Sébastien Lemire · TranslatePolitics.ca

Government Orders

An Act to Authorize Certain Payments to be Made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund

2026-06-16

“We're debating a bill for more transfers to provinces. But I want to talk about how Louis Riel was treated. And how that's relevant to this bill.”

“I want taxpayers to spend more on housing programs for First Nations. The current programs have too many rules. First Nations can't use the money in the ways they need. But the government still pats itself on the back. They say 'look how much we spend'. Then they claw the money back. I want a new program designed by First Nations themselves. The current system isn't working for them.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, one issue that is very important to me, particularly as the member for Abitibi—Témiscamingue, is access to housing for first nations. I would like to see a program created by and for first nations. I am thinking in particular of the Yänonhchia' program, which aims to develop indigenous expertise but is not necessarily reaching the communities because of the way federal programs are designed. In every budget, the federal government allocates billions of dollars for indigenous infrastructure, and it presents that as though it is something really wonderful. Even today, $4.5 billion is being set aside for access to clean drinking water. In reality, however, expertise is not being developed within first nations. So many unattainable standards and requirements are imposed on the communities that, one year later, because the deadlines are extremely tight, Ottawa takes its money back and puts it back in the coffers. It then pats itself on the back for properly managing the money, since, in the end, it spent less than expected. At the end of the day, the needs remain unchanged and the quality of life for first nations is getting worse.

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“I don't like the other programs. Quebec should get more money from them. But this bill gives Quebec its money back. So I might support this even though I don't like the rest.”

“I'm complaining about funding not reaching Quebec fast enough. I want a program tailored for Quebec's regions instead of focusing on Toronto. I don't think current programs work well for small towns far from the U.S. border.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I wish I were wrong, but the record of the last 10 years in this Parliament shows that I am not wrong and that funding does not reach Quebec, or if it does, it is only after several years' delay. Obviously, this means there is less money in current dollars available for the construction of these homes. When will we see a program that is truly adapted to the regions of Quebec? When will the government stop focusing solely on Toronto and its suburbs? When will the government take an interest in the true rural regions of Quebec and the rest of Canada? Not all of Canada's regions are within 200 kilometres of the U.S. border. Unfortunately, such programs do not exist because they are designed for towns with a population of 100,000 or less. We do not have those resources or that expertise in our municipalities.

