Yves Lessard

[Employment Insurance, November 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have here the document that the former EI chief actuary sent me. It confirms what we thought, which is that the contribution rate announced for self-employed workers in Quebec is excessive, in light of the real costs of the benefits in the bill. The Bloc Québécois is proposing an amendment to correct this inequity.

Will the government set aside partisan politics and support our amendment to be fair to self-employed workers in Quebec, who already have access to parental leave?

[Child Protection Act (Online Sexual Exploitation), November 26th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague, the member for Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel on his speech. The member brought up how difficult it is to follow the Conservatives' logic regarding the firearms registry. The only explanation for this is their ideological position.

I would like to hear some more about how he feels about the Conservatives' attitude. We agree on the principle of the bill; that goes without saying. The government knew and tolerated, for example, that a child soldier was tortured at Guantanamo. It also tolerates the torture that goes on in Afghanistan.

[Committees of the House, November 24th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate the hon. member from Sault Ste. Marie for his motion to concur in the committee's sixth report, which I had the honour to table last Friday, November 20.

I will not quote many statistics. My colleagues who spoke before me did a good job of showing how we have failed to achieve the objectives of the unanimous motion to combat poverty that this House passed on November 24, 1989, 20 years ago today.

As the hon. member mentioned earlier, we can be happy that we have made some advances in the fight against poverty, especially when it comes to seniors, but I think that in terms of families, and particularly children, we have failed. That is distressing. The motion specifically said that we should try to eliminate child poverty by the year 2000. We are in pretty much the same position as we were in 1989. In order to ensure that things improve, we cannot lie to ourselves. There are aggravating factors that lead to poverty. We must work under the assumption that where there are poor children, there are poor parents.

What is more, it should come as no surprise to us today that the government has not met its goals, because, in the two decades since the motion, it has made deep cuts to the measures that make up the social safety net.

One contributing factor is the shortage of adequate, decent housing. Between 1993 and 2001, the Canadian government withdrew its financial support for the provinces' efforts to build affordable housing. Funding was not restored until 2001, and then only at a fraction of what it had been. Then along came the deficit we have now. We inherited this policy, which is one of the worst there is.

Over the past few years, especially in the latest budget, the government has cut funding for programs that support gender equality in the workplace. Women are being denied legal recourse to fight for pay equity. The tragedy here is that anyone should be surprised that there has not been greater progress in the fight against poverty.

The same goes for literacy. Over the past five years, the literacy budget has been cut in half. Depriving people of knowledge, information and the ability to find out what they need to know and use their own knowledge to survive also contributes to poverty.

My colleague from Laval—Les Îles talked about how the government scrapped the Kelowna accord for aboriginal peoples. It is disconcerting. The federal government has a fiduciary responsibility toward aboriginal communities. There was supposed to be $5 billion made available to aboriginal communities.

In conclusion, I would like to touch on one last element. The government eliminated the program, and nobody should be surprised at the state of aboriginal communities. Yet the Canadian government has a fiduciary responsibility toward these communities. I also want to briefly mention the fact that the government made deep cuts to employment insurance benefits even though the money was there, and then used that money for other purposes.

All of these actions have prevented us from gaining ground in the fight against poverty.

I really hope that the House will unanimously pass the motion before us this morning.

[Criminal Code, November 23rd, 2009]

Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord on his very pertinent remarks, which, I feel, clearly explain why the Bloc Québécois will vote against this bill.

In addition, my colleague pointed out that the Conservative Party's positions are very disconcerting. Perhaps he could speak to the issue of the Conservative Party's behaviour regarding the motion introduced in this House by the Bloc Québécois to proceed quickly with the vote on eliminating the possibility of parole after one-sixth of a sentence has been served. The opposition was berated again today in this House for not wanting to eliminate the possibility of parole after one-sixth of a sentence.

I would like my colleague to speak to this issue to show the people who are watching just how disingenuous the Conservatives' position is.

[House Committees, November 20th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities on poverty reduction in Canada.

November 24, four days from now, will mark the 20th anniversary of the resolution passed by this House to reduce poverty by the year 2000. That goal was not met. Therefore, the government is invited to present a plan to the House to address this issue.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, November 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. Once again, the government is trying to deny a reality that cannot be ignored.

The member for Gatineau and I described the situation with the help of statistics from large conglomerates. The agreement between Canada and Colombia, Bill C-23, would legitimize something unacceptable: a company can expropriate an owner if the company wants his land. What is more, if the country's laws prohibit this expropriation, the company can sue the country for preventing him from investing and making a profit. That is totally absurd. This would let companies take power away from the government in terms of the management of land and natural resources. That makes no sense. That is what the Conservatives want to do, with the help of the Liberals. That is unacceptable.

The Bloc Québécois will do everything in its power to prevent these unbelievable economic crimes and human rights violations that are awaiting the people of Colombia.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, November 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, when someone wants to make an unacceptable position sound legitimate, they deny the facts. The member he quotes is denying the fact that trade unionists are still being killed because he wants to support what the Conservatives are saying.

In 2007, there were 39 murders of trade unionists by the paramilitaries, and in 2008 there were 46. That is very recent. There is nothing more stubborn and immutable than a fact. The facts show that 2,690 trade unionists have been killed in 23 years. Since the beginning of this decade, there have been 40 murders a year. That is the answer and that is what they are doing.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, November 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I want to once again congratulate my colleague from Gatineau on his argument, and in particular for the work he does every day for the citizens of his riding, which he represents not only with brilliance but also with great effectiveness.

