Yves Perron

“The government plans to cut a quarter of the Translation Bureau's staff. Without these skilled interpreters, Parliament would only work in English. Cheap contractors and AI cannot do this work. I want the government to cancel these cuts so francophones get the best interpretation.”

“Madam Speaker, without the House of Commons interpreters, there would be no bilingual Parliament. It would be in English only. That is why the government’s plan to cut the Translation Bureau’s staff by 25% constitutes a serious lapse in judgment. These employees have exceptional expertise that low-cost contractors and ChatGPT simply do not have. Francophones deserve the highest quality interpretation services. Good enough just does not cut it. Will the government show some respect for francophones and cancel these cuts?”

“We support this bill because it makes Canada more independent from the United States. But the project is in Nova Scotia. I want to know if the federal government will work properly with the province, or if this bill needs changes to protect provincial rights.”

“Madam Speaker, it is great to see you in the chair this morning. The Bloc Québécois has some concerns, even though we support this bill. It is a good thing that we are becoming more independent from the United States. However, since this project is going to take place in Nova Scotia, will the federal government negotiate properly with Nova Scotia, or does it believe that, since this is more of a federal responsibility, it can do whatever it wants without talking to the Government of Nova Scotia? I would like to know my colleague’s analysis of that. Does he think the bill is well thought out in that regard, or should it come with some caveats?”

In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“The government should not have backed down on the digital services tax. The $600 million in compensation is too small. European countries taxed big tech companies without raising subscription prices, and that money supports their culture and media. Why can Canada not do the same?”

“Mr. Speaker, if the parliamentary secretary really meant what he just said, which is that we need to move forward, not backward, then he would not have backed down on the digital services tax. The $600 million is a very small amount of compensation. I would like my colleague to look at what is happening internationally, elsewhere in the world. How did the Europeans find a way to put a tax on digital products without causing subscription prices to go up? These multi-billion dollar corporations are paying their fair share to fund culture and media in those regions. Why is Canada unable to achieve the same result here?”

In response to a question from Jean-Denis Garon

“The answer is simple. The minister is showing contempt.”

“Mr. Speaker, the answer is short and simple. The word he is looking for is “contempt”.”

In response to a question from Dalwinder Gill

“I agree with the member. The government needs to pay the money it promised.”

“Mr. Speaker, that is indeed one of our requests. Can they at least pay the money they promised? In short, we do agree.”

In response to a question from Kevin Lamoureux

“The government cancelled a digital services tax that would have brought in $7 billion over five years. It also cancelled over $2 billion in broadcasting fees. Replacing all of that with only $600 million hurts our media and culture sector.”

“Mr. Speaker, we are so looking forward to hearing the parliamentary secretary’s speech. What he just reiterated to the House, and the message he is sending to the media and culture sector, is that they were deprived of $7 billion over five years with the repeal of the digital services tax, that the CRTC’s levies, which would have brought in more than $2 billion, have been cancelled, and that this is being replaced by a nice little $600 million that will come out of their own pockets.”

“The government pretends to support culture and the French language, but its actions say otherwise. It announced $600 million for the arts, but took away over $2 billion by reversing a ruling that made online giants pay for French content. It also cancelled the digital services tax just to please the United States, getting nothing in return. On top of that, it plans to cut 25% from federal translation services and rely on artificial intelligence. The government must stand up to the United States and make web giants pay their fair share.”