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“I'm filling time with a story about my son. I want Quebec to control its own housing money, and fast. Instead of a distant government managing, Quebec should tailor its own strategy. Unconditional transfers avoid duplication. Long federal processes don't fit Quebec's construction season or Civil Code. I want less federal involvement and faster provincial action.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, five years ago, I rose in the House to note that my son, Léon, was finishing elementary school. Naturally, five years later, it is time for his high school graduation ceremony, which he will be attending on Saturday. I would like to tell him that I am very proud to be his father and offer him my sincerest congratulations, especially since he made a name for himself in Quebec with his performance at the Quebec Games last summer, where he won two gold medals in swimming, for the breaststroke. I also want to say that I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Jean. Let us start by saying something important about Bill C-26: The Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of this bill simply because it is necessary to transfer funds quickly and without delay to help Quebec build and set its housing priorities. It is rather ironic that the Auditor General of Canada issued a report on child care services. As members know, this policy resulted in an unconditional transfer being made to Quebec. That is because, in 1997, Quebec had already created the network of early childhood centres to provide affordable child care for everyone. This system is renowned and has proven its worth. Transferring the money directly to Quebec will allow Quebec to manage its affairs as it sees fit and in accordance with its own reality. That is precisely what Bill C‑26 does. It transfers the funds earmarked for affordable housing to the authority that has jurisdiction in this area. As a result, Quebec will be able to ensure that it develops strategies based on its priorities and aligned with the realities of the various communities within its territory. It will be in a position to develop its own strategy for social and affordable housing. Another advantage is that it reduces administrative costs, because the province already reports on its own expenditure through its own budget. Instead of duplicating costs, the government sends the money directly, cutting red tape and eliminating duplication, which means that everyone wins. Since the money comes without conditions, Quebec will be able to use a variety of means to influence the rental supply, whether that means building housing-related infrastructure, such as sewers and water systems, introducing tax relief or building social and affordable housing. In short, Quebec will have the tools it needs to take effective action using the various levers at its disposal. Transferring this $1.7 billion allows the provinces to take immediate action, and that reduces wait times. It differs from the strategy of Build Canada Homes, which is just another Crown corporation that creates more duplication, more management costs, more public servant hiring and so on. Transferring the money to the provinces reduces the size of government and gives responsibility to the governments that are actually responsible for housing. Quebec and the provinces each have their individual realities. Quebec's reality differs from the reality in British Columbia. Yukon's reality is completely different from New Brunswick's reality. If every province takes charge of its responsibilities based on its own reality, we will end up with more tailored, more flexible programs. Over the past few months, at meetings of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, I have personally questioned various departments about their definitions of urban, rural and remote regions. As the member for a region that could be described as rural and remote, this question concerns me tremendously. What we observe is that the federal government has a distorted view of rural regions. To the Government of Canada, any census area with a population of 100,000 or less is a rural region. Geographic factors apparently do not matter. Abitibi-Témiscamingue is located six or seven hours from urban areas, depending on the destination. That makes it impossible to compete with cities located in the suburbs. The reality is that transferring the funds to Quebec ensures that realities like mine are respected. Another issue is all the regulatory requirements in federal programs that do not apply to Quebec because it has the Civil Code. Basically, this creates new obligations for Quebec stakeholders, resulting in additional delays and costs to meet a requirement that does not even apply in Quebec. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Lynda Perreault, a member of my team who works in my office and helps organizations navigate the complexities of organizations such as CMHC and Build Canada Homes. To date, Build Canada Homes still cannot meet its own 30-day deadline for responding to proposals. It made that commitment during a technical briefing on February 17. The truth is, Build Canada Homes does not have enough staff to review the applications. As a result, it has to ask CMHC—or perhaps I should say “the agency formerly known as CMHC”—to do what it used to do: review applications. Who suffers as a result? The projects and the organizations themselves. For my region, the upshot of this is that we will often miss the construction season. Unfortunately, our summers are shorter than elsewhere. We lose years to administrative delays. Mortgage costs are often passed on to the organizations that wanted to balance their budgets without taking out a mortgage. Winter construction in Abitibi—Témiscamingue is not t really an option. Our winters are very long, so we have no choice but to be more efficient during the summer. Delays result in additional costs for many non-profit organizations that are just trying to create social and affordable housing for vulnerable populations. They end up with extra costs, forcing them to cut back on their operations, which means they end up helping fewer people. A lot of construction is happening in Abitibi–Témiscamingue right now. However, it is private development. While that is a good thing, it means that families and lower-income individuals are unable to afford these new properties. Furthermore, several developers were told that their applications would be transferred to Build Canada Homes. The reality is that this has not happened. They have to start all over again and resubmit their projects. This means even more hours of work lost for non-profit organizations. If the money had been transferred to Quebec, this sort of problem would not be happening. The solution is so simple. That is, of course, provided that it does not take two years to sign the agreements, meaning that inflation eats up the lion's share of the funds allocated to Quebec. The Canada housing infrastructure fund agreement was finally signed after two years. The result was an agreement under which Quebec received only $1 billion of the program's $6-billion budget, or 16.6%, which is far less than its share of the population. This is also what is known as a fiscal imbalance. Quebec should have received $1.3 billion to match the figures calculated using the needs identified by the Union des municipalités du Québec, yet we received $300 million less. The Liberal members from Quebec do not boast too much about that. If we add the inflation of the past two years, we must acknowledge that that money will not go as far today as it could have. It is important to remember that Quebec municipalities are currently experiencing one of the most serious housing crises ever, while a lot of the infrastructure is aging and no longer suitable to today's reality. It is time for Ottawa to do what it must do, which is to unconditionally transfer the money to Quebec and the provinces as soon as possible. This would be a win-win situation for everyone. I want to give some examples. In 2016, funding for major housing-related infrastructure was also announced, and that funding was immediately allocated to Ontario. It is interesting because the programs in Ottawa are designed with Ontario's reality in mind. It took over three years to reach an agreement with Quebec. I have to talk about inflation again. Then came COVID-19. Then came the skyrocketing cost of housing. Because of this, we were not able to build as many housing units. The amount of housing built was much less in Quebec because of all these constraints. If Quebec's reality had been respected and this money had been transferred with no strings attached, the housing shortage that we have been seeing across Quebec, and particularly in Abitibi-Témiscamingue for the past 20 years, would not be as significant now. That is not without consequences. I can give a wide range of examples that show that federal programs do not work in Quebec and in rural and northern regions like mine. Energy efficiency requirements are problematic. Ottawa wants to tell us how we should manage energy efficiency, but Quebec City's criteria are different. This means we have to send an inspector on site. That results in additional costs and delays. All of this means we cannot meet deadlines. We cannot finish construction on time, and we lose years of construction time. It is entirely Ottawa's fault. Ottawa should mind its own business and do what Bill C-26 thankfully calls for, namely, respecting the jurisdictions of the provinces and Quebec and transferring the funds unconditionally.

