jerked around. They file a complaint with CN's police service and CN is the one that is going to look into the complaint. The perception is that the complaint does not get treated the way it should.

That is what Bill C‑20 seeks to do. It seeks to ensure that, from now on, an independent body will have the authority to resolve complaints. If people want to go directly to the independent authority, then they can do so. They can also file their complaint the old way by submitting it directly to border services, where it will be addressed internally first. Later on, they can file an appeal with this completely independent authority, which will be run by civilians, not by former customs or RCMP officers. It will be the same authority that already exists and that independently handles complaints against the RCMP, the federal police service. It will do the same work, but with the name change, it will also be able to independently handle complaints about alleged abuse committed by customs officers.

I will close by saying that this is a constructive measure that will strengthen the public's confidence in the system. Most importantly, we need to ensure that customs officers, who do an exemplary job of performing very important work for our community, have the resources that they need. Even though this does not excuse inappropriate behaviour, we know that sometimes people can make mistakes when they are burnt out.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, May 3rd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague opposite, who seems quite proud of his government's track record. Bill C-20, in particular, talks a lot about the work of customs officers. From the testimony given in committee, something that seemed to crop up quite often was the whole issue of overwork and fatigue among customs officers.

Many of us remember the endless airport lineups to get through security and customs. When people are too tired, they sometimes make mistakes. They might go further than they should.

Does my colleague think that the lack of resources provided to customs officers could also have played a part in the mistakes they made? If his government had given them proper funding and the resources they needed, there would be fewer problems like the ones we are trying to fix through Bill C‑20.

[Public Complaints and Review Commission Act, May 3rd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we are currently debating Bill C-20, an interesting bill. My colleague said that he intends to vote in favour of this bill. My colleague opposite will also be voting in favour, and I think my colleagues to my left will do the same. I have a feeling that everyone is going to vote in favour of the bill.

Therefore, rather than talking specifically about Bill C-20, I will talk about something related to Bill C-20, which is how this government handles border control and customs management. Generally speaking, aside from Bill C-20, is my colleague satisfied with how the government is managing customs?

[Canada Border Services Agency, April 30th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, La Presse recently alerted us to the fact that the Canada Border Services Agency has an obsolete and surplus goods program. Basically, it is a program to give money to merchants who throw away their excess merchandise. We are talking about non-perishable goods.

For example, let us imagine that I have a store that sells jeans. I import a new style, and I end up with unsold jeans that are out of fashion. I have two choices: Either I throw them in the garbage and Ottawa refunds me the duties, or I donate them to charity and I do not get a cent. It is a recipe for waste.

Who in Ottawa thinks this is a good idea?

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, while I share my colleague's concern about the government's colossal deficits and the fact that it may not have a plan for returning to a balanced budget, that does not necessarily make the debt-to-GDP ratio more frightening.

I can understand why my colleague is concerned, but I am more concerned about seeing federal money used for things that are not federal responsibilities and spent in areas of jurisdiction that are not those of the government. Ultimately, my concern is that Ottawa will keep tightening its stranglehold on us and that Quebeckers will not get more for their money.

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I do not get the impression that my colleague's question is about the budget. I am not familiar with the program he referred to, but I will be happy to discuss it with him after my speech and this debate, if we get the opportunity.

The question I am asking myself is why we always have an NDP government—or rather an NDP party, but this one is practically a government—that decides to ask the government in power to intervene more and more in Quebec's jurisdictions.

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the member across the way just provided an eloquent demonstration of his government's position, which is to run away, not face reality, not mind its own business, and then tell others how to conduct their business. The reality is that we have child care in Quebec. We have schools in Quebec. We have hospitals in Quebec. They are not perfect, but we are taking care of them. The federal government has none of these things. It is not the one taking care of these things. It is not the one managing these things.

Who are the Liberals to come tell us how to manage our business? Why would a Canadian be better than a Quebecker at managing this?

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, since we are talking about the budget, my speech today will focus on the most recent budget, which was tabled by the Liberal government exactly two weeks ago today.

Before I talk about the budget itself, I want to take a moment to give a little background. I want to talk about the context in which this budget was introduced. I would imagine that the government was aware that the polls were not in its favour during the period leading up to the tabling of the budget. Members of the Liberal Party were surely aware that the Prime Minister's popularity was plummeting. In such a context, I would imagine that people got together to have a discussion and figure out what they could do about it.

They came up with a solution. They realized that the situation was so dire that they had to make people forget just how dire things were, so they decided to create a diversion. They decided to talk about something else, to make people look elsewhere, so that they would not look at the government's track record, or the current situation, and instead look at what was being announced and proposed.

As we know, the Liberals are not going to reinvent the wheel. Their solution was to encroach heavily on areas under Quebec's jurisdiction, just to be original. Perhaps we can say they were indeed original, in spite of everything, because they had never gone as far as they did in this budget.

They decided to promise so many billions of dollars that everybody would be happy and nobody would notice anything. It would be so much money that people would not even notice anything else. Well, it did not work. Liberal strategists saw that selfies were not working anymore and decided to try a budget striptease to change things up. We are here to speak out against all of this.

The Bloc Québécois has submitted proposals to the government. For example, rather than the approach it has taken, we would have liked to see money for seniors aged between 65 and 75, who do not receive the same old age security benefit as those aged 75 and over. We believe that everyone should receive a decent pension that covers their expenses. Everyone has rent to pay and food to buy. All retirees have similar expenses, regardless of their age.

