“I support this bill because it sends $1.7 billion directly to the provinces and territories for housing without any conditions. The federal government collects too much tax money while the provinces are left to pay for health care and other services.”

“Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Mirabel, the one they call “the MP with the golden voice”, just like little Joselito, and whom the people of Alto call “le député du petit train de l’amour”. It is a pleasure to speak today to express the Bloc Québécois’s support for Bill C-26. The Bloc Québécois has often advocated for an unconditional transfer of $1.7 billion to the provinces and territories and that is what this bill provides. This money will go directly to the territories to address the major housing crisis we are currently facing, without going through any new structures. That is the best part, that this money is not going through new structures, action plans, or some sort of federal entity as we saw with Build Canada Homes. Not long ago, in fact, I rose to speak to Build Canada Homes. We quickly realized that although this initiative had its appeal, with $7.3 billion to invest, it was slowing down social housing construction. I gave the example, in my riding, of a group called Loge m’entraide, which received funds from the SHQ, or Société d’habitation du Québec, for a major project, and was waiting for an answer about the federal government’s contribution through the affordable housing fund. As often happens with federal initiatives, CMHC’s affordable housing fund was set aside with assurances that a new initiative was on the way. The new initiative never materialized and had to be picked up by Build Canada Homes, with the result that the Loge m’entraide project is now in limbo. However, that is not what we are seeing with Bill C-26. It provides a direct transfer to the provinces, as we have been calling for, rather than, as is often the case with the federal government, a proliferation of top-down structures and criteria imposed by Ottawa, without Ottawa necessarily being familiar with the specific challenges faced by the provinces and municipalities. We have said many times that the federal government should instead focus on straightforward, unconditional and predictable transfers to the provinces. That is what we are seeing with Bill C‑26, I might add. However, my job is certainly not to sing the government’s praises, so I would like to take this opportunity to address a glaring problem: federal interference in areas of provincial jurisdiction. Why can I do this in the context of Bill C-26? Because it is, in a way, the exception that proves the rule. There is something glaringly obvious when we look at this bill and past legislation in the context of Canadian federalism. I do not need to talk about predatory federalism, which we have often seen and involves an encroachment on areas of jurisdiction, but there is something glaringly obvious in the fact that the federal government has repeatedly acted in an unjust and unfair manner when transferring funds. This gives me an opportunity to once again address the most glaring injustice in the federation: the fiscal imbalance. We need to talk about this again because the reason the government can transfer $1.7 billion dollars at this point is that it has the fiscal capacity to do so. It has that fiscal capacity because of the fiscal imbalance. It has more revenue than expenses. What I mean by the fiscal imbalance is quite simple. Virtually all of the public services governments are required to provide are delivered by the provinces and Quebec, yet the federal government’s tax base allows it to collect 60% of the total tax revenue. Essentially, the provinces and Quebec provide most of the services, such as education, health care and social programs, to name just a few, but the federal government’s social mandate is typically limited to old age security benefits and family benefits. Note that employment insurance is not included because the employment insurance fund is not financed through taxation. It is funded by employers and workers. The federal government has no social mission and a lot of revenue. The provinces and Quebec have a lot of social missions, a lot of spending and little revenue. That is the fiscal imbalance at work. That is why, year in and year out, over the past 10 to 15 years, the government has had to focus on transfer programs to the provinces. These transfers were often accompanied by the federal government’s involvement in areas of jurisdiction that it knew very little about, through strategies that were not always efficient. We have seen examples of that. Like me, we have experienced that. We could talk about the dental insurance program, which was a disaster. However, the worst disaster in the federation is the fiscal imbalance, which mainly affects health care. I want to emphasize that point because it seems to me that we have not talked about it in a while. If memory serves, 1969 is when the public health care system was put in place. For every dollar invested in health care, 50¢ came from the provinces and 50¢ came from the federal government. The Bloc Québécois has fought this battle. We have come back to this issue on numerous occasions over the past few years because barely 22% of today’s funding for our health care systems comes from the federal government. When only 22% of funding comes from the federal government, this implies that the remainder is borne by the provinces. Health care is the Quebec government’s most important responsibility and the largest budget item. Looking at the current projections, it quickly becomes clear that between 42% and 45% of the Quebec government’s total budget is devoted to a single responsibility: health care. This means that there is just over 50% of the budget left to cover all the government’s other responsibilities such as education, the fight against poverty, the needs of local authorities, infrastructure requirements or support for Quebeckers. The federal government sometimes implements industrial strategies to support businesses, but they are not always appropriate. Allow me to give a rather striking example. We are currently experiencing one of the worst slumps in Canada’s economic history due to our relations with the United States. The two hardest hit sectors are Quebec’s forestry industry and the aluminum sector. The situation in Quebec’s forestry industry is the worst. With the combination of countervailing duties, anti-dumping duties and additional tariffs of 10%, 45% of these companies’ profit margins are going right down the drain. They have no access to them given the tariff issue with the United States. The other major problem affects the aluminum industry, which is being hit with 50% tariffs. What was the federal government’s strategic response? It said that we needed to export more energy. That is rather shocking. The strategic response of the level of government with the greatest fiscal capacity was not to look at which sectors were most affected. Instead, the government looked at what opportunities were available to it. The government had an opportunity to advance the energy sector, one of its primary missions. It therefore chose to support the oil and gas industry, even though that industry was not affected by the crisis. It is true. The oil and gas industry is the only one that has not been affected by the crisis. Here is what I find even more shocking. When we look at the ownership structure of the oil and gas industry, we see that most of the companies belong to Americans. The federal government has therefore decided to invest Quebeckers’ money in strategies aimed at supporting the only sector of the economy that is harming Quebec. This is an example of one of the federal government’s major investments. This is of direct concern to the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, since he arrived just as I was talking about that. The federal government is making this investment using its fiscal capacity, but it is hurting Quebec. We will therefore take the $1.7 billion, since it is being paid out unconditionally, but once again it strikes me as a counter-example that proves that we are in a predatory federalist system. I would love to hear the member for Winnipeg North contradict what I just said.”

