Yves Lessard

[Petitions, November 3rd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, today I have the honour to present a petition signed by 575 people from my riding. This petition supports an initiative by FADOQ, a federation that represents seniors.

This petition calls on the government to implement automatic enrollment for the guaranteed income supplement (GIS), for the spouse's allowance and for the survivor's allowance. The petition also calls for the guaranteed income supplement to be increased by $110 a month for people living alone and for the monthly survivor's allowance to be increased to $199. It also calls on the government to implement full, unconditional retroactivity for people who have not been given the guaranteed income supplement and to extend the guaranteed income supplement and the spouse's allowance by six months upon the death of one of the beneficiaries in the couple.

Those are the wishes and requests of the 575 petitioners who want to improve life for our seniors.

[Fairness at the Pumps Act, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague, the member for Richmond—Arthabaska, on the clarity of his remarks regarding the impact of a lack of oversight on consumers. The Competition Office should regulate these matters.

I would like the member to elaborate on the price monitoring agency proposed by the Bloc Québécois. Would it not be possible to transfer the responsibilities to be vested in the monitoring agency to the Competition Bureau so that we can better understand why such an agency is necessary and also attempt to define its role?

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's response rings hollow because more than 40,000 seniors in Quebec are still not getting the guaranteed income supplement even though they are entitled to it.

The Conservative government should be ashamed of robbing 40,000 seniors of these last-resort benefits.

What is the government waiting for to automatically register seniors for the guaranteed income supplement?

[Guaranteed Income Supplement, October 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, a Quebec coalition led by the FTQ is calling for improvement to the guaranteed income supplement in order to provide immediate help to our least fortunate seniors. The president of the Fédération des femmes du Québec points out that many women work in unstable jobs without a pension plan and that improving the GIS would help them directly.

Will the government finally decide to improve the monthly guaranteed income supplement benefits?

[Employment Insurance, October 22nd, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, when a person wants to have a dog put down they say the dog was violent. When a government does not want to vote for a bill, it exaggerates the economic impact. That is what the government did with the Bloc Québécois' Bill C-308, which it estimated would cost $7 billion.

Last year, the Liberals and the Conservatives set up a puppet committee to restore the 360-hour threshold for employment insurance eligibility. At the first opportunity to vote in favour of this measure included in Bill C-308, they turned their backs on the workers.

Today, we are debating Bill C-280, which would fill in some of the gaps that Bill C-308 sought to remedy. That is why the Bloc Québécois is voting in favour of the bill. We hope the Conservatives and the Liberals will follow suit and that they will not use cost as an excuse again, because the costs, which are estimated at $2 billion—

[Employment Insurance, October 19th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the government refused to give the royal recommendation to the Bloc Québécois' Bill C-395, which would make workers who are victims of labour disputes eligible for employment insurance benefits. What is most absurd is that this government is more generous to prisoners, because the period of incarceration is excluded from the benefit calculation, while the lockout period is not.

How can this government abandon locked-out workers like the ones in Lebel-sur-Quévillon?

[Ending Early Release for Criminals and Increasing Offender Accountability Act, October 18th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to congratulate my colleague from Ajax—Pickering on his excellent speech. It is important to note the obvious differences between the speech by our Conservative colleague and the speech by our Liberal colleague. The concerns brought up by our Conservative colleague are certainly laudable, since they have to do with rehabilitation measures. However, our colleague from Ajax—Pickering focused particularly on prevention. Indeed, that is what is the most successful. The figures he gave us were also interesting. Of course, prevention is successful in avoiding crime as much as possible, but it can also be profitable economically. As he said, for every dollar we invest in prevention, we save $11 in other costs.

To get back to Bill C-39, I have a question for my colleague, and would like to hear what he has to say. Does he see concrete measures or examples in this bill, in terms of prevention, that could give this bill some merit?

[Employment Insurance, September 30th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, during yesterday's vote on the bill to increase accessibility to employment insurance and its benefits, the Conservatives and Liberals turned their backs on the unemployed.

The Liberals' decision was all the more shocking because, until yesterday, they had supported our initiative. The Liberals, with their about-face, demonstrated their indifference and lack of concern for workers who are losing their jobs while the economy is slowly recovering from the recession.

And to add insult to injury, the leader of the Liberal Party went so far as to say that Bill C-308 was going nowhere. Yet, not that long ago, he was openly supporting it.

Given that unions and groups of unemployed workers agree with our initiative, how can the leader of the Liberal Party justify his about-face and flagrant lack of consistency?

It is undoubtedly clear that the Bloc Québécois is still the only party in Quebec that is listening to workers.

[Employment Insurance, September 29th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the employment insurance system is not responding to the needs of workers. It needs a complete overhaul, which is why we have introduced a bill to improve the employment insurance system and facilitate access to it, notably by establishing a single, universal threshold of 360 working hours.

Does the government plan to support this bill, which will be voted on tonight, to ensure that workers' employment insurance premiums are not used for other purposes?

[Employment Insurance Act, September 22nd, 2010]

moved that the bill be concurred in at report stage.