However, the Liberals went a different way. We proposed other things. For example, we suggested putting an end to funding oil companies. The Liberals say that they will do it eventually. When they were elected in 2015, that promise was part of their platform. It is still part of their platform today. Maybe it will still be part of their platform in 2050 or 2100.

Unfortunately, in spite of everything, we were realistic. When we proposed these things, we suspected that the Liberals would go in a different direction. Still, we took a chance and hoped they would listen to us and do as we asked.

At the very least, we wanted them to do one thing. We know the Liberals have a habit of encroaching on areas of jurisdiction that are not theirs. We told them that if they did that, they had to give Quebec the right to opt out with full compensation. Again, the answer was no. I think the vote itself was even more telling: It looks as though the other parties in the House agree with the Liberal position.

The reason they said no is not hard to understand, because the only jurisdictions the Liberals are interested in are the ones that do not belong to them. In fact, they solved that problem with their budget: Jurisdictions no longer exist for the Liberal government. The solution was simple. They just made daddy's Constitution go poof.

Being Prime Minister is not enough for the member for Papineau. He decided to become premier of all 10 provinces and three territories and mayor of all municipalities across Canada to boot. Not bad, eh? That is what this budget is all about. We have a Prime Minister who is Canada's new self-proclaimed king. He is the one who will run Quebec's health care system. He is going to show up at long-term care facilities and tell them how to run a long-term care facility. He is going to show up at dental offices and tell them how to run a dental office as well, even though Quebec already has programs to help people. He is going to show up at hospitals to tell people how to run their hospitals, while also telling them that he is not going to give them any more money.

In fact, he is going to show up practically everywhere. He will show up in cities and decide what new urban planning rules they have to follow. He will even decide how land is taxed, which is a big deal. He will tax land in the cities, even though it is a municipal jurisdiction. He will even go so far as to manage school cafeterias. Just imagine.

His own affairs hold no interest for him. What interests him is our affairs. It reminds me a bit of the know-it-all kid at school, who always told everyone else how they should do things, even though nothing he himself did ever worked out right. Do not ask Ottawa to print a passport. Ottawa is not interested in doing it and not capable of doing it. Do not ask Ottawa to manage borders either, because it is not interested or capable. If something is Ottawa's responsibility, Ottawa is not interested. It is that simple.

In fact, for years, I had a hard time understanding the Prime Minister's fascination with the monarchy. Now I am starting to understand it a bit more. The king is someone who is not accountable to the public. He is not accountable to anyone but himself and God because it is God who made him king. It could be Allah, Buddha or Yahweh, or whatever we want to call it. He is accountable to a higher power, hence the idea of fighting secularism and Bill 21 and the idea of Islamic mortgages in the budget. In the Liberals' postnational world, every religion has its own banks with their own rules. It is not up to the government to establish the rules. No, it is up to the religions. If someone is Christian, they will go to the Christian bank. If they are Muslim, they will go to the Islamic bank, and if they are Jewish, then they will go to the Jewish bank. Living together in harmony is wonderful, is it not? This will be called positive segregation: a monarchical and theocratic postnational state.

Obviously, I am being facetious, but I do not think this government is headed in a very good direction. The sad thing is that it is not a joke, because it is in the budget. That is the direction this government is heading in. Naturally, any Quebecker who reads this budget and sees that will want to get out of here, because it makes no sense. It is clear that we need independence. Without independence, soon we will not even have provincial jurisdictions. There will be no more Government of Quebec, no more municipal governments. Ottawa will be the last one standing. Ottawa will call all the shots.

Does nobody care about jurisdiction? That is what we really need to ask ourselves, because that is what the Prime Minister is telling us. He says people do not care about jurisdiction, but I do not buy it.

Let us look at how the government manages its affairs, and take the ArriveCAN app as an example. It should have cost $80,000 to design, but it ended up costing $60 million, and we are not even sure if that is the real figure yet. Two guys in a basement managed to rack up $250 million in government contracts and line their pockets at taxpayers' expense. Soldiers are being forced to go out and buy their own boots because the government cannot supply them. The Phoenix payroll system cannot pay public servants. Federal wharves and train stations are going to rack and ruin. I think people do see these things, and I think they do care about the government's incompetence. The polls are starting to show that pretty clearly.

We can see that the government's attempt to divert attention away from its pitiful track record is not working at all. What we see, in fact, is a government that is completely disoriented and that has lost its way. If we gave it a compass, it would not even know what to do with it.

That is why we are going to vote against this budget. That is why the Bloc Québécois will keep fighting. That is also why we, the members of a separatist party, insist that Quebec needs to be respected, that its jurisdictions are its own and that it can make its own decisions without constantly having another government's decisions imposed on it. It is not for Ottawa to decide how Quebec will run its cities and hospitals. It is not for Ottawa to decide these things. The government's own Constitution says that it must not run these things. The government does not care, but we do. We are going to create our own country.

[Oil and Gas Industry, April 19th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, one of these days, the government will need to explain what an efficient oil subsidy is.

It is funny, though. The carbon tax, which does not apply in Quebec, has a 0.15% impact on inflation, and yet the Conservatives get all worked up about it every day in Parliament. Meanwhile, when the price of gas goes up by 15¢ a litre, we do not hear a peep from them.

There is a code of silence when oil companies pick taxpayers' pockets, just as there is a code of silence when we ask the government to stop subsidizing oil companies.

Does the government think it is okay to subsidize companies to the hilt, only for them to turn around and raise prices to make more and more profit?