“Quebec needs to make its own choices. The federal government makes decisions that hurt us, like using our tax money to help the energy sector instead of dealing with tariffs. The only way for Quebec to succeed is to become an independent country.”

“Mr. Speaker, the greatest benefit anyone can have in life is political autonomy. My neighbour is not the one who decides what I do with my earnings, how I use that money, how I will make it grow. I am the one who makes those decisions. As I said earlier, politically, we are subject to a level of government that makes decisions that are contrary to our best interest. The government’s response to the tariff crisis is one example of that. The only sector with no tariffs is the energy sector. All of the government’s strategies focus on the energy sector, and that is what Quebeckers’ money is being used for. This proves that the only way to succeed is to have political autonomy, and the only way we can achieve that is through independence.”

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“Equalization payments are meant to balance wealth between provinces. When the federal government invests in oil, oil-rich provinces get richer and Quebec depends even more on these payments. I want the member to explain how this is a trap.”

“Mr. Speaker, equalization is intended to level out disparities in fiscal capacity. For a fairly long time, Quebec’s ministry of finance used to publish what was known as the update on federal transfers. It revealed that almost the entire difference in fiscal capacity between the so-called “rich” and “poor” provinces could be traced back to non-renewable natural resources. What happens when federal money is invested in oil? The provinces that produce the most oil get rich, while Quebec grows even more dependent on equalization. I would like my colleague to explain for me how that can be a trap.”

“Quebec lost factory jobs because the energy sector drove up the value of the Canadian dollar. The former NDP leader used to talk about this problem, but he stopped once he got close to power.”

“Mr. Speaker, it definitely is a trap. It is such a trap that it has even been documented. They call it “Dutch disease”. Quebec’s manufacturing sector lost most of its jobs because the energy sector bumped up the value of the Canadian dollar. We are the ones who paid the price. I remember the former NDP leader speaking out against that. As soon as he came close to power, however, he chose to pander to the rest of Canada and pretend Dutch disease no longer existed.”