I want to continue along the line raised by my colleague, with some statistical illustrations.

The U.S. State Department and Amnesty International say that 350,000 more people were displaced in Colombia in 2007.

In 2008, over 380,000 persons had to flee their homes and workplaces because of violence. According to the Centre for Human Rights, in 2008 there was a 25% increase in the number of population displacements, and 2008 was the worst year since 2002 for population displacements.

Since 1985, nearly 4.6 million persons have been forced to leave their homes and their land.It has been estimated that 7% of the Colombian population has been displaced. Every day 49 families arrive in Bogota, the capital of Colombia, after being forced to leave their land. Indigenous people account for half of the Colombian population thus displaced. In fact, 8% of the total population has been displaced, and 4% are indigenous. These figures are very revealing.

These people are displaced because they have been evicted from their land by land exploiters, big landowners and property and mining conglomerates.

The latter do their work through pressure, threats and murder. They flood the land. When the people are forced to move, they have to take shelter in the cities, and shantytowns grow up. I have been to Bogota, Colombia. Right downtown there is a mountain of cardboard houses. Every day 49 families arrive in these places. The living conditions of these people are quite unimaginable. They used to have a small landholding, their own space to grow crops to feed their family, but they were uprooted from that land. In fact companies, including Canadian companies, have the right to expropriate the people.

The agreement that is before us confirms and upholds the rules of the marketplace that cause people to be exploited.

As my colleague from Gatineau said earlier, this is outright theft, and it is part of a state system. These people are forced, by the paramilitary and all the resulting abuse, to abandon their land. This creates poverty, unemployment, crime, truancy, water shortages, power shortages, etc. The city of which I speak is a shantytown at that central mountain in downtown Bogota. There is no electricity. When there is electricity it is thanks to extension cords. The people go to get electricity at the bottom of the mountain, and quite often the cords are unplugged. When the rains come, the mountain is washed out and often people lose their homes. These are houses made of cardboard or bits of wood.

You have to see this poverty to realize the extent of it. The government is aware that it exists. The Liberal Party is aware that it exists.

A committee went there, to Colombia, and was to report to this House to give the government an opinion before it introduced its bill. However, the government did not care about that and did not even wait for the report from the committee that went to witness the situation before introducing its bill. This situation is completely unacceptable for Colombians, but it is also unacceptable in terms of the democratic process in this House.

First, the opposition is against it and the party that forms the official opposition has not even bothered to do its job as the official opposition. A majority of the public has given the opposition a mandate to prevent acts like those that are currently being committed, in terms of legislation. The Liberals did not even bother to do their job as opposition with the mandate they received, with us, from the public, which is precisely to keep watch on this government. The public did not have enough confidence in this government and gave the opposition a majority so it would act vigilantly to protect us and protect the peoples with whom we do business.

It is quite scandalous to see how the Liberals are behaving in this matter and it also violates a tradition, now becoming somewhat remote, in the time of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Because of his humanitarian positions, for example, for peace and humanity, he received a Nobel Prize. We are a long way from that. This is quite shameful. They have tarnished the reputation of those people, whose conduct in relation to human rights was exemplary, even if they did not have the same political allegiance as us. In that respect, I would say that the conduct of the present Liberal Party regarding this bill is quite shameful.

In terms of protecting the rights of workers, which my colleague has spoken about, since 1986, 2,686 trade unionists have been killed. As I said a moment ago, I went to Colombia twice, in 1974 and 1976, on cooperation missions, to establish food, agricultural and housing cooperatives. So I have had an opportunity to work with those people. At the time, in 1974 and 1976, I found the situation to be abominable and I thought that the situation had improved today.

The more I have thought about this in the last few months, the more I have realized that not only has the situation not improved, the violations of human rights have been refined. Often, they are less visible and they give people like the Conservatives and Liberals pretexts for claiming the situation has improved. Well, the situation has not improved, and we have the statistics to show that 2,686 trade unionists are dead. As soon as trade unionists start making demands, they are in trouble. There were still murders in 2007. There were 39 murders of trade unionists, an increase of 18% in one year.

I could continue like this, but I am told I have only one minute left. My colleagues are certainly going to ask me questions and so I will be able to fill in a bit more. The Bloc Québécois will definitely not approve a bill like this. Bill C-23 is unworthy of being voted on by a Chamber such as ours and we are not playing that game. We have too much self-respect to do that and we have too much respect for the people who voted for us to do that.

[Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, November 17th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Gatineau for his arguments in support of the Colombian people and against this bill. His words clearly evoke the misfortune awaiting the Colombian people should Colombian companies be given the latitude that this free trade agreement would afford.

My question is the following. Does my colleague understand the Liberals' position? When they were in power and under NAFTA, chapter 11 gave the latitude that is included in the Colombian agreement. They had to backpedal on that point and today they are going to support the Conservatives in their attempt to give more latitude to companies that will exploit the Colombian people. Can he elaborate on that? Does he understand their position?

[Employment Insurance, November 5th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the minister needs to bear in mind that Bill C-56 does not take into account the fact that self-employed workers in Quebec already have access to maternity and parental benefits, for which they pay $0.86 per $100.

Does the minister realize that, by charging an extra $1.36, he is making self-employed workers in Quebec pay for those in Canada?