Claude DeBellefeuille

In response to a question from Alex Ruff

“Ten women have been murdered in Quebec this year because they were women. That must stop. My party supports this bill to fix the military justice system and help victims of sexual misconduct. But I am angry that the government used its majority to vote down our committee changes.”

“Mr. Speaker, before I begin my speech, I would like to add my voice to those of all women and the entire population of Quebec who, this week, have experienced yet another tragedy: the 10th femicide of the year in Quebec in just four months. It is incredibly sad. It is unacceptable. As we speak, 10 women have been murdered by someone close to them simply for being women. At the beginning of the year, I agreed to join forces with organizations whose primary mission is to support women, so that we can flag this very important message: The next one is still alive. I am joining their efforts. Yesterday, there was a rally in front of the D’Main de Femmes women’s centre to say that enough is enough, that this is unacceptable, and that the entire community stands behind all these organizations dedicated to standing up for the cause of women. There are also organizations that help men better manage their anger, because it is together, as a team, that we will be able to build a more humane society and also care for women who are victims of violence. I would like to commend them and also offer my deepest condolences to the family of the woman who was murdered in Gatineau this week, the 10th woman to have been murdered in Quebec since January. I am rising to speak to Bill C-11, which is somewhat related to women’s issues. I think that sexual misconduct gave rise to this bill, which is almost the same as legislation that has been introduced before and which addresses serious needs. As my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé said, the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. We have always supported any initiatives to ensure justice and to protect women in uniform who have been the victims of sexual misconduct and who have not always felt as though the military has been on their side since it did not take the necessary steps to look after them. Bill C‑11 amends the National Defence Act and other acts. As I said, the government already attempted to introduce Bill C‑66 in a previous Parliament, but that bill died on the Order Paper. As everyone knows, Bill C‑11 follows the recommendations of former Supreme Court justices Morris J. Fish and Louise Arbour, who, in their report on the issue of sexual misconduct, made several recommendations. Bill C‑11 implements several recommendations, including recommendation number five from the Arbour report, with the aim of removing the Canadian Armed Forces’ jurisdiction over the investigation and prosecution of Criminal Code sexual offences committed in Canada. The bill also responds to recommendations made by former justice Morris J. Fish by modifying the appointment process for the three primary judicial or military authorities, namely the Canadian Forces provost marshal, the director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services. The government would select these individuals rather than having the military leadership do so, and those individuals would therefore be immune to any form of blackmail, so to speak. The bill now allows military personnel from the rank of private to that of chief warrant officer to become military judges. Finally, the bill makes other, less substantial changes, including the option for victims to receive help from a victim liaison officer. As we know, when someone wants to report sexual misconduct, harassment or sexual violence, having a neutral party by their side to support them in everything they do is very important. Bill C‑11 has made it through a significant portion of the legislative process, including committee work, and it has been a lot of work. I want to commend my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton for the tremendous work he did on making it possible to improve the bill. On that point, the Bloc Québécois members are proud to have secured amendments that improved the bill. Here are a few examples. We added the option for victims to request that a trial be held before a military court rather than being transferred to a civilian court. We also ensured that the bill clearly stipulated that the government must draw up a plan to create an office of the inspector general for sexual misconduct in the armed forces. We also made a compromise amendment that is more realistic by allowing civilian authorities to transfer cases in accordance with victims’ recommendations, rather than imposing an automatic transfer. This would allow for the resolution of contentious cases, such as when there are multiple victims or when transferring the case could jeopardize the possibility of a trial within a reasonable time frame. We also succeeded in amending the bill so that veterans can be appointed as military judges and so that military judges are released from the Canadian Armed Forces. In the meantime, the government secured a majority, as members well know. I would say that there has been an abuse of this majority, which was secured, as we all know, through floor crossers. The committee’s work was thorough. The committee listened to victims, who expanded on everything that Justice Arbour had heard and recommended. Victims spoke before the committee and their testimonies were used to form the basis of the amendments that were made to improve this bill. It is understandable, then, that we see this as an abuse of the majority. The government’s action is not consistent with what the Prime Minister always tells the media when he does interviews, which is that he expects members to be serious and thorough and that he does not want to see any obstruction. What we are seeing today is a bill whose amendments were completely thrown out by a majority government, which put them to a vote and disputed them. Because of the government’s majority, of course, virtually all of our amendments were defeated. Committees do serious work. If the government can do without the work of committees, perhaps it wants to abolish them. If this is happening now, will it also happen with regard to future bills? At the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, we work in relative harmony. I would say that we are working to improve Bill C-22, but I have concerns. I wonder whether I will end up working on amendments that go absolutely nowhere. Will I end up putting effort into a bill whose fate has already been decided by the government? Will the government reject every amendment proposed by the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois, the New Democratic Party or the Green Party? As we know, our democratic system is designed so that the opposition can help improve bills. In the case of Bill C-11, I think the government really missed the mark. I do not think it was really listening, and that is unfortunate. I hope this does not set the tone for all our work moving forward. I do not appreciate having my time wasted, and neither do most of my colleagues. We do not want to waste our time in committee deliberating, listening to witnesses, and then, in the end, not really knowing whether the government is going to challenge everything that had passed. In closing, as I said, the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of Bill C-11 at third reading. The bill addresses a problem that was swept under the rug by both the Harper Conservatives and the Liberals. Even though we agree in principle, we had to speak out against the government’s lack of seriousness when it comes to the democratic process in place in parliamentary committees. I would like to use my remaining few seconds to commend the courage of my friend, Alain Therrien, who decided this week to pursue his political career by running in Quebec’s next provincial election and confronting the Premier of Quebec. That is to his credit. When he sat here, he was a very active leader in our parliamentary lives. I want to join my Bloc Québécois colleagues in wishing him the best of luck and success in Quebec’s next election.”