“Mr. Speaker, I begin my speech in good spirits, thanks to the wonderfully quick wit of the member who spoke before me. I am also going to follow in my colleagues’ footsteps, because I too have prepared some brief remarks about our representatives in Quebec City that I want to give before starting my speech. We found out who will be in cabinet yesterday. The riding of Berthier—Maskinongé is a little smaller than my colleague’s riding in the Gaspé; we did not get four ministers, but we did get three, which is not bad at all. I am very proud that Elsie Lefebvre was elected in Berthier. She is my own MNA, because that is where I live. Maxime Laporte is the MNA for L’Assomption, and Isabelle Blais is the MNA for Maskinongé. I would like to welcome them. We are going to have a great working relationship over the next few years. I would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Élodie Murphy‑Gauthier and Jean Pellerin, who were elected in the Mauricie region. I endorsed several candidates in the Mauricie region. I want to send a shout-out to René Branchaud. We came very close. I would like to tell my friend that we will meet again next time. I am certain that he will be there and that it will work out. I would be remiss if I did not mention my former colleagues as well. Simon‑Pierre Savard‑Tremblay was my comrade-in-arms for several years on our supply management bill. I really enjoyed working with him. I have no doubt that he will do an excellent job as a minister in Quebec City. Of course, I must mention our former House leader, Alain Therrien, who is an inspiration to all of us. If there is one person who really helped me manage the unmanageable and deal with the frustrations and the lack of control over our environment that we sometimes feel as new members, it is him, so I tip my hat to him. We are very proud of him, and we are sure that he will do a bang-up job. I will now address the crux of today’s issue. It is simply outrageous. The government really needs to stop pretending. I have not been in such a good mood lately. I will tell the House what happens when I am not in a good mood. This is a very personal part of my life that I did not expect to talk about in the House, but I cannot pretend. That is not in my nature. When something is bothering me, the people around me immediately ask what is wrong. They ask me what is going on. In life, I do not pretend. I simply cannot do that. I think it stinks when people pretend. That is polite enough language for me to say in the House. It really grinds my gears. I am tired of watching the Liberal government pretend that it thinks culture is important. Amid artful gestures and eloquent speeches, they will roll out a dreamy outdoor backdrop complete with just enough breeze to tousle the hair, and they will announce how generous they are for giving $600 million to the desperately needy cultural sector. Meanwhile, just a day earlier, they will have robbed that same sector of more than $2 billion because they lacked courage, bowed down and surrendered. That expression of the Prime Minister’s, “elbows up”, also applies to someone lying prostrate on the ground with only their elbows sticking up. That will not stop the United States from using us as a doormat. I have quoted Pierre Falardeau several times in the House, but I really like this quote. Falardeau used to say that someone who stands up will be hated but respected, while someone who prostrates themselves on the ground will just be used as a doormat. That is not the exact wording, but my colleagues get the idea. I would rather stand up and have people hate me but call me “sir”. I think that Quebeckers prefer that, as Canadians do. Maybe we should stop taking everything lying down. This is what we have been seeing from the very beginning. What is more, the Liberals have the nerve to stand up and ask what the Bloc Québécois is complaining about. They did it earlier during oral question period. They say they have made a major $600-million announcement. The whole bunch of them are patting themselves on the back and looking all proud. This will seem like a sound bite, but it is important to know the backstory. Where will that $600 million come from? It will come out of our pockets. The levy stemmed from a decision made by the CRTC. By the way, people may not know this, but the CRTC is supposed to be independent. It can receive general guidelines coming from the political sphere, but then its members, who are all thoughtful individuals, sit down and analyze the situation. The CRTC came to a conclusion. It saw that the media landscape was changing. A lot has changed in the last 10 or 15 years. We know that. Very few people now subscribe to traditional television. Traditional media outlets are forced to contribute to the system. Online media outlets contribute nothing but get most of the advertising revenue. That is the situation. I do not always applaud the CRTC’s decisions, but that one made a lot of sense. It said that they had to pay a minimum percentage. It was increased from 5% to 15%, but that was not enough. Web giants would have to invest in the creation of French-language content to the tune of 30%. We certainly applauded that. How did the Prime Minister respond? He said that it had to be scrapped or else Donald Trump would get angry and not give us anything. I challenge the parliamentary secretary, who is listening to me, to rise later and tell me what they got from the United States in return. Since the 2025 election, when our saviour, Mr. Canada, the man who was supposed to get us out of this mess, was elected, we have not gotten anything. I have no objection to grand speeches being given on the international stage. The case for the role of middle powers can be a compelling one, particularly when it comes to bilateral and especially multilateral relations in international forums. That is why we look forward to the day when Quebec can take its place among them and bring its own voice, political clout and vision to the world. Some ideas make sense, such as strengthening ties with Europe. We have been advocating that for a long time. It would be particularly worthwhile when it comes to environmental and trade standards, as the proposals that we put forward in committee are often blocked by members from the other Canadian provinces. I served for many years on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and I believe that we could learn a great deal from European policies. That would be quite interesting. Ultimately, however, what matters is action. Governments are not judged by what they say. They are judged by what they do and by what they have done. The government announced $600 million in funding taken from taxpayers’ pockets. I want to point out what happened just before that. By overturning the CRTC’s policy, it deprived the media sector of more than $2 billion. Let us dig just a little deeper. I know that may be difficult for some members here, but let us try. Let us go back to the day before yesterday. The Liberals scrapped the digital services tax to please the orange man. We got nothing in return. This time, it was worth more than $7 billion over five years. Now they have the nerve to stand up, look at us and smugly say that they are being generous to the cultural sector. That is rich. This week, I took part in a press conference with the House of Commons interpreters, translators and terminologists. They are in contract talks. The same government that says culture, the French language and official bilingualism are important wants to cut 25% of the Translation Bureau’s resources over the next five years. The thing is, the Translation Bureau’s budget is a tiny fraction of the total federal budget. It is $160 million. This is a joke. Francophone elected officials like us know that working in the Parliament of Canada is a huge daily challenge, because 90% of everything that happens here is done in English. That is fine; it is their language and their right. We have a right to work in our language, too. We have a right to quality interpretation. These are qualified professionals who are currently being treated with disdain. They are being told that artificial intelligence will replace them. I hope everyone saw this morning’s article about how AI translated TB, the abbreviation for the Translation Bureau, as “tuberculosis” in French. That is the big joke of the day. The worst part is that the English terms “should” and “must” both get translated into French by the same word: “doit ”. Imagine what the courts would do with those two words in a piece of legislation. I hope that the judge would not say what I have heard before from a clerk at the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, namely that the English version takes precedence. I hope that does not happen, because that is not supposed to be true. The two official languages are supposed to be equal, truly equal. The government needs to stop messing around when it comes to culture. Everyone needs to stop messing around. Let us find a way, stand up to the United States and accept the fact that we need these giants that make profits here to pay their fair share.”

“I oppose this bill because it weakens environmental protections. It exempts pipelines from environmental assessments and only uses an energy regulator that always supports pipelines. It also lets companies start work before reviews are finished.”

“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister claims that Bill C‑39 does not lower environmental standards. Let us imagine a pipeline project in Quebec, like Marinvest. Under Bill C‑39, pipelines are exempt from environmental impact assessments. The only assessment will be the one completed by the energy regulator in Calgary, which has never seen a pipeline it did not like. Worse still, Ottawa wants to be able to allow proponents to start their work before the assessment is complete. How can anyone claim that this is not a step backwards?”

In response to a question from Dan Albas

“Cutting red tape is not the same as getting rid of legal and social protections. The government is removing these protections just to allow oil projects. Conservatives should be happy about this, because it is what they usually want.”

“Madam Speaker, I would like to start by thanking my colleague and congratulating him on his remarkable efforts in French. It is heartwarming. I would really like to see more people doing that. It works both ways. He mentioned red tape. There is, however, a subtle difference between cutting red tape and scrapping laws and social protections. What the government is doing is scrapping laws and social protections. