“The Trans Mountain pipeline cost $34 billion instead of $6 billion, so it will lose money. I want to know if the member supports the government spending public money to buy pipelines.”

“Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague on his speech. He really enjoyed quoting data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I would like to ask him a question on that. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that if, tomorrow morning, we were to buy the Trans Mountain pipeline project in western Canada, which is now operational, we would lose money. The project was initially expected to cost about $6 billion, but ultimately cost us $34 billion instead. That means it is not profitable. If we buy a pipeline and have to sell it again, we lose money. I would like my colleague to be clear. Does he support the government using public funds to buy pipeline projects?”

“The Conservatives are arguing over the definition of a recession. We should debate the real problems instead, like weak productivity, slow growth, and people's purchasing power.”

“Madam Speaker, the Conservatives have been shouting themselves hoarse trying to convince us. Is there a recession or not? They want to launch a technical debate on this issue, yet the whole thing obscures the real debate, which concerns purchasing power and Canadian productivity. We have a problem: We are not growing. We have a productivity problem. Do the Conservatives not think it might be more effective for the House to debate fundamental problems rather than definitions?”

“Conservatives want to spend money on a new pipeline in western Canada. The government already bought a pipeline for $34 billion that will lose money if sold. I am asking my colleague if using public money to buy another pipeline will cause inflation.”

“Madam Speaker, the Conservatives keep saying that investments are needed in fossil fuels. They are in favour of approving a new pipeline project in western Canada. As members will recall, the Trudeau government purchased a pipeline that cost $34 billion, and if the government were to sell it tomorrow, it would ultimately lose money. I wonder if my colleague thinks that using public funds to buy a new pipeline should be regarded as inflationary spending.”

“I want a yes-or-no answer. Does spending $34 billion of public money on a pipeline cause inflation?”

“Madam Speaker, anyone who has ever been a teacher knows that repetition is a teaching tool, so I am going to repeat the question my colleague from Rimouski—La Matapédia asked. Is spending $34 billion of public funds on a pipeline inflationary? Is spending $34 billion of public funds on a pipeline inflationary? Is spending $34 billion of public funds on a pipeline inflationary? Is spending $34 billion of public money on a pipeline inflationary? I know the Chair can sometimes lose patience with us, so I will not repeat it a fifth time. The question is clear. Is spending $34 billion of public money on a pipeline inflationary, yes or no?”

“I want the member to explain how Canada can be a clean energy leader while spending 34 billion dollars on an oil pipeline. I want to know if he thinks that is clean.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like to extend greetings to my colleague. We work very well together on the Standing Committee on Finance. As he said, he spent 20 years in banking. I would like to know whether he and his fellow optimists believe that spending $34 billion on a pipeline for the dirtiest oil in the world and funding a new pipeline forms part of what he referred to in his comments as Canada’s strategy to become a clean energy superpower. I would like to know whether the optimists consider that to be clean.”

“We will vote against this Conservative motion. The Conservatives do not say what they mean by inflationary spending, and they spread false information. Still, the Canadian economy is doing poorly. The Liberals mismanage spending, change the budget rules, and have no real plan to grow the economy. Ottawa also needs to pay Quebec the $733 million it spent helping asylum seekers.”

“Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House, but even more so when it is before you. I will take a second to say that we obviously need to build a strong Quebec, and to build a strong Quebec, we need forward thinkers. I saw a lot of young people this weekend when I did the rounds of Young Entrepreneurs Day. I know there are young entrepreneurs in every one of our ridings. I also wanted to take a second to acknowledge all elementary and secondary students and graduates. It is exam time for them. I know it is June, the sun is shining and they want to go outside. I want to tell them that they need to keep studying and working hard, that they are our future, that I am thinking of them and that I will wish them a great summer when school is out. By studying hard, they will be better equipped to weigh the facts, so they might spread less disinformation than is often found in Conservative motions and in Liberal speeches like the one we just heard from my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou. I just asked the member for Beauport—Limoilou whether he considers pipelines carrying the dirtiest oil in the world to be clean energy. He replied that, no, in order to make something clean, we have to get our hands dirty, because to make something clean, we have to accept mess. The government wants to use the dirtiest oil to produce clean energy. Now those folks want to stand up in the House all day and say that the motion before us is nothing but disinformation. Clearly, the level of debate here is often pretty low. There are tons of nuances in the kind of debate we are having today on the motion before us. This Conservative motion is actually pretty similar to the one they moved last week on the last Conservative opposition day. They start by saying that we are the only G20 country in a recession, that everything is broken and that we need to put an end to inflationary spending. The last time I gave a speech, I explained that it might take a few months to find out whether we are in a recession today, once the data is revised and the next quarter or two of data comes out, given that we are in an unusual situation. There are clips of Conservative MPs talking about us. They call us the “Liberal Bloc” and say we deny the existence of a recession. I am not saying that everyone should take a course in economics, but these people have never taken one in their life. They studied kinesiology, and now they are going on social media to educate us about what a recession is. The problem is that while definitions are being debated, substantive issues are not. We are not debating the fact that we have a problem with very weak growth, endemic for a number of years now. We are not debating the fact that more of the past five quarters have been negative than positive. We are not debating the fact that, for the least wealthy 20% to 25% of people in our economy, the cost of living has risen faster than their purchasing power. We are not debating the fact that yes, these people need help and yes, it takes benefits. We voted for the new benefit, which the government says is intended to help with grocery bills but which is actually an enhanced GST rebate. We support that. However, it is not sound policy to constantly add new benefits and increase the tax burden when the government is unable to generate growth, negotiate a free trade agreement with the Americans, or even tell us what the negotiating strategy with the United States would be. We can debate what does or does not constitute a recession. The C.D. Howe Institute council that dates recessions in Canada says that there must be at least one quarter of negative growth, that the decline in that quarter must be significant and that it must be sufficiently widespread across the economy. Last week, Desjardins’ chief economist said that 50% of sectors are affected. Normally, we say it is a recession when 60% of sectors are affected. It is a matter of the council’s judgment, but that does not detract from the fact that things are not going well. The Liberals keep telling us that they are creating jobs. That said, governments always boast about creating jobs. I would invite everyone here to take a look at the work of Nicolas Petrovsky‑Nadeau, an economist who studied in Quebec and who I believe is currently working at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. He explains how many jobs must be created each quarter to stop unemployment from rising. Just because jobs have been created, that does not mean that the government has succeeded. The Liberals are saying that they did better than analysts predicted. Of course they did. What is the best way to manage expectations? It is to keep them really low. When analysts think that we are going to do extremely poorly and things do not turn out quite as badly as they thought, then we end up doing better than predicted. That is what the Liberals are bragging about. However, we will be voting against this motion because, once again, the Conservatives have failed to define what constitutes inflationary spending. I think the chief government whip is not listening because I am speaking French. He does not even have his earpiece in. When we speak French in the House, nobody seems to listen, except you, Mr. Speaker, because your French is very good and we appreciate that. I listened to what the members for Whitby and Beauport—Limoilou had to say, but now that I am speaking, they are patting each other on the back, chatting, joking and laughing. The funny thing is that I am making fun of them and they do not even realize it. They are not interested in what is happening in the House of Commons. That member is a Liberal House officer, the whip, the guy who is supposed to be responsible for Liberal party discipline, but he is not listening. This Conservative motion contains disinformation. We do not know what inflationary spending is, but there is still a grain of truth to it, namely the assessment that the Canadian economy is in poor shape. I have spoken about the issue of growth. We have a persistent growth problem. The government disagrees. It tells us that, according to certain IMF forecasts, we will be the best in the G7. However, that has not happened yet. If the Liberals had done a good job, they would be talking to us about the past few quarters. Instead, what they are telling us is that they have done such a poor job in recent quarters that they are going to rely on a forecast from the IMF that is actually quite old. Let us wait and see what happens with those forecasts. In the same speech, the member