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“If housing is really your priority, why are you cutting the money for housing programs later on?”

“Can we transfer money to provinces with no strings attached to reduce paperwork for housing? That would help get more housing built.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for his thoroughness. He has the ability to keep things in perspective, which is nice to see in this Parliament, especially after the two very partisan speeches given by the parliamentary secretaries. I enjoyed hearing my colleague's ideas on how to improve accountability. I would like him to expand on that. How does he propose that we cut more costs, especially in relation to housing? Housing falls under provincial jurisdiction. Would transferring money to the provinces with no strings attached not be the best way to cut down on paperwork and red tape, cut costs, increase housing construction and improve access to housing for those who need it most?

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“I demand you meet your 30-day deadline. If housing organizations must wait months and get bounced around between offices, that's a failure you should fix.”

“I want the government to explain who is in charge of housing programs. They say it is Build Canada Homes but now they say it is CMHC. I think it is a problem that they are not giving useful answers within 30 days.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, as things stand, conversations about housing are, naturally, conversations about Build Canada Homes. However, for the past year, Build Canada Homes has been having a lot of trouble getting its programs up and running. We have been told a number of times that the CMHC no longer exists and that people have to contact Build Canada Homes instead. Build Canada Homes' own standards dictate that it must provide responses within 30 days. However, Build Canada Homes is not meeting that deadline. I think this is a very serious problem. Now, people are being told to contact the CMHC, which is no longer supposed to have any files. Can someone set the record straight? Who is in charge now? Is it the CMHC or is it Build Canada Homes? When can we expect useful answers?

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Government Orders

Government Business No. 11—Proceedings on Bill C‑26

2026-06-16

“I want more federal money for my riding. I don't like that downtown Toronto got it instead.”

Official Hansard

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.

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Oral Questions

Housing

2026-06-16

“I am making this a regional issue. My region needs money from your government. Not one red cent has been spent. Taxpayers must pay for Quebec's housing problem.”

Government Orders

Government Business No. 12—Proceedings on Bill C-30

2026-06-15

“This bill is bad. The government wanted every department to cut 15% to maybe balance the budget someday. But agriculture was the only one to actually cut research. That's not good for innovation. I'm worried we won't have safe food. And they're approving pesticides they said were bad before. What do you think of that?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, what I see when I look at this bill, and its timing, is that the Liberal government has done basically only one thing to achieve the 15% cuts per department that were announced to perhaps one day balance the budget. Otherwise, running a $70‑billion deficit is no big deal. The aim, then, was to cut 15% in every department. However, it seems that the only department that actually did it was the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and the only area where it did so was in science and research. I think that is completely absurd, particularly when it comes to the capacity for innovation in agriculture. Will we be able to eat safe, healthy food? That worries me. There are also going to be cuts to food inspection at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. At the same time, certain pesticides that had previously been banned are now going to be approved. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.

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“You and I have something in common. We both come from Créditiste regions. The economic statement has done nothing to help people in the steel and aluminum sector. What do you think about that? Also, how is your hockey pool going?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Beauce for his remarks. He and I have something in common. We both come from former Créditiste regions. That is worth pointing out. He told us that he was making a non‑partisan appeal. I would like to hear him elaborate. Can he name any good things that came out of the economic statement, particularly in relation to the 25% tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on all products containing steel and aluminum? Can he think of anything that the Liberals have done to help people in the sector? I personally do not see anything. I would like to hear his thoughts. Is he more optimistic than he was over the last month with his hockey pool? I would also like to hear his thoughts on that.

