Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-28

“I want to put you on the spot to explain why your party won't support this.”

“I think the Conservatives are wrong about Quebec culture. The Liberals also hurt culture. They removed a tax. I want my colleague to say how much money was lost because of that.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, it is pretty clear to me that the Conservative motion is completely off base when it comes to Quebec and francophone culture and production, among other things. I wonder if my colleague could talk about the fact that the Conservatives are not the only ones abandoning the cultural sector. This Liberal government also turned its back on culture when it eliminated the 3% tax on digital products last July. It was in the Liberal election platform, but barely three months after getting elected, they reversed course, hoping that would get them back to the negotiating table with Donald Trump. I would like to ask my colleague the following question. How much revenue was ultimately lost because this government eliminated the digital services tax, despite its election promise to keep it?

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“That's interesting. I'll focus on my talking points. The CRTC can't be told what to do! I won't say if I agree about the 15%. But the other party abandoned culture by scrapping a tax. They didn't get anything for it! I'll keep saying they let down culture.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, this is surprising, because the parliamentary secretary's main argument is that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC, cannot be told what to do. He does not even say whether he agrees with the 15% or not. All he says is that the CRTC cannot be directed to do anything. My colleague says that the cultural sector must not be abandoned. It remains to be seen whether past actions are any indication of the future, but in July 2025, the Liberals scrapped the digital services tax, which would have generated $1.5 billion that would have been reinvested in the cultural sector. If any government has let the cultural sector down, it is this Liberal government, which did so as recently as last year, because Donald Trump wrote a tweet and the government expected to go back to the bargaining table. The hope was that the government would get something in return for scrapping this tax. Can the parliamentary secretary tell me what the government got in return for scrapping that 3% digital services tax? I would like to hear his answer, because I think it was a big fat zero.

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“You're both the same. The Liberals didn't tax digital products because they were scared of Donald Trump. Now you want to scrap a tax to make Donald Trump happy. Why would your plan work? The Liberal plan failed.”

Official Hansard

Madam Speaker, I really do feel that these two parties are one and the same. As members may recall, last January, this Liberal government completely abandoned the cultural sector by failing to implement the 3% tax on digital products, which would have generated an additional $1.5 billion for the cultural sector. Why did the government do that? It was because Donald Trump posted a tweet. The Prime Minister thought that if the government did not implement this tax, the U.S. would return to the negotiating table. The result was a complete failure. Today's Conservative party proposal uses the same strategy—scrapping a tax that will generate revenue for the cultural sector—so as not to upset Donald Trump. Why would a failed Liberal proposal work just because the Conservatives are suggesting it?

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“I think the Conservatives are scared of Donald Trump. They want to give up protecting Quebec culture before trade negotiations even start. Big tech companies make lots of money in Canada. They can handle some regulation to protect our culture.”

Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-05-05

“I accuse the government of failing to solve the tariff crisis, even though that's what got them elected a year ago. They promised it would be resolved, but it's only gotten worse. Now I want the government to take quick and easy measures to help Quebec businesses and workers while we wait for an agreement with the U.S.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, this time almost a year ago, this government and this Prime Minister were elected purely on a promise to resolve the tariff crisis. The Prime Minister told us that it would be resolved in June. Then he said it would be in July. In the end, he said that it might happen in September. A year later, not only has the tariff crisis not been resolved, but it has gotten worse with Donald Trump's executive order and the April 6 tariffs. We understand that this government set the bar far too high when it came to negotiating. We now see that the government is incapable of keeping its promises. In the meantime, while we wait for an agreement with the Americans, should the government's priority not be to take quick, effective and easy-to-implement measures that would help our businesses, our SMEs and Quebec's economic fabric, as well as our workers?

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“I say nice things about my colleague. Liberals say they're helping businesses. I ask my colleague if her riding's businesses really say that's enough.”