for Whitby told us that his government outperformed the forecasts, but that it was still bad. Now the Liberals are telling us they will be the best in the G7 because there are forecasts. That is brilliant. The Liberals have mastered the art of twisting the numbers until they say what they want them to. We know what confessions under torture are worth. They are worth next to nothing. The government is breaking down the GDP even though it has not yet started trade negotiations with the United States. Granted, Donald Trump is not easy to work with. However, the government does not have a strategy. We are trying to find out what the strategy is. We, the separatists in the Bloc Québécois, were criticized during the election campaign for saying that we would work with the government on its strategy to normalize relations with the United States as far as possible. We are looking for the strategy. There is no strategy. Since the Prime Minister has been in office, since the arrival of the so-called new government, exports have steadily declined quarter after quarter. The decline has exceeded 4%, quarter after quarter, since the first quarter of 2026. That is because we do not have trade agreements. What are the Liberals doing to hide this? They tell us that they have increased our exports to Europe. When we break down the figures, we realize that it was basically a large volume of aluminum sent to Europe, at fairly high prices, that changed the statistics. We do not have a trade agreement. Why not hold an opposition day on that? That is something the Conservatives should consider. What is more, there is no reliable fiscal anchor. We do not even know how to assess the government’s performance anymore, because the government no longer knows what to compare itself to. Previously, we had the debt-to-GDP ratio. The government told us that this no longer works, so it became the deficit-to-GDP ratio. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has also weighed in. By the way, the Liberals chose her themselves and unilaterally imposed this decision on the House. There was no consensus on this appointment, particularly because of the way it was made. The Parliamentary Budget Officer is clearly competent, but the government appointed her unilaterally. Now she is saying that the government will not be able to meet its fiscal anchor every year. Luc Godbout appeared before the Standing Committee on Finance. I think it was last week. Luc Godbout holds the research chair in taxation and public finance at Université de Sherbrooke. His team does extraordinary work, they are recognized and they are non-partisan. They are not a bunch of bozos from the opposition who do nothing but complain, as the members on the other side of the House like to say. The witnesses told us that they do not understand what the government’s fiscal anchors are and that we need to have some. They told us that they cannot even say whether they are good or bad because the Liberals change the rules whenever they feel like it. That is a valid point in the Conservative motion. What else is in the motion? It talks about inflationary and non-inflationary spending. That is just political rhetoric. What else did we learn from the representatives of the Université de Sherbrooke research chair? They said that our spending is in a shambles. A budget is drafted and presented, appropriations are voted on, and then we find ourselves in a situation where the Minister of Finance suddenly decides, on a whim, to add a new benefit, a new scheme, a new payout. Everything has been so poorly planned that even academics can no longer keep track of the deficit over the course of the year. That is a problem. It is a planning problem. It is a rigour problem. In the last budget cycle, the Minister of Finance decided to present a budget in the fall instead of in the winter. He was not ready, so he changed the provisions before the update, which means that the Standing Committee on Finance is still studying one budget bill anther another and can no longer keep track of them. That is mismanagement. What did Mr. Godbout, the research chair and professor at Université de Sherbrooke, say when he when he came to testify? He told us that the government needs to be clear about what constitutes capital expenditures and what constitutes operating expenditures. The government is making up its own rules, and they do not comply with generally accepted accounting principles. In the budget, it is classifying security at FIFA matches as an investment. We need clear rules because the government is disguising operating expenses as investments. According to the professor from Université de Sherbrooke, the government is giving tax credits to companies that might invest and calling that an investment. That is not how any public accounting system in the world operates. Even in the United Kingdom, where investments are accounted for separately—where there is a balance sheet, a statement or some sort of equivalent in the public accounts—nobody does this. That is mismanagement. I do not know what the Conservatives call inflationary spending, because anything can fit in that category. I asked one Conservative MP a question earlier. I asked him whether spending $34 billion in public funds for a pipeline was inflationary. He practically turned himself inside out rather than answer my question. The Conservatives do not want to answer. What is inflationary spending? Does inflationary spending include a 10% increase in the OAS for people between 65 and 74 years of age, victims of Liberal discrimination who are suffering due to the increased cost of living? We do not know. Furthermore, I notice that no one seems to have a solution. No one is suggesting solutions. The government tells us that everything is fine and that the IMF thinks that everything will be fine. Well, we are proposing solutions. Last week, during the last opposition day, the member for Whitby told us that opposition members never do anything but complain. However, after the unions, the FTQ, the Syndicat des métallos and the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, we were the first to say that a wage subsidy was needed in response to the new tariff calculation method that the U.S. administration introduced in April. A wage subsidy is needed to protect businesses that are captured by the new tariff formula and that cannot increase their inventories any more. That is one thing. The employment rate is doing well because companies are accumulating stock, but that will not last forever. When these companies run into problems, we will need to maintain the employment relationship so that employees do not have to rely on employment insurance, so that they do not go work for competitors and so that we can free up some margin in the actuarial calculations that are used to balance the EI fund. Given the tariff crisis, we must ensure that we do not have to increase EI contributions for companies that may be struggling a bit right now. These are the kinds of solutions that we are proposing, but we are essentially being told that we do not want to build Canada strong by building pipelines and we never come up with any solutions. I understand that the government signed a separate infrastructure agreement with Quebec. We are pleased about that. The Liberals have been telling us for years that certain conditions must be met and that we were wrong. However, now they have signed a separate agreement and everything is fine. Instead of going with a non-existent high-speed train with a business plan that does not make any sense and that heartlessly expropriates people’s land, as Alto is currently doing, we are asking for more funding for public transit. That is a solution that would help relieve congestion on our city highways. That would be a good idea. Let us talk about the forestry industry. The Saint-Michel sawmill just closed down. For years, these people have been facing tariffs that make no sense. They have been forced to pay countervailing duties that get tied up in the United States. These companies win their cases in court 10 years later. They get their money back, but by then, they have gone bankrupt. However, this is an asset. We are telling the government to buy back these countervailing duties. It is an asset that would not even be counted toward the deficit, and it would give these businesses some breathing room and liquidity. The response we get is that the government has already done everything it could. It grants loans to businesses on the verge of closing, but it refuses to implement this measure. Then it criticizes us for not coming up with proposals. The government wants to build a strong country, but Quebec and the provinces also have responsibilities. Think of the hospitals with leaky roofs and the infrastructure. The governments of Quebec and the provinces are closer to the people than the federal government is. The influx of asylum seekers has exceeded Quebec’s capacity to accommodate them and has cost $733 million. The National Assembly has unanimously called for this amount to be repaid to Quebec. Why has it never been repaid? That would also give people some breathing room. After all, people do not just pay federal taxes. They also pay provincial taxes. When the provinces are financially squeezed, it does not help taxpayers. When a sick person has a hard time getting the services they need, that does not help them either. When teachers cannot be recruited, that does not help children. Another thing that Ottawa needs to do is transfer the money that is owed to Quebec. The Liberals say that they are investing, that it is important to boost productivity and adapt to climate change. The government wants to buy pipelines and, at the same time, it is closing the Department of Agriculture research centres in the riding of the Minister of Government Transformation. These centres are designed to support climate change adaptation, develop new species and boost agricultural productivity. There is a unanimous consensus in the agricultural sector. These research centres are vital to the future of our food. They are being shut down to save what amounts to practically 0% of the federal budget, yet still, they are being shut down. I am not going to talk about the Governor General, because not everybody likes that, but everyone knows what I think of the role. The Bloc Québécois is putting forward proposals to help our businesses. Take the example of an aerospace policy. The government has a nature policy, an energy policy and policies for just about everything, yet Liberal MPs from my area are going around saying we do not need an aerospace policy and that the government is handing out subsidies. These things take time. The aeronautics and aerospace sectors operate over decades. We need to connect the military, the civilian sector and everyone’s needs so that we buy our own products. The government is saying that we do not need a policy. It is time to buy aircraft, and he is off in Sweden trying to convince someone to open a factory here rather than ordering planes, yet we are told we do not need a strategy. The government is also telling us that the industry is not asking for it. However, the Standing Committee on Finance heard from the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, or AIAC, and its representatives told us that we need an aerospace industrial policy. They made that clear to us. If we had one today, the government would not be doing the tango with every company in the world to determine which aircraft to choose, because the orders would already be coming in. That is what would happen. I am not saying that everything the Liberals do is bad. The productivity superdeduction is a good measure, and I think it should be expanded. I think the government has picked the winners, but its fiscal situation has become so bad that it cannot afford to do that anymore. That is a problem. Some good things have been done, but it is not enough. I hear the government saying that all the opposition does is complain, shout and spread disinformation. Do members know how difficult it is, politically, to say that we know the recession will be coming in the future? It would be easy to say we are in a recession, like the Conservatives do. Do members know how difficult it is politically for us to remain rigorous, to stand our ground and to keep things in perspective? We are doing that. When we do that, the government is happy. When we propose solutions that come from the front lines and the industry, in the same speech, we become the whiners of the minority opposition that the government no longer listens to. Now that they form a majority, I am asking the Liberals to dial down the arrogance and smugness. They have to stop saying that they are the best thing since sliced bread and start considering the good ideas coming from the other side of the House. I have very good relationships with the other members of the Standing Committee on Finance. I see the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin walking into the House. I think we have ideas to contribute, but the government needs to be at least a little receptive.”