• Echo ×5

  A repeated line

  “The director of military prosecutions and the director of defence counsel services.”

  Said 5 times by 4 members since April 23.

  Every time it was said →

“The Prime Minister is easing the rules for approving pipelines and spending $25 billion on energy projects. Will he make people in Quebec pay for oil pipelines that do not have to follow the rules?”

“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister confirmed yesterday that he is going to relax the regulations governing pipeline approvals as early as this week. At the same time, in his economic update, he announced a sovereign wealth fund that he is going to create using $25 billion in public money to pay for energy projects. Everyone can put two and two together. Is the Prime Minister going to make Quebeckers pay for his dirty oil pipelines that will not even have to comply with laws and regulations?”

“Victims of military sexual misconduct asked us for more protection. All the opposition parties voted to change this bill to protect them better. The government used its power to block those changes. I do not understand how the member can face those victims now.”

“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech. I know she is very passionate about this issue. She is standing up for women who have been victims of sexual misconduct while serving in the military. Bill C‑11 addresses many of the recommendations in Louise Arbour’s report. Honestly, what surprises me is that some victims appeared before the committee during its study, and the victims themselves were asking for more protection. As a result, the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives and the NDP all introduced amendments, which were adopted based on the victims’ evidence. However, because of its majority in the House, the government rejected them. I do not know how the member can face any of those victims, who must be disappointed today.”

“I have not decided how to vote on this bill yet. Quebec already has a silver alert system that works well with our police. I worry that a federal system will add red tape, slow down searches, and send too many alerts to people's phones. I want to talk more with the bill's author to see how this helps Quebec.”