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“I support this housing bill because it sends money directly to Quebec without conditions. However, I oppose the government cutting off debate. The government is rushing bills through Parliament instead of giving us time to study them properly.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all the brave men and women who are here tonight and who will be staying up late. I was joking around earlier with my colleague and neighbour, the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. All kidding aside, I think that she knows that I really like her. I mentioned behavioural issues because she was talking really loudly. However, we really like hearing her voice. That said, she still plans to support a closure motion. She is still going to vote in favour of it. This is not the first closure motion that we have debated. As Parliament winds down for the summer, ever since the government managed to scrape together a majority by poaching members from the Conservatives and the NDP, it has imposed closure on not one, two, three, four or five bills, but nine. The government is likely going to keep Parliament in session until very late this Friday. That is okay because it is our job to be here. However, this is happening because the government is not communicating with the opposition parties properly. It is not managing its work in the House properly, and it is having a hard time setting its priorities. The government has even introduced closure on Bill C-22. This is a bill that could be highly detrimental to Canadians’ privacy and that will, in a sense, give the police access to our phones and our private data. Everyone understands that the legal framework needs to evolve, but imposing closure on this today is not something we were expecting. This is preventing serious parliamentary work from being carried out, yet I do not believe there was any real urgency. This is not the economic update. This is not tax legislation. The same thing happened with Bill C-30. The government turned up in committee. I agree that not all the proposed amendments were sound. However, when the first Conservative amendment was moved, after barely two minutes of debate, the government made its position very clear. Through the member for Whitby, it made it known that no amendments would be tolerated, that the government now had a majority and that, ultimately, committee time serves only a superficial purpose. The government is muzzling debate on important issues. One example is Bill C‑30. Right now, the government is telling us that it was elected, that it has a job to do, that it has an agenda. The new government, which is now almost 11 years old, says it was elected with a job to do. Now, the government is changing the law on pesticides to allow cabinet to make decisions that go against the science on pesticides. I am sure that there are plenty of great people in cabinet. However, there are no pesticide specialists or scientists who have conducted studies on the subject. The Green Party member came to talk to us about this in committee. She clearly explained that, when it comes to pesticides and the environment, this bill is the most regressive and the most damaging to human health and safety since possibly the 1970s. That was not in the Liberals’ election platform. Privatizing airports to funnel money into their so-called sovereign wealth fund, which does not have a single penny in it, was not part of their campaign platform. Allowing air passenger complaints to be outsourced to private sector companies chosen by the Minister of Transportation, who is himself buddies with the airlines, which may even choose the companies that will handle complaints about them, was not part of the Liberals’ platform. Even though filibusters may sometimes be necessary in cases of parliamentary deadlock, members of Parliament must still be allowed to do their jobs. They must be given the chance to do their jobs. Closure is a measure of last resort that is imposed when there is a genuine deadlock. After all, there is a reason why it exists in the rules. However, it is not meant to be imposed eight, nine, 10, or 11 times in two or three days simply because the government has not done its job properly. I said it was not doing its job properly, so I will give some examples. Bill C-26 is one such example. Then there is Bill C-31. People need to understand that when a bill is introduced, opposition members must study it. To study it, they must be able to ask public servants very technical questions to have the bill’s clauses explained to them. This is called a technical briefing. These briefings are generally provided shortly after we receive the bill, so that we can do our jobs. When the Liberals imposed closure on Bill C-31, we had been asking the Department of Finance for a briefing for three weeks. We had not received a reply. Eventually, we were given a briefing on a Thursday, I believe, while everyone was attending committee meetings and almost none of the critics were able to attend. The following Monday, the Liberals introduced a closure motion. They claim that there is filibustering happening and that closure motions are necessary, but that is simply not the case. Now, we are in the same position with Bill C-26. We agree that Bill C-26 provides for unconditional payments to Quebec. This is rare; we welcome it and believe it is a sound approach. However, we have been asking for a technical briefing on Bill C-26 for about two months now. For two months, we have wanted to study and understand it, and now we are being hit with time allocation. We finally came to understand it during consideration of the estimates. I was there for consideration of the estimates, and so was the Minister of Finance. There were many questions about this. At this point, we are taking the minister’s word for it that he has reached an agreement with Quebec and that, based on this agreement, Quebec will receive its share of the funds, no strings attached. However, we had no way of knowing this from reading the bill. I had to stand up in committee of the whole to ask the Minister of Finance whether he intended to transfer the funds to Quebec with no strings attached. Only once we got answers in committee of the whole were we able to continue our own consideration of the bill. The bill states that the “amount of each payment is to be determined by the Minister”. This means that, once Bill C‑26 is passed, the Minister of Finance can get up tomorrow morning and decide how much to pay each government. He has the right to do whatever he wants with this money; it is at his discretion. The bill also states that amounts are to be paid out “at the times and in the manner that the Minister...considers appropriate.” Now we find ourselves in a situation where we have a vague bill, and we are realizing, after months, that the intent is there, that negotiations are happening, but also that our questions were legitimate. What is more, the explanations we got so we could understand this bill came from a press release. We had to pore over the press release to try to understand the government’s intentions. It was almost like analyzing a religious text. Despite all that, we are in favour of Bill C‑26. However, the government is telling us that there is interference, that there is work to be done, that they need to move quickly, that this is very important and that the opposition is blocking the process. That is not what is happening in this case. What we have here is a case of poor management of House of Commons time and poor management of committees by the office of the government House leader. I should point out that Quebec is the only province with permanent social and community housing construction programs. In Quebec, the definition of “social and community housing” differs from the definition of “affordable housing” used by programs in the rest of Canada. When it came to programs managed by CMHC, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, with the possible exception of the rapid housing initiative, Quebec rarely received its share because these programs focused on high-rise apartment buildings in cities in the rest of Canada. During the minute of time that I have left, I wish to say that under the current circumstances, with the construction and community ecosystems that are familiar with Quebec’s programs, what is being done here today is important. It is important to recognize that the most effective approach for these programs is to take 20% or 22% of the amount and pay it directly to Quebec. I will end by saying that this would prevent the Liberals from doing what they did with Canada’s national housing strategy, in other words, setting tons of conditions like the Trudeau government did and ending up in negotiations for three or four years, while we miss out on tens of thousands of completed housing units. We are pleased that the minister has agreed to pay Quebec its share. We are convinced that it will lead to housing starts on the ground and benefit Quebeckers.”

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“The federal government is bad at building housing and too far away to understand our needs. Quebec already has good programs to build homes. Ottawa should just give Quebec its share of the money without getting in the way.”

“Mr. Speaker, as I said, this is one of those rare instances where Quebec will get its share of the cash, and it is a sign of recognition that the federal government is not good at this, not good at building things. The federal government is not on the ground; it is a government that is far removed from immediate matters. This is a case in point, where Quebec must negotiate with Ottawa and go cap in hand to get its own money and put it into its own programs, which are already working. That was the case with the national housing strategy when it was still around. Negotiations went on for three and a half years, while housing was being built everywhere else. An agreement was eventually reached, and only then did housing units begin to be built. This dates back to the Trudeau era, and these housing units are just now being announced. It is not so much that we are in favour of the federal government getting involved. We are in favour of the federal government writing a cheque. Quebec is the only province with permanent programs to build social community housing. It is important to recognize that the federal government is not good at this, but that Ottawa unfortunately has the financial resources. It takes a cheque.”

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“The Bloc Québécois supports this bill because Quebec will get its share of housing money with no strings attached. Quebec has the right to make its own choices on housing and manages it better.”

“Mr. Speaker, I explained that in what my colleague referred to as my wonderful speech. I explained that, when we were looking at the estimates, I asked the Minister of Finance a question, and he answered it. I asked him whether he had negotiated with Quebec and whether he was committed to ensuring that Quebec would receive its share of funding with no strings attached. What we understood from the minister’s answer and from our interactions with the department is that the government was taking into account the unique nature of Quebec’s housing construction ecosystem this time and for this particular bill. The Bloc Québécois always asks the government to send Quebec transfers with no strings attached, and we make a huge fuss when the government refuses to do so. However, when the government decides to transfer the money with no strings attached, when it recognizes that the matter falls under Quebec’s exclusive jurisdiction and that Quebec is better at managing it, then we support the government. Then, the other nine provinces and territories can figure out the rest on their own.”

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“The government misled people by comparing its new investment fund to the wealth funds of Norway and Saudi Arabia. Can my colleague explain why they are different?”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his wonderful speech. He mentioned the sovereign wealth fund, which the government refers to as the Canada Strong fund. We do not seem to hear anything about this fund anymore. That lasted two or three days. When the Liberals announced this fund with great fanfare, they immediately compared it to the sovereign wealth funds of Norway and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps my colleague can do a better job of explaining it than I can, but I think that the government misled the population by comparing the fund that it put in place to the sovereign wealth funds of Norway and Saudi Arabia. Could my colleague briefly explain why those funds are different?”

“The provinces control their own natural resources, so any wealth funds should belong to them, not the federal government. This government fund has no real money or economic purpose. It was just an announcement to make Canada look strong, and experts did not like it.”

“Mr. Speaker, that is a complicated question. There are all sorts of sovereign wealth funds. Every country has them. Norway’s fund is used to accumulate oil revenues to benefit future generations, but above all to invest the money abroad in order to avoid Dutch disease. The same goes for Saudi Arabia. Also, China has funds that are used to influence geopolitics. However, all the funds that actually work share one characteristic, and that is that they contain money. In our case, under sections 91 and 92 of the Constitution, natural resources are the exclusive property of the provinces. If there were sovereign wealth funds, they would be held by the provinces. This whole thing was just another excuse to make an announcement and slap “Canada strong” on something. In the end, it serves no economic purpose. That is why it was very poorly received by economists, commentators and people who will not benefit from it directly. The government looked a bit foolish because of it.”

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“The government helps big cities like Toronto build homes, but its housing programs do not work for rural areas like mine. I also want the member to explain why she keeps voting to cut debate short.”

“Mr. Speaker, I find it ironic that the member from downtown Toronto gave a speech on the challenge of access to housing and housing construction, because I get the impression that, for the last 30 years, the federal government has been doing nothing but building housing in downtown Toronto. In rural regions like mine, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, it is virtually impossible to access any federal programs that operate in rural areas. Ask any member who represents a rural area more than 200 kilometres from the U.S. border, and they will say that they struggle to access any federal housing programs that actually work. That said, I would be curious to put the question to my colleague from Spadina—Harbourfront. Before entering politics, she was an activist for democracy in her professional life, particularly regarding the role of women in democracy. Did she get into politics to vote to shut down the debate one, two, three, four, five, six, seven or nearly ten times? I would like to hear her comments on that, because this bill will also be passed under time allocation.”