“I'm piling on with my Bloc colleague. The government should give us what we demand. Businesses and industry want this too. It's not a new idea - the government already did this in the pandemic. It'll keep scarce workers like welders and electricians from being cut in a shortage. My ask is not a partisan trick. It's serious. We're helping. The government should hurry up and do it.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, in my view, it is essential that the government agree to our request, which is not only a Bloc Québécois request, but also what many SMEs and various industrial and economic sectors have been calling for. What is interesting about this measure is that it does not call for any new mechanisms to be developed. They were already developed during the pandemic. In fact, one of the reasons put forward for doing so during the pandemic was to maintain these employment relationships so that businesses would not lose their employees in the midst of a labour shortage in occupations that are difficult to fill, frankly. It is hard to find welders, machinists, mechanics and electrical engineers, for example. There is a real need to put this in place quickly. I hope the government is listening to what we are doing. This is not at all political. It is truly a proposal for the benefit of our businesses and our workers. I am convinced that, if the government is serious, it will agree to our request and implement this quickly.

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“I'm pretending our motion will save everything. I want everyone to vote for it. It will fix all the problems.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, that is exactly why we moved today's motion. We all know the government promised to end the tariff war and reach an agreement with the United States quickly. That was a year ago. Unfortunately, it is not happening, and we cannot pretend that it will happen anytime soon. That is exactly why we put this proposal forward today. We hope all members of the House will agree with the wording of the motion. I cannot imagine anyone—Conservative, Liberal or independent—voting against this motion. It is reasonable, it is based on stakeholder proposals and it will have an immediate and direct impact on the current crisis. It will save jobs, save businesses large and small, and keep Quebec's regions alive.

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“The government helps business in theory, but it's not enough. The government should do everything my party tells it to do because we know better. If you visit my riding, you'll see that the people I talk to agree with me.”