“The government is taking away the rights of people whose land is being taken for a train project. People in my riding are being harassed, and this project has no proper plan. We need to cancel it and start over.”

“Madam Speaker, this issue has to do with the business of supply, because we just voted supply for the project. With Bill C‑15, the Minister of Transport callously decided to make people along the Alto corridor second-class citizens. He decided to take away their recourse and their right to question the need for expropriation for a train. Through his actions, the Minister of Transport is destroying what little social licence there was for this project. People in my riding are being harassed by Alto. There have been unauthorized drone flights. Now they have stopped because they were not allowed in the first place. People from Alto are knocking on doors without identifying themselves and without offering a business card. There are people in my riding who have been expropriated once already, who are familiar with expropriation and whose family or friends dealt with family tragedies such as suicides, broken families and depression. This is not ancient history. The last five pieces of land expropriated following the airport saga were only given back in 2024. That is what is happening with a train that does not exist and that has no business plan or cost-benefit analysis. Bill C‑15 is an injustice. The people of Mirabel think that we need to scrap this project and start over from scratch.”

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“The Prime Minister promised he would quickly make a trade deal with the United States, but he failed to do it. The Liberals need to share their trade plan with us so we can work together, instead of keeping all the power and information to themselves.”

“Madam Speaker, it appears that we were not watching the same election campaign. When I was campaigning last year, I did not see the Prime Minister spend 30 days campaigning on the idea that he was going to strike a deal with Indonesia. That was not what the Prime Minister was saying during the campaign. He said that 80% of our trade was with the United States, that he was the best person to negotiate with Mr. Trump and that Mr. Trump would respect him. That did not happen. Afterwards, the government started saying that we have free trade agreements with all the G7 countries, but the Prime Minister did not sign any of those agreements. I am in favour of diversifying trade. It is a good thing. Our agreement with South Korea was signed by the Conservatives. The reality is that the current Prime Minister campaigned on the promise that he would be able to quickly get the United States to sign an agreement, and that did not happen. Do the Liberals have a strategy? It is possible that they do, but given the government’s level of transparency, we are unaware of what that strategy is. If the Liberals want help, if they want us to work with them, if they want ideas and if they think we are smart enough to collaborate with, maybe they should tell us what is going on rather than keep us in the dark. More and more things in this government are becoming concentrated in the Prime Minister’s Office. It is worrisome, because we thought that the concentration of power in the PMO became a thing of the past with the end of the Trudeau government.”

“The government is ignoring democracy because it has a majority. Ministers avoid questions, hide committee meetings, and put pesticide rule changes inside a budget bill. I work hard on these bills, but the Liberals refuse to listen to Parliament.”

