Mario Simard

“Oil and gas projects only happen when the government spends public money on them. These projects do not make financial sense as the world moves to cleaner energy. This bill weakens environmental rules for projects that are not even profitable. I want to know if the member agrees with me.”

“Mr. Speaker, the reality is not what my colleague claims. The only oil and gas infrastructure projects that have been carried out were only possible because the government agreed to invest public funds in them. Back home in Saguenay—Lac‑Saint‑Jean, as soon as developers started asking for public money for the liquefied natural gas project, the LNG project, the Government of Quebec lost interest. People know full well that over the long term, with the energy transition under way, these very expensive infrastructure projects are not profitable. That is the problem. We are going to end up in a scenario where environmental assessments have been scrapped and people can pretty much do whatever they want with infrastructure projects that are not profitable. Does my colleague agree?”

“I oppose this bill. It lets companies start building oil and gas projects before environmental reviews are finished. If a project is cancelled after construction starts, companies will sue the government.”

“Mr. Speaker, I do not know whether my colleague read the bill carefully. I did. It gives the government the option of launching oil or gas infrastructure projects without completing environmental assessments first. Here is a very telling example. Back home, the GNL Québec project was turned down. Its proponents had said that they would respect the environmental assessments. However, when their proposal was flatly refused, they turned around and sued the government. I am loathe to think what would happen if an oil and gas project got off the ground, with infrastructure construction under way, only to find out that the project was a no-go and had to be shut down. That would lead to devastating lawsuits for the government. Is my colleague aware of that?”

“The government is failing to get things done. Its financial aid for the forestry sector is not working, and no one in Quebec has been able to get the money. At the same time, this bill lets the government bypass environmental laws.”

“Mr. Speaker, it is rare for me to agree with my Conservative colleagues, but I do agree with them on one point. There is appalling ineffectiveness within the government. Allow me give an example. We have just come through an election campaign in Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, where it was made clear to the government that the funding, the liquidity support it wanted to provide to the forestry sector, is not working. The government was asked to lower the eligibility threshold from $2 million in annual revenue to $1 million. I have been checking for the past two weeks to see if anyone in Quebec has accessed this liquidity. No one has. This is appallingly ineffective. Meanwhile, the government is in the process of equipping itself with the tools to circumvent environmental laws. Ultimately, I have my doubts about both the Build Canada Homes strategy, as my colleague pointed out, and the strategy for providing access to liquidity for those in the forestry sector. No one is seeing any results yet. This is a terrible failure on the part of this government.”

“We must make sure this bill actually helps people who are struggling. Cutting fuel taxes might just make oil and gas companies richer. Instead of giving billions to these companies, we should use that money to increase pensions for seniors.”

“Mr. Speaker, I understand that there is a right time for implementing such a measure, but we also need indicators to prove that it will have the desired effect on the most vulnerable. That part is a bit more difficult. We are in favour of helping people who are struggling to afford housing, clothing and food in these difficult times. Gas is an essential consumer good. However, it is still important to make sure that this measure will not help the greedy oil and gas companies rack up even bigger profits. There is already a dedicated policy of giving those companies billions of dollars in support. I, for one, think that the government could make an effort to support seniors as well and increase old age security by ending its support for oil and gas companies. Perhaps my colleague is in favour of that.”

“This bill will help oil and gas companies make bigger profits instead of helping people who need it most. We should give that money to low-income seniors through their pensions instead.”

“Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague entirely. While the intention may be commendable, the indicators suggest that the assistance may not reach the people who are struggling the most. As legislators, the last thing we want is to help greedy oil and gas companies make bigger profits. We definitely need a mechanism to ensure that the tax relief goes directly to the most vulnerable. I have a solution, and I wonder if my colleague would agree with me. Instead of sending oil and gas companies billions of dollars in tax credits and support, would it not be better to increase old age security for the most vulnerable, for seniors struggling to put food on the table with nothing but the GIS and OAS to rely on? That might be a better solution.”

In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“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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In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“Equalization payments are based on population, and Quebec has more people than Manitoba. Quebec sends a lot of money to oil-producing provinces like Alberta. Quebec also paid for its own clean energy system, while the federal government spent 34 billion dollars on a pipeline.”

“Mr. Speaker, that is a new one. I did not see that coming. Equalization payments must be calculated on a per capita basis, and there are more people in Quebec than in Manitoba. I would urge my colleague, the member for Winnipeg North, to take into account the fact that, every year, the Quebec government runs a trade deficit with the oil-producing provinces. Every year, the Quebec government probably sends far more money to Alberta than Albertans can send to Quebec. As for the major investments that were made—yes, it is not a surprise—if the government had not used $34 billion to buy a pipeline and instead made major investments in any other economy, we might be in a different situation today. We have paid for our energy infrastructure. It was Quebec, it was Hydro-Québec, that paid for its own energy infrastructure. It was not the entire federation. That is worse than equalization.”

“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.”

“This bill should have been a chance to fix our political financing rules. The current system is not fair to people who want to take part in our democracy. I want my colleague to speak more about this.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé on his speech. He talked about how big some ridings are. I know that he is known for being very good about travelling around to different parts of his riding. Everyone there knows him and loves him. He also talked about political financing. Would this bill not have been a good opportunity to review our political financing system, which is not particularly fair to people who want to participate constructively in the democratic debate? I would like him to elaborate on that.”

“Quebec knows its own housing needs best. Creating this new housing corporation will only add more rules and slow things down.”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that, as with anything, the simplest solution is usually to entrust these matters to the levels of government that are in the best position to meet the needs. Yes, the federal government and the Government of Quebec signed an agreement for housing, but Quebec knows its own housing needs best. That includes social housing and other types of housing. Unfortunately, Build Canada Homes will add another layer of bureaucracy. That is neither efficient nor effective. It will slow down the entire process. My colleague is a member of Parliament from Ontario. I wonder if the same applies in his province.”

“This bill adds more red tape and slows down housing. In my riding, social housing projects have funding from Quebec, but they are waiting on the federal government. The old system worked to fund them, but now they are stuck waiting for this new agency. Is the member seeing this same delay in his riding?”

“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question in the same vein. Earlier in my speech, I said that the government was adding a layer of bureaucracy. In the past, there used to be programs managed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, or CMHC. In my riding, I see a lot of social housing development projects that are unfortunately not being funded. They have funding from Quebec through the Société d’habitation du Québec, or SHQ, but they have not received federal funding for several months because they have been asked to wait for Build Canada Homes. CMHC used to be able to provide funding, however. Does my colleague agree that there is an added layer of complexity here? Perhaps he is seeing the same type of problem in his own riding, where projects are ready to move forward but are being held up by the slow federal government.”

“The federal government is too slow to help with housing. Its new plan will take 10 years to work, and moving housing money to a new agency is delaying projects right now.”

“Mr. Speaker, it seems like it is always the same old story. The federal government is proposing strategies, like the Build Canada Homes program. It is also proposing to retool the forestry sector, but that will not happen in six months. It will take 10 years to see results. The federal government is not agile enough to act in a timely manner. That is why, in my speech earlier, I gave the example of the affordable housing fund, which has gone from CMHC to Build Canada Homes, meaning that, today, projects that would have received this funding 10 or so months ago are now stuck waiting. That is the problem with these initiatives. Perhaps my colleague is seeing the same thing in her own riding.”