“Mr. Speaker, this being Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month, my thoughts go out to my friend Marie-Andrée, who is courageously battling this disease despite the difficulties she faces. I always think of my friend Marie-Andrée when we recognize Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month, because we obviously need more donations and grants to advance the research, so I want her to know I am thinking of her. Today, we are discussing a bill on a very important topic. I have devoted my entire career to serving seniors, especially those in the process of losing their independence, first as a social worker and then as a manager within Quebec’s health and social services network. I am well aware of the issues facing people living with dementia, and I am also well informed about the consequences of having a loved one with dementia. I am therefore pleased, if I may say so, to congratulate the member for introducing a private member’s bill on this topic. Basically, we have a lot of questions. We are all in favour of an alert, but we have a lot of questions. The first is that I do not understand how a coordinated system across the country could improve the Quebec system. A former spokesperson for the Montreal police said that there could be up to 12 reports of missing seniors in Montreal every day. I cannot imagine an alarm going off on people’s phones every time a senior is reported missing. I have a lot of questions and I hope that we will be able to discuss them with the member to better understand. I do not know whether she intends to use the same system as the Amber alert. In my opinion, that might not necessarily be appropriate for those with dementia, particularly because people may become desensitized and stop paying attention to such alerts if they start receiving a large number of them on their cellphones. I am asking a lot of questions this evening to try to learn more. As the member from Quebec said, Quebec has been using the Amber alert system since 2019. At that time, Liberal minister Marguerite Blais put a pilot project in place and, because of a recent tragedy in Quebec, the silver alert program rolled out across Quebec in February 2026. On April 17, someone from my riding went out for a drive. When a person has frontotemporal dementia, for example, they may appear to be perfectly capable and functional. They are even capable of driving, but there comes a point when they end up completely lost while driving. The alert was triggered quickly, and in just three or four hours, Ontario police found the person on the road and immediately brought them to safety. This is proof that the Quebec system works very well. It is even a model for several other provinces. Since Quebec and Ontario are neighbours, there is a great deal of co-operation and a long-standing tradition of collaboration, I would say, between the Sûreté du Québec and Ontario police forces to ensure a rapid response. As the member said, in order to locate someone, we need to minimize delays and act quickly. I wonder what a national framework might mean for response times in Quebec and Ontario. I see it creating more complications or adding more red tape that could slow down a system that already works quite well in Quebec. That said, I am willing to speak with the member and with the Bloc Québécois critic for seniors, the member for Shefford, to better understand her intentions. If the goal is to emulate best practices in Ontario and Quebec and encourage other provinces to do more, I would gladly have that discussion, but I still need to be convinced of how this approach would benefit Quebec. There are, after all, organizations that represent many seniors in Quebec. Naturally, they cannot oppose a bill aimed at promoting the well-being of seniors. However, they do have some concerns about the federal government imposing additional requirements. They fear that things will become more complicated. That is what the FADOQ and the AQDR in Quebec have stated quite clearly. I agree with the member. This is not about engaging in a partisan debate between the right and the left. That is not the issue. When things are going well in a province and neither community groups nor police forces are calling for changes to a system that is working, I wonder if this bill a good solution, particularly for Quebec. I remain open to being convinced. Obviously, if the provinces want to adopt a single system, that is their prerogative. It is their decision, and we cannot oppose that. We believe that the provinces are in the best position to implement the criteria to trigger an alert, because they control and coordinate their police and health care systems. Unlike many provinces, Quebec has its own police force, the Sûreté du Québec, which is similar to Ontario’s police force, the OPP. Quebec has developed its own communications practice. Could this collaboration, which has been built by experience, be weakened by adding an additional layer with the goal of creating a national approach? Trying to do so often makes the process more complicated. I am not sure whether the Sûreté du Québec or even the Government of Quebec would be willing to reopen the issue of standards, given that Quebec has just adopted its own. Shortly after they were adopted, we had examples of seniors with dementia being found quickly because the silver alert is truly meant to alert the public. The decision of whether to issue an alert is up to the police force, which would be the Sûreté du Québec in this case. I would love to meet with my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul so I can understand how this bill would benefit Quebec’s seniors and so we can start a conversation on this issue. She should also understand that, at present, we are neither for nor against her bill. We are more in an exploratory phase, because we feel that the member’s speech, as well as the answers she gave to questions, are not yet comprehensive enough to allow me to continue my deliberations. I would like to congratulate my colleague on introducing this bill, which does address the important need to protect older people and those with dementia who need the wider community to look after them. I invite her to come and discuss this with me and our seniors critic, the member for Shefford, so that we can better understand her intentions and, above all, so that she can reassure us about the model she wishes to develop. The model differs from Amber alerts. As my colleague from Mont-Royal says, we certainly do not want Quebeckers to become desensitized, because they are used to seeing Amber alerts for missing children or very serious disappearances. If we increase the number of alerts, they might think that it is just a false alarm, no big deal, and then they might let their guard down. We want to avoid that at all costs. I invite my colleague to come speak to us and continue the conversation.”

“The government keeps putting key definitions into regulations instead of the bills themselves. Why do they keep doing this?”

“Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague’s clear and precise remarks. He takes care to explain things well using concrete examples. This government has a tendency to define terms in regulations. That is what happened with Bill C‑2. It happened with Bill C‑22. Now it is happening with Bill C‑28. It tends to nail down definitions in regulations instead of bills. Can my colleague explain what reasons the government might have for doing that?”

“The Liberals are blocking work in several committees by talking endlessly. They have too many members on these committees, which gives them too much power to stop our work. I want to know if the Conservatives agree.”

“Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated the speech by the chief opposition whip. Having served as a whip myself, I know that it is a very demanding role that also requires a thorough understanding of parliamentary procedures. I have a question for my colleague. As we speak, there are two or three committees that are at a standstill, including the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts and the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The Liberals are filibustering and refuse to discuss issues that require transparency and testimony so that we can examine matters that are somewhat sensitive but necessary. Right now, it is the Liberals who are filibustering in the committees. We are not opposed to committees having a majority, but we believe that seven Liberal members is excessive. It is an abuse of power. We wonder if the official opposition whip feels the same way we do.”