“The government promised to fix the tariff crisis but failed. They keep pushing back the deadline. Now they want to borrow $25 million for a fund that won't help. The Bloc proposed measures to directly help workers and businesses affected by tariffs. But the government isn't using any of them. They aren't doing enough. We need action now, not more debt and delays.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I should mention that I will be sharing my time with the member for Shefford. One year ago, the government was elected on a single, simple promise: to fix the tariff crisis. We all remember the departure of former prime minister Trudeau and the arrival of the new Prime Minister, who was portrayed as the man who would save us from the Trump administration, as a businessman who could hold his own against the most formidable negotiators. One year on, however, it is clear that the promise has not been fulfilled. Where are the results? Again, the members of this government and the Prime Minister were elected one year ago, almost to the day, purely on the strength of a promise to end the tariff crisis. In April 2025, the Prime Minister promised that the crisis would end in June. Then he pushed it back to July. Then he pushed it back to September. Now a year has passed and not only is the tariff war still going, but it has escalated thanks to Mr. Trump's recent executive orders. Worse still, we were presented with one of the most absurd ideas ever last week: Borrow $25 million on Quebeckers' collective credit card and create a supposedly sovereign fund that is neither sovereign nor independent. That speaks volumes about the government's long-term vision. Right now, it raises the question of whether we are dealing with pure improvisation. The icing on the cake is that on April 6, the Trump administration issued a new executive order. There is now a flat 25% tariff on the full value of the export if the percentage of Canadian steel, aluminum or copper in the product exceeds 15% of the total composition. As a result, many products protected by CUSMA that were not taxed before are being taxed today. When we asked the Prime Minister about this issue—when my leader asked about it, I was right beside him—we realized that he did not even know about it. Amazing. He did not even know about an executive order signed two weeks earlier. According to a study by Desjardins, this new 25% tariff applies to one-quarter of exports to the U.S. It is significant. There are exemptions, like for the aerospace sector and products that contain American steel or aluminum, but, for the most part, this new American surtax is hitting our industries much harder than previous ones. The cumulative effect is very clear. It is the added value of our economy that is being taxed—skilled trades, engineering and local processing. Washington is no longer taxing our exports; it is taxing what we are building. That is unprecedented. The people had put so much faith in this Prime Minister and his government to put an end to the tariff war, but the result, as I said earlier, has been an escalation of that war. What are we doing in the meantime? The Bloc Québécois proposed a series of measures when the so-called economic update was being drafted. The government did not use a single one of them. These measures would have been easy to implement, would have barely cost anything and would have directly helped the people most impacted by the tariff crisis in Quebec: workers and SMEs. Today, we are back at it again for the sake of our workers and businesses, who are sick of waiting for this government. After months of waiting, on May 4, the government finally announced new measures: $1 billion in loans and $500 million for economic development agencies. It is worth mentioning something here, because the government does not seem to realize that it is missing the mark. Although I do want to acknowledge that these agencies are very useful, they do not address the concerns of businesses that are already in debt. The problem is that with this announcement, the government is helping businesses that will be affected in the future, not the ones already being affected by the crisis. We estimate that Quebec businesses alone have lost about $8 billion in one year. The $1.5‑billion measure announced by the government is woefully inadequate. I would remind the House that ahead of the economic update, the Bloc Québécois proposed numerous measures to support businesses. For the benefit of my Liberal friends, I will outline some of the seven measures proposed by the Bloc Québécois to support workers and businesses severely impacted by the tariff crisis. The first of our demands is the one that resonates most with the public. It is to implement a wage subsidy program modelled after the one rolled out during the pandemic to prevent layoffs, maintain employment relationships, and protect the expertise within businesses during the tariff crisis. The Bloc Québécois's second proposal is to impose safeguard tariffs to protect the hardest-hit sectors, including the softwood lumber, aluminum and steel industries, from cheap imports. These tariffs would apply to products from the United States or any other source that resorts to harmful trade practices, such as dumping, as my colleagues mentioned earlier, or the misrepresentation of Canadian origin. We proposed another measure, and that is buying back a portion of the countervailing and anti-dumping duties that softwood lumber manufacturers pay when they export to the United States. We proposed this measure a long time ago. It was also proposed by the industry and supported by the various unions representing workers in this industry. We could also stimulate the secondary and tertiary processing of our resources. The Bloc Québécois always aligns its proposals with industry demands. AluQuébec, the secretariat of Quebec's aluminum industry cluster, is calling on governments to implement an urgent response on three fronts: subsidies or interest-free loans, preferential procurement rules for Quebec, and anti-dumping quotas or duties on imports. The CEO, Charlotte Laramée, says that the aluminum processing sector deserves the same treatment as the steel sector, and that includes immediate protection against unfair competition. For their part, steelworkers and the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec, or FCCQ, are taking the same stance. The CEO of the FCCQ, Véronique Proulx, sent a clear message when she said, and I quote: “For businesses whose survival is currently in jeopardy, this is not enough. They need to have the cash flow necessary to maintain their day-to-day operations, not take on more debt or make investments that will only benefit them in the medium to long term”. In the latest economic update, however, the government did not include any targeted measures for businesses affected by Donald Trump's illegal tariffs. On the contrary, the Liberals patted themselves on the back for taking in more than $10.1 billion in tariffs in 2025‑26 and redistributing $5.7 billion. Wow. That means that $4.4 billion in countertariff revenue is sitting idle in Ottawa's coffers while SMEs are going out of business. The Liberals are celebrating that. The government clearly has the tools, but as my colleague from Joliette—Manawan said earlier, it does not have the will. Real solutions do exist, though. Another proposal that the Bloc Québécois made was a wage subsidy program for businesses affected by the tariffs. We calculate that the government could allocate $5.5 billion for such a measure. This is an expediture that could easily be offset by cutting back on the numerous subsidies going to oil and gas companies, since they are making record profits anyway thanks to rising global oil prices. Their costs are not going up, so these multinational corporations are pocketing the difference. Not providing wage subsidies in response to the ongoing tariff war is tantamount to condoning the inevitable wave of layoffs, letting decades of expertise go to waste, and permanently crippling whole industrial clusters in Quebec and Canada. The Bloc Québécois's request today is very simple. The revenue generated by our retaliatory tariffs must be redistributed, as a priority, to the workers and businesses that are bearing the brunt of these measures. It must not be diluted in centralizing programs that encroach on Quebec's areas of jurisdiction or subsidize fossil fuels. For every dollar collected on the targeted imports, a significant portion must be used to maintain wages here, keep factories open, and keep our regions alive. What needs to be made clear today is that the real urgency is not to maximize returns on a fund that will bet on oil and gas. The real urgency lies with our workers, our small and medium-sized businesses, and our regions, which are bearing the brunt of a trade crisis triggered by Donald Trump's decisions. With just a fraction of those $25 billion, we could take action now. We could set up a special fund to immediately support businesses hit by tariffs, protect jobs, support retraining and give our small and medium-sized businesses the means to weather the storm. That is what a responsible response looks like. That is what rising to the challenge look like. Instead, the government seems to be taking a different path. Either it does not believe in its ability to negotiate an agreement that will put an end to these unfair tariffs, or it has already accepted that our economy must slowly adapt to a new reality where our traditional markets and our SMEs—which form the economic fabric of Quebec and keep it afloat—no longer matter to the government. We need answers now. We need a government that chooses to defend jobs, support businesses and invest in the future. Ultimately, the question is simple: Will the government choose to wait, or will it choose to act? We choose to act. We are doing it for our workers, for our SMEs, for our businesses, for Quebec and for our regions. Everything the Bloc Québécois does is done out of love for Quebec.

