Official Languages  Mr. Speaker, today, Quebec reaffirms its intention make federally regulated businesses subject to Bill 101, responding to the unanimous will of the Quebec National Assembly and to a request from all living premiers. Ottawa always objected. However, last fall, this government finally recognized that it needed to “protect and promote French in Quebec”.

Official Languages  Mr. Speaker, precisely because it acknowledges the decline of French in Quebec and the need for action to promote and protect our language, the federal government should welcome Quebec's introduction of one of the most ambitious language reform documents of the past four decades.

Scotland's Election Result  Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I am pleased to congratulate the Scottish National Party and the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, for their resounding victory in Thursday's election. The majority of the people of Scotland voted very clearly in favour of holding another referendum on their future with the United Kingdom.

Federal Dental Care Plan  Madam Speaker, you might say that no one can be against virtue and apple pie, and you are right, because everyone would love to have a universal dental care plan to rely, and it would be a good idea for the government to look into it. The problem is that our NDP friends are thinking of either the wrong legislature or the wrong country.

Fight Against Tax Evasion  Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Saint-Jean just raised a very good point. The government does like to brag about wanting to fight tax evasion and tax avoidance. It invests huge amounts of money, with mixed results, as I have talked about in the past. All it needs to do is simply outlaw what was legalized through regulation.

Fight Against Tax Evasion  Mr. Speaker, that question seems to complement the one from my colleague from Saint-Jean. As I was just saying, the first tangible move would be to amend the regulations that helped make it legal for Canadian companies to use 23 tax havens. Rather than combatting them, we are literally being complicit in these tax havens.

Fight Against Tax Evasion  Mr. Speaker, I will just say that I completely agree with the member. The government cannot claim to be combatting tax evasion and avoidance while at the same time creating all of the measures and mechanisms that allow this to happen. That is what the federal government did, however, first under Jean Chrétien's Liberal government, then under Stephen Harper's Conservative government, and now, under the current Prime Minister.

Fight Against Tax Evasion  moved: That, given that the pandemic and the pressure it is putting on public finances has created the urgent need to close the loopholes being taken advantage of by some taxpayers through the use of tax havens, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) amend the Income Tax Act and the Income Tax Regulations to ensure that income that Canadian corporations repatriate from their subsidiaries in tax havens ceases to be exempt from tax in Canada; (b) review the concept of permanent establishment so that income reported by shell companies created abroad by Canadian taxpayers for tax purposes is taxed in Canada; (c) require banks and other federally regulated financial institutions to disclose, in their annual reports, a list of their foreign subsidiaries and the amount of tax they would have been subject to had their income been reported in Canada; (d) review the tax regime applicable to digital multinationals, whose operations do not depend on having a physical presence, to tax them based on where they conduct business rather than where they reside; (e) work toward establishing a global registry of actual beneficiaries of shell companies to more effectively combat tax evasion; and (f) use the global financial crisis caused by the pandemic to launch a strong offensive at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development against tax havens with the aim of eradicating them.

Rail Transportation  Mr. Speaker, people in Saint-Basile-le-Grand, Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville and Saint-Hubert are extremely concerned about rail safety, and they are probably not the only ones, given the very preventable Lac-Mégantic tragedy, which I had first-hand experience with as the Quebec minister of public security at the time.

Post-Secondary Education  Mr. Speaker, I am reaching out to my colleague. Laurentian University needs a solution before the 100 professors relocate and the students move away to Ottawa or Quebec. We would be more than honoured to welcome them in Quebec, but they have the right to services in French in their native Ontario.

Post-Secondary Education  Mr. Speaker, the entire francophone community stands with Franco-Ontarians over the cuts at Laurentian University. Yesterday, the Quebec National Assembly unanimously expressed its concerns. The president of the Université de Moncton, in New Brunswick, said, “We are all at risk.

Health  Mr. Speaker, instead of trying to interfere in Quebec's jurisdictions, Ottawa should look after its own. Had it managed the borders as everyone had been asking it to do since the start of the pandemic, our schools might not be overwhelmed by the variants right now. Had it been quicker and more efficient at procuring vaccines, we might not be in the dark red zone today.

Intergovernmental Relations  Mr. Speaker, speaking to the CBC, a senior bureaucrat revealed how Ottawa really sees its relationship with Quebec. When asked about interference in areas under provincial jurisdiction in the budget, this source stated, “The feds have the spending power. If we set out the terms and the money, the provinces who want to be early movers on this will come on board.

Intergovernmental Relations  Mr. Speaker, the minister is doing what the Liberals did all weekend long, that is, claiming that the Bloc wants to pick a fight. However, the rumours being leaked by the government leading up to the budget suggest that picking fights is precisely its strategy. Its senior officials are not even trying to hide the fact that they will interfere in Quebec and provincial jurisdictions, set the terms, and threaten to take away funding from governments that stand up for themselves.

Health  Mr. Speaker, Quebec and the provinces are calling for increased health transfers in order to deal with the pandemic, but especially because the cost of health care keeps rising, whereas the federal share of the funding keeps going down, causing Quebec and the provinces to go into debt.