Xavier Barsalou-Duval

[One Canadian Economy Act, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, when the parliamentary secretary's only argument against what I said is that I am a separatist, that means he is all out of arguments.

[One Canadian Economy Act, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, as I was saying earlier, I have been in the House for about nine years now, and I have to say, Bill C‑5 is the worst bill I have ever worked on. It is the worst bill I have ever seen make its way through the House. These are strong words, but it is the truth.

The government's approach reveals a thoroughly autocratic management style. Despite everything, we managed to get rid of a few irritants, a few items that were blatantly unacceptable, although many others remain. In fact, we had to twist the government's arm to get last-minute gains like having the Indian Act and the Official Languages Act removed from the list of acts that could be sidestepped under the major projects bill.

It should not be a herculean task to prevent the government from bypassing every law on the books to please the Liberal Party's pals. Some laws should be untouchable. Francophone rights should not even be up for discussion; nor should indigenous rights. We won those small victories because we got a little last-minute support on a few things from the Conservative Party.

We also managed to achieve a little more transparency around the use and application of this act thanks to an oversight committee similar to the one we have for emergency measures. We also made sure that the special powers given to ministers cannot be used when Parliament is dissolved or the House is adjourned. These are small victories, but they do not change the substance of the bill.

We also proposed other amendments that sought to improve environmental oversight, but they were rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition, as were our amendments aimed at giving Quebec the right to say no to projects that Ottawa wants to fast-track. We proposed amendments to force the bill and the government to respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the other provinces and territories, but those amendments were also rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition.

We introduced an amendment to stop certain projects from being fast-tracked and to give the House the power to do that. This amendment would have allowed the House to draw attention to the fact that the government was going too far when it was not happy with these fast-tracked projects. Once again, our amendment was rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition. We wanted to completely eliminate the power to circumvent laws by order in council for major projects. That was also challenged and rejected by the Liberal-Conservative coalition.

As we know, normally, the larger the project, the greater its impact and the more social dialogue it requires. However, in this case, we are seeing the opposite: The larger the project, the more political games there will be. The larger the project, the more people will have to suffer the consequences of something that they were not even consulted about.

This opens the door to all sorts of biased applications, all sorts of arbitrary decisions and greater cronyism. One would think we are living in a banana republic. Usually, in modern democracies, it is the opposite. We have the executive branch, the legislative branch and the judicial branch, which are all independent from one another. However, what we are seeing here is the executive branch giving itself the power to bypass the legislative branch. That is unfortunate and it is really problematic to see the government being given the power to choose projects, the power to choose what projects should be designated as being in the national interest, the power to choose the conditions that will apply to projects, and the power to circumvent laws that this Parliament passed, all by order in council. The government is even being given the power to issue an order changing the project conditions midstream, if the developers do not like them.

The bill that is before us is really serious, and I do not understand why members of the House do not realize that. Normally, checks and balances exist in a society for good reason: to prevent the abuse of power. What we are seeing on the other side of the House is a government that wants to give itself all the power and govern like our neighbours south of the border. We are speaking out against that. I thought that this was something that we wanted to do away with in the last election, but this is what we are seeing the government do today.

We should not trust a government that not only wants to govern by order in council, but also wants to govern in secret, with no accountability.

[Government Priorities, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, in four short weeks, the Liberals have shown us their true face. It is Pierre Poilievre's face in a red tie. Many Quebeckers voted Liberal to be protected from the Conservatives, and yet we are faced with a government that wants to govern by decree and impose pipelines with Bill C‑5. This government stole $814 million from Quebeckers to buy votes from Canadians. All of that was done in four weeks.

That is the Liberals' true face. Do they realize that to many Quebeckers, they are two-faced?

[Government Priorities, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C‑5 perfectly sums up the new Liberal Prime Minister's approach. He wants to force pipelines on Quebec, he wants to impose projects by order in council without going through Parliament and he wants to be able to bypass pretty much all laws, also by order in council, to help developers. He wants to do all this by imposing closure, without debate or witnesses, with the support of the Conservatives.

Meanwhile, the 44 Liberal members from Quebec have been trying to fade into the woodwork. Do they realize that they did not vote the right way?

[One Canadian Economy Act, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, today is the last day we will sit before summer. Usually, on the last day, everyone has a smile on their face. They are in a good mood and they are patting themselves on the back. I would suggest that such is not really the case today. That is not the case because we are finishing our work with a gag order on Bill C-5, a gag order that, incidentally, does not have consensus. We barely had time to study the bill in committee or in the House. In fact, the gag order came in before we even started debate on Bill C‑5.

Normally, when a committee study is completed and there has been some co-operation between the parties, enough amendments have been made to the bill to make it decent, or at least palatable and something we can live with. Generally, the priority is to remove most of the irritants from the bill, and we are able to say that we have at least done that. This time, that is not the case. This time, we are not in a good mood about the bill or about the work done in committee, because we did not have an opportunity to do any real work.

It is particularly sad because closure is generally imposed when a bill has stagnated, when there has been no progress on a bill for months, when there is filibustering. This time, we did not even have time for it to stagnate. There was no time for a filibuster because we did not have time to talk about the bill in the first place. It is sad because not so long ago, we moved an amendment to the government's closure motion that would have granted us more hours of consideration in committee. Instead of having just two hours on Tuesday, we would have had 14 hours, which would have enabled a good number of witnesses to appear. We almost reached an agreement before going to committee. It seemed as if it was going to go ahead, but apparently there were last-minute negotiations behind the scenes, some shenanigans between the government and the Conservatives. As a result of those shenanigans, that did not come to pass, and people who had been called to testify were told by the clerk that they would not be testifying after all. Those are witnesses who had taken time off work, had planned to drive for hours or had already started driving, and could have even boarded a plane. Those witnesses were ultimately told they were not going to testify. What do you make of that, Mr. Speaker? I know you cannot answer, but it makes no sense. It was a lousy way to treat these people. They were treated without respect.

A lot of witnesses, including members of environmental groups, would have appreciated the opportunity to testify about Bill C‑5. However, no witnesses from environmental groups were able to give evidence on Bill C‑5 because the Bloc Québécois was allowed only two witnesses for the duration of the study. That is absolutely ridiculous. More than 60% of the witnesses, whose names we submitted and who were supposed to testify, were ultimately told they could not, even though the clerk had already called to ask them to testify. The whole thing is unbelievable. I consider this a terrible disservice to democracy. It brings shame on this Parliament to have sunk so low. What this government was actually trying to do was to muzzle them. It wanted to deny them a voice. It wanted to silence them and silence their criticism. That is how this government operates.

Worse still, by the time the witnesses appeared in committee, it was too late for us to move amendments. Regardless of what the witnesses had to say, we could not even listen to them or integrate their comments into the bill. That way of doing things makes no sense whatsoever. It is a disgrace, and I hope Quebec society will remember this. I actually hope Canadian society will remember it, too. I know first nations will remember, environmental groups will remember and francophone communities outside Quebec will remember. I know a lot of Quebeckers and unions will remember, too.

When a government seizes all power for itself, disregards the democratic process and refuses to listen to criticism, that is a serious and dangerous situation. It is bad enough that the Conservatives helped them do it, but it is worse still that the Liberals did not vote in favour of one single amendment proposed in committee. They could not have cared less. Like masters, like kings on earth, they had already made all the decisions. That is how this government operates.

[One Canadian Economy Act, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member opposite a question.

We have studied the bill in committee. Every time we debate a bill at second reading and point out gaps or problems, we are systematically told that these matters can be cleared up when the bill is sent to committee. We are assured that the bill can be improved at that stage.

However, in actual fact, when we examined this bill in committee, very few witnesses were heard. Worse still, the committee had very few hours to study the bill.

Therefore, I would like to ask the member opposite a specific question. How is it that his government, which claims to be so open and so unifying, rejected every single amendment put forward in committee?

[Points of Order, June 20th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the Speaker's ruling on the Bloc Québécois's motions in amendment at report stage of Bill C-5 states that Motions No. 2, 3, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17 and 20, which I moved, seconded by the member for Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, would not be selected by the Chair because they could have been presented in committee.

In actual fact, they could not have been presented in committee because it was after midnight when we proceeded to clause-by-clause consideration. Since it was after midnight, we could no longer vote separately on the various clauses, so I could not force a vote on the clauses in question.

The purpose of these motions is to identify certain clauses on which the House must hold a separate vote.

I hope that you will reconsider your decision in light of this information.

[One Canadian Economy Act, June 20th, 2025]

moved:

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting the Schedule.

[One Canadian Economy Act, June 20th, 2025]

moved:

That Bill C-5 be amended by deleting Clause 4.

[Natural Resources, June 19th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, the minister says she is speaking on behalf of workers, but perhaps she does not know that the Confédération des syndicats nationaux has spoken out against Bill C‑5.

If the Prime Minister were transparent about his assets, nobody would be asking these questions. Unfortunately, we have no other choice than to challenge the closure motion because the Prime Minister himself stands to benefit from this bill. He should be the first to demand a thorough study of Bill C-5. He should be the first to refuse to exempt developers, such as Brookfield, from laws by order in council. He should be the first to tackle any perceived conflict of interest.

Will he let Parliament do its job?