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“You should spend money on a wage subsidy for businesses hurt by tariffs. The Bloc Quebecois has a good proposal. Why don't you support it? Give me reasons.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I have a fairly simple question for the parliamentary secretary. We are here in good faith. The Bloc Québécois always comes forward with proposals. We are not an opposition party that opposes everything just for the sake of opposing it. We come forward with proposals. One of the proposals we put forward—which, incidentally, comes from several stakeholders currently affected by the tariffs—is a wage subsidy program designed for businesses impacted by the tariffs. This would help retain jobs and preserve expertise. It would ease the transition until an agreement is reached with the Americans. On this specific point, does my colleague support the Bloc Québécois's proposal to implement such a wage subsidy? If he does not support this proposal, I would like him to explain why.

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“You say the government has failed to fix tariffs. But you won't back our temporary measures to protect jobs. You want an agreement with the U.S. instead. But there is no agreement yet. So you should support our measures until there is one.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her speech. I really appreciate her work, and we are both members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. That said, I am having a hard time understanding the Conservative Party of Canada's position on today's motion. Like us, the Conservative Party has clearly concluded that this government is unable to fulfill the promise it made a year ago to resolve the tariff crisis. That crisis has only gotten worse. The Conservatives' response to our motion is that they do not support the Bloc Québécois's proposed temporary measures. They think the only response to this situation is to come to some agreement with the Americans, but, over the past year, this government proven itself incapable of doing that. That being the case, should we not proceed with the Bloc's proposed measures to protect our jobs, our workers and our industries, at least until there is an agreement? I think the Conservative Party has an opportunity to support this approach now.

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“Our businesses are suffering. The government isn't doing enough. We should spend more to help them. My party has a plan. Does my colleague agree with my party's plan?”

“The government should admit it made a promise it couldn't keep. They said tariffs would end by June, July, September, who knows when. The Prime Minister keeps making promises he can't deliver.”

“I want to make the government look bad for not solving the tariff crisis. The government promised to end the tariff war but they didn't do it. They keep moving the deadline. We have good ideas but the government won't listen to us. They should do what we say.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague just demonstrated that we are putting forward proposals that come from the front lines, and that there is no reason why this government should not listen to them and implement them. There is one thing I would like to ask my colleague. It seems to me that almost exactly a year ago, this government was elected on the sole promise of ending the tariff war by June at the latest. It then pushed that deadline back to July, and then to September. A year later, the government has not only failed to resolve the tariff crisis, which has only grown worse, but it also refuses to listen to the opposition parties, who are proposing good-faith solutions. I would like my colleague to share his thoughts on this matter.

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-04-30

“You promised to end the trade war fast. But it's a year later, the war is worse, and you just borrow and spend more money. How is that a long-term plan?”

“The Liberals are promising a cat but selling us a horse. They compare this fund to Norway's, but Norway didn't go into debt for theirs. And our fund won't be independent - it will be politically influenced, with the Prime Minister deciding which projects go to the Major Projects Office. The Liberals think we're stupid. We're not.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, a number of things do not add up in the Liberals' arguments. First, we are told that this fund is similar, and even comparable, to Norway's sovereign wealth fund, when we know full well that Norway did not go into debt to finance its own fund. Second, we are told that this fund will be independent, when we know full well that it will fund only projects that come from the Major Projects Office and that the Prime Minister will decide which projects are referred to the Major Projects Office. Obviously, this fund will be politically influenced. Why are the Liberals trying to tell us they bought a cat, when it is actually a horse? Why do they think everyone will believe it is a cat when it is really a horse?

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“You're wrong. This isn't like Norway's fund at all. Stop comparing them. Answer my question - if you call something what it isn't, will people believe you?”

“The Liberals and Conservatives are fighting about who can build more pipelines. They don't care about climate change. Government is going to make climate change worse and make Quebec pay for it.”