“Madam Speaker, it is true that the government has become increasingly arrogant since it bought itself a majority. First, as we saw during the consideration of all votes, the Minister of Finance has not answered a single question in his political career. This did not begin last week. Let us consider Driver Inc. People have died because of these truckers. Children have died. During the debate in committee on Driver Inc., the Liberals voted in favour of holding the meeting in camera, and we learned that the chair of the committee is attending events put on by those responsible for Driver Inc. With Bill C‑30, which is currently before us, they are relaxing the laws on pesticides. They are hiding that in a budget bill. We learned that the Minister of Health is participating in events put on by pesticide companies who have been pushing for this for years. Parliament exists for a reason. It deserves better than what the Liberals are doing to it. I believe in the work of Parliament. We are working hard in that regard. We read the bills. I am in contact with the parliamentary secretary and the member for Whitby. We have ideas. We submit amendments. However, the current government has decided that, now that it has a majority, it is free to do away with democracy in this place. I think that says a lot about the Prime Minister, who sees himself more as a CEO than as a prime minister.”

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“The Prime Minister says average wages are beating inflation, but that is not true for everyone. Up to a quarter of Canadians live paycheque to paycheque and are getting poorer. Sending out one-time cheques does not fix the problem.”

“Madam Speaker, the devil is in the details. We need to look at the numbers and break them down a little. During question period, the Prime Minister stated that average wages have risen faster than inflation. However, we need to look at the people at the bottom of the ladder. Being rich in Canada today is not an issue. They can still afford to buy big cars. They can even afford to pay $2 a litre for gas. They can still go to restaurants. The problem is that things are stagnating for the 20% to 25% of people who live from paycheque to paycheque. Those people have not seen an increase in their purchasing power. This government has been in power for 10 or 11 years. We all agree that the previous prime minister was not much of an economics guy. Even his finance minister ran away, which says a lot. This government keeps doling out benefits and new cheques without acknowledging the problem. It is fine to help people in times of crisis, but when we see that 20% of the people in this country are getting poorer and losing purchasing power and the government simply hands them a cheque, that is hardly a vision for society. It is just making people lose faith in our institutions. That worries me.”

“The Alto train project does not have a real business plan. A study shows it will have 15 million fewer passengers than claimed, and it will need over $50 billion in subsidies. Taxpayers are right to worry about how much this project will cost.”

“Madam Speaker, there is no business plan. We ask questions and Alto responds by spending millions of dollars on advertising instead of giving us the facts. For the first full year of operation, according to McGill University researchers, Alto is overestimating the number of passengers by 15 million per year. According to the McGill University study, over the years and in today’s dollars, more than $50 billion will have to be spent on subsidies, just to keep this project going. The government is going to have to pay 15% of the project’s costs up front. The government is going to have to expropriate more land than they need so they can sell it back to developers to fund 15% of the project’s costs. That is if there are no cost overruns, and there will be cost overruns. Let us see how they work. Let us see how they approach people. Aside from the expropriations, my constituents and all Quebeckers and Canadians are right to be worried about Alto when it comes to their taxes.”

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“People are struggling, but the government's plan borrows $25 billion for secret projects like pipelines. These add huge debt and do not cut pollution. I want to know if my colleague agrees that this spending will make life more expensive.”

“Madam Speaker, someone mentioned rigour and transparency earlier in the debate. I must admit that I am hearing a lot of rhetoric today. Some folks are trying to simply persuade people, rather than using real ideas to convince them. Yes, some Quebeckers and Canadians are struggling to make ends meet, and I would like to see some solutions brought forward. A $25-billion sovereign wealth fund has been proposed. This is a debt that will be used to finance other major projects, with all decisions being made behind closed doors, without any input from the public. These include pipelines, which entail huge debts and do nothing to reduce our carbon footprint. We know there is no official definition of the term, but I would like to know whether my colleague agrees that these are inflationary measures.”

“I want to know if the Conservatives think a wealth fund built on debt causes inflation. I also want to know if they think government spending on major projects and western pipelines causes inflation.”

“Madam Speaker, we can see my colleague’s love for his constituents and his desire to ensure that Canada’s economy comes out okay, if not better. I did not get a satisfactory answer to my questions when we talked about rigour and transparency. The Conservative Party is talking about inflationary measures, and I was wondering whether my colleague thinks that a sovereign wealth fund is an inflationary measure since the government’s sovereign wealth fund is not being created with money that has already been saved. It is a debt. I am wondering the same thing about the government’s major projects and the pipelines in western Canada. The government is spending money, but do the Conservatives consider that to be inflationary spending?”