Yves Lessard

[Business of Supply, March 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, just like the speaker before him, the Liberal member we just heard from leaves us wondering as to his party's position on the budget. He just reminded us that he agrees with all the statements included in today's motion.

The only difference is that he does not want to recognize the fact that federalism is not a positive thing for Quebec. I can understand that, because we do not have the same political views.

There is nothing in the budget that says that federalism does not help Quebec. Our Liberal friends voted for the budget, which contains measures that will hurt Quebec. But today they are saying that they do not agree with the budget. I would like to hear what he has to say about that.

They say that Canadians do not want elections at this time. That is what they think. However, an election campaign would enable people to express their positions on the economic and social issues.

Why did the Liberals not want to lead that kind of a debate with us and give Canadians a chance to voice their opinions? If they were convinced, as we were, that it was a bad budget, it was their duty to bring it to the people and let Canadians decide.

[Business of Supply, March 16th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by commending my colleague from Joliette on the quality of his presentation. He is one of the most highly respected members in this place. He has a flair for summarizing with great clarity a somewhat complex set of issues.

He raised the issue of employment insurance, and I would like to hear more about the use made by both the Liberals and the Conservatives of employer and employee contributions to the EI account. As we know, in the past, $57 billion were misappropriated from the EI account at the expense of the unemployed, who have been literally excluded from access to EI benefits.

I would like to know how he thinks the EI account will be used in the future.

[Employment Insurance, March 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government announced plans to eliminate 245 positions, 90% of which are currently vacant. This move is an attempt to hide the government's real plan for fighting the deficit. In the budget, the Conservatives recycled an old Liberal strategy by announcing that they intend to take $19 billion from the employment insurance fund between 2011 and 2015 to pad the federal treasury.

Does the minister agree that it is appalling to filch money from the pockets of unemployed workers while her government carries on giving all kinds of gifts to oil companies and the rich?

[Pierre Vadeboncoeur, March 9th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, on February 11, Quebec lost a great essayist, trade unionist and sovereignist: Pierre Vadeboncoeur.

Mr. Vadeboncoeur made a name for himself through his writing, often lampooning his subjects in Cité libre. As a left-wing intellectual, he believed that freedom of thought is critical to our future. He hoped to counteract the collective alienation of his people, which led him to become a sovereignist. He joined the labour movement and the CSN, where he served as legal counsel for 25 years.

He fought his battles through his writing, penning La Ligne du risque and L'Autorité du peuple, among many other works. He received many awards, including the Athanase-David prize in 1976 and the Victor-Barbeau prize in 2001.

My Bloc Québécois colleagues and I would like to express our most sincere condolences to his family and friends. May his pursuit of freedom and independence inspire the people of Quebec for many years to come.

[The Budget, March 9th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, they have not been successful probably because they suffer from the same weakness as the Quebec Conservatives. I do not know what they are up to.

Quebec does not want nuclear power, but the government is promoting it. Where were the members from Quebec? It is just like the situation in the member's province. Who is leading? It may be the Prime Minister, but who is leading the Prime Minister? Good question. This government has made political choices to develop the war industry, the oil industry, and we could add the nuclear industry. But Quebec is not in favour of developing the war industry and the nuclear industry.

[The Budget, March 9th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, who always has something very appropriate to say.

His comments remind us that only employees and employers pay into employment insurance and that there was enough money to make all the changes and improvements that should have been made. The surplus was built up on the backs of people who lost their jobs and on the backs of their families and the regions concerned.

How can the system be fixed now? Simply by using EI contributions for the purposes for which they were intended. Next year, the government is going to start increasing premiums again, which will create the surplus he mentioned, but that is where they must be used.

If I have another 30 seconds, I will finish by saying that what is shameful in all this is that in order to fill the holes in the social safety net, the government is relying on the social solidarity net, which is made up of community groups whose funding it is also cutting. To add to the irony, the government is giving them a day of celebration, but it is not giving them any money to celebrate. It is the same thing for seniors. There is no money for them, but they are getting a day—

[The Budget, March 9th, 2010]

Madam Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague from Alfred-Pellan on his speech. I also want to say how pleased we are to see him in good health. We certainly need a member of his calibre to keep standing up for Quebec's interests and for people who have taken hit after hit, as we have discussed repeatedly. Society needs people like him. I would also like to acknowledge my colleague from Hochelaga, the finance critic. I believe that he is doing an extraordinary job.

The Bloc Québécois is against this budget. There can be no doubt that it is an unacceptable budget. We will only be able to support this budget if the House passes the Bloc Québécois' proposed amendment. Our amendment would remove all of the elements that constitute an attack on Quebec's sovereign rights with respect to a number of tools, including its securities commission.

After hearing the budget, I was asked to sum it up in one word. I immediately replied, “conservative”. If I had to answer that question today, I would say “reformist”.

This budget is conservative or reformist because it is based on a government strategy to take away social tools such as the social safety net. That would later enable the government to justify the measures it wants to put in place. But they have shown virtually no restraint when it comes to helping the military and oil industries.

I remind members that the government first gave away one of its tools when it lowered the GST by 2%. For more than a year now, it has frozen EI premiums at $1.73, when we know very well that that is not enough to fulfill the obligations of that system. Members will also remember that nearly $60 billion was removed from this fund and spent elsewhere. Even worse, this government, just like the Liberal government before it, is prepared to divert another $19 billion from employment insurance by 2014.

It has also abolished measures that supported women's groups, in particular, one of the essential measures to achieve pay equity in the public service or in any federally-regulated workplace: the ability to take legal action to achieve pay equity. It is unbelievable. With the support of the Liberals, the Conservatives managed to do it. Worse yet, they forbid unions from going to court to represent these working women, threatening them with fines of up to $50,000 a day. That is unbelievable. This country defends these rights when we send our young soldiers to fight in other countries. Here, these rights, rights that were the result of a long struggle, are being taken away from female workers.

I am saying this because I think the government's offensive against women is shameful. Once again, women are standing up and asking us to walk with them and for them. This past Sunday, March 7, I attended an event, the beginning of a worldwide march, in my riding. This march will culminate in the Republic of Congo on October 18. A number of marches are planned in Quebec and Canada between now and then.

The women presented me and my colleague from the National Assembly, Mr. Curzi, with beautiful decorative bouquets of shoes, as a symbol of the march and a reminder of the situation facing women, regardless of their social situation. From sandals, which are often worn by the poorest women, to work boots, running shoes and moccasins, all kinds of shoes were represented in order to symbolize women's various situations.

The rules of the House prohibit me from showing the bouquet here today, but I nevertheless kept a moccasin with me, since the rights of aboriginal women are among the most often ignored. Yet aboriginal communities are under federal jurisdiction. It is the only segment of the population to which the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility. However, the federal government has been failing miserably in that regard.

We must once again allow these women the recourse to go before the courts and exercise their right to equality. We must also ensure that funding for literacy programs is restored. All these measures, like social housing, affect women most of all. When there is not enough housing, women and children are most likely to be affected. Of course it affects the entire family, but it affects women more directly.

As my colleague was saying earlier, the unemployed have been neglected in this budget. It is unbelievable. In Canada, even when we get a new government it is more of the same. They are so similar that, when it comes to attacking women's rights, the Liberals vote with the Conservatives. When it comes time to vote against the rights of the unemployed, the Liberals vote with the Conservatives. In earlier times, it was the Conservatives who voted with the Liberals when they were slashing the employment insurance programs.

On the department's site, the government acknowledges that only 46% of people who are not working can hope to receive employment insurance benefits. Of that group, only 33% are women. Discrimination exists even there. In the meantime, injustice exists for everyone. In normal circumstances, almost 88% of the unemployed should expect to benefit from employment insurance.

In closing, I will quickly address the issue of seniors. It is outrageous. As I was saying at the beginning of my speech, the government has shown no restraint in granting funding to the war industry and the nuclear industry. There is no holding back. We see astronomical funds allocated to those sectors. We see to what extent this government is attacking the rights of the unemployed, women and seniors.

This government still owes seniors $3.2 billion in guaranteed income supplement payments. The most appalling thing is that the government is hoping that as many as possible of those seniors—because it knows who it owes that money to—will die, so that it can shirk this responsibility.

Measures and bills have been introduced to overhaul the employment insurance system with respect to the number of hours, weeks of benefits and level of benefits. The same should be true for seniors. Their pensions need to be improved and the flagrant injustice surrounding the guaranteed income supplement needs to be corrected.

[December 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, congratulations are in order for my colleague from Compton—Stanstead, who introduced this bill and did such a good job of explaining it in the House.

The examples she provided and her references to the families reminded us all of painful memories associated with sometimes sordid crimes and unexplained disappearances. If we feel shaken up just thinking about it, imagine how the families dealing with such tragedies must feel.

We are coming into a period of celebration for all Canadians, but we must not forget that people suffer from these crimes all the time. When we talk about this problem, about the challenge before us, I can see that members of every single party understand the scope of this bill even though we do not all have the same understanding of its intention. For example, the government's parliamentary secretary said he understood the intention, and his remarks led me to believe that he would vote in favour of the bill. I was confused when I realized that his party would not be voting for the bill.

However, I did get the feeling that he was aware of the situation and understood the intention of the bill. In fact, he began his remarks by saying that he understood the intention.

Of course these crimes are tragedies for those who are directly affected, but they are also tragedies for their loved ones, the people who, in many cases, are forced to live with situations that are sometimes so intolerable they have to quit their jobs. Until now—and in Quebec, until September 2007—nothing has been provided for these victims. In Quebec, Bill 58 introduced provisions enabling these people to take leave from work for a year or two depending on the circumstances and the act or event. By that, I mean crimes as such or events like disappearances and suicide.

In cases of suicide or disappearance, the authorized leave period is one year—52 weeks—and employers must authorize such leave. In the case of crimes such as homicide, leave periods may be as long as two years.

Quebec law is very clear about the rights of employees and the obligations of employers. Respectively, they are entitled to and required to provide only one period of leave without pay.

This situation must be remedied, because we have to understand that families in such situations bear a double burden. Not only are they forced to take a leave of absence from work, but they have no income.

The bill introduced by my colleague from Compton—Stanstead offers a solution that requires that two acts be amended. First, the bill amends the Canada Labour Code to recreate the provision that already exists in Quebec for the whole of Canada by entitling employees to a leave of absence for the same length of time, one or two years.

Both my Liberal colleague and my NDP colleague who spoke just before me talked about the need to amend the bill, because they already see flaws in it. We are quite willing to look at any measure to improve the bill. That is why we hope it will be passed at second reading and referred to committee.

The Canada Labour Code must be amended to allow employees to take a leave of absence from work. However, the issue of benefits has not been addressed. That is where the amendments to the Employment Insurance Act and regulations come in. These amendments would enable the individuals concerned to have income for the same length of time as in Quebec, that is, one or two years, depending on the nature of the event or crime.

This is a purely technical exercise, and there is no need to go on forever about it. But we do need to take the time to understand the scope of this bill in relation to two suggestions that were made previously by the other three parties in the House. It was suggested that the bill be modelled on existing measures such as the 15 weeks of leave for serious illness or the six weeks of compassionate care leave. We are willing to look at that, but it seems to me that we are talking about something completely different.

We must consider these measures in relation to their purpose. I can already tell the House that the Bloc Québécois has a motion to increase the number of weeks of absence in the case of serious illness and for compassionate care leave, similar to the suggestion by the parliamentary secretary, while keeping in mind the purpose of each measure.

A petition has been circulating for a few months now. I have a petition here that has been signed by 55,000 people, and I have been told that 10,000 others still want to sign. This petition aims to encourage the House to improve these two measures for individuals during difficult times, for example when they must take sick or compassionate care leave. That is something completely different.

Let us get back to Bill C-343 from the member for Compton—Stanstead. In conclusion, I remind members that the purpose of the provisions of Bill C-343 is to amend the Canada Labour Code and the Employment Insurance Act to give benefits to individuals who have been the victim of a crime or who have had a loved one disappear.

I think I am the last to speak in this session, before we leave for Christmas. Happy holidays, Mr. Speaker, and the same to our parliamentary colleagues, and especially to my constituents in Chambly—Borduas.

[Petitions, December 10th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition with 1,572 signatures from the town of Saint-Basile-le-Grand, calling for rural postal service to be maintained. The petitioners are calling on the government to authorize Canada Post not only to maintain the moratorium, but also to improve and enhance services.

I would also like to take this opportunity to wish the people of Chambly—Borduas and all my colleagues here in the House happy holidays and a happy new year.

[Gisèle Viau, December 9th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, in October 2009, Gisèle Viau, a fifth grade teacher at École Le Tournesol in Béloeil, was awarded a certificate of achievement for teaching excellence.

This teacher has done a remarkable job integrating technology into her teaching and into the daily lives of her students, to whom she is extremely committed.

Ms. Viau paired her students with others from around the globe, taking them on a virtual around the world tour, through which her students learned to apply copyright principles, to hold an international videoconference, to participate in national projects, and so much more.

She has developed a living environment that promotes children's well-being and has shown them the possibilities afforded by modern technology.

On behalf of my Bloc Québécois colleagues, I would like to congratulate this exceptional teacher.