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“I don't like your economic statement. It doesn't fix the problems I care about. Why didn't you just cancel it? An email would have been simpler.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague is a combative man, someone who is not afraid to take a stand and argue a point. My question is simple: Did he argue with his government when it came up with the misguided idea of tabling an economic statement that fails to address any of the concerns that might have justified urgently presenting such a statement? After all, it is not a budget. We could have waited until the fall to adopt most of these measures. That would have been much simpler. The real emergency was Donald Trump and the 25% tariffs imposed on steel and aluminum, but the economic statement does not include any measures to address that. Did my colleague raise this issue internally and ask why his government did not simply cancel the statement and send everyone an email instead? That would have been much simpler.

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Oral Questions

Climate Change

2026-06-15

“You care more about oil profits than protecting the environment or fighting wildfires. I want you to look bad.”

Government Orders

2026-06-09

“I watch TV and think your kitchen looks nice. Independence is good. Be more independent!”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, it is sad for me to have to say this to my colleague from Beaches—East York, whom I knew and particularly appreciated at the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology for several years. First, if his wife is in the gallery, I would like to take the liberty of telling her that she and my colleague have a lovely kitchen, which we have had the pleasure of seeing many times in committee, and that they also have very beautiful children. What I will take away from my colleague is his spirit of independence. Independence obviously resonates with me very much. That is one of my motivations for being in politics. I actually wanted to ask him about that, and he talked about it in his speech. Indeed, for me, and just like the member for Calgary Nose Hill or the former NDP member for Windsor West, when we were on the Standing Committee on Industry, we knew that we had truly independent members. As for my colleague's legacy in the House, I would like to ask him the following question: If we were to create the Nathaniel Erskine-Smith index to measure MPs' degree of independence from their party line, how would that index look right now? I want to thank Nate, and I hope to see him again soon.

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Government Orders

Main Estimates, 2026-27

2026-06-08

“The government is cutting science and research by $27 to $35 million over five years. That's a drop in the bucket compared to our huge deficit. But now they're letting companies use more pesticides without knowing what they'll do to us or our health. Are you okay with that?”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to supply and appropriations, a major issue for me in the past year has been the announcement about budget cuts to science and research. This will save the government approximately $27 million to $35 million over five years. Will saving this amount over five years really make a difference when we know that the deficit is over $70 billion? The government will save a mere $27 million to $35 million by making cuts to science and research. What we are also seeing today in Bill C-30 is that the government is going to permit the use of more pesticides without knowing what kind of cocktail this will create and without knowing what impact it will have on human health, because the government is also making cuts to the science and research that would help find alternatives. Is my colleague concerned about that?

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Government Orders

Business of Supply

2026-06-08

“I want to look smart by saying numbers. I think mentioning stocks might worry people. I don't know if this is normal but asking might make you think something is wrong.”

“I'm going to make a little joke about my costume so everyone knows I'm not the other guy. Then I'll bring up a scary risk that someone else in your party mentioned. I want to look smart by repeating it, but I won't explain it myself. I'll just say that GDP growth was bad and hope it makes my opponents look bad.”

“The government's spending numbers are fishy. Different numbers from different times make the government look bad. A budget update a month ago said one thing. Now the budget officer says the deficit is billions higher. It's like a teenager who can't say what he did with your money. They can't be happy just because a little bit is left. I want you to admit this is bad management.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I rather like my colleague from Mississauga—Lakeshore. We should hear from him more often in the House. I would like him to talk about the budgetary projections and fiscal anchors the Parliamentary Budget Officer mentioned. She projects that the deficit will be $6.5 billion higher, reaching a total of $71.8 billion, compared to the economic update released just a month ago. I found that interesting. The Liberals were telling us how much smaller the deficit was than expected and that the situation was better. It is a bit like me giving my teenager $100 to go buy pizza and him being proud to hand me back $5 afterwards. We do not know what he did with the rest, but that is not good management. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that. Given the current circumstances, where is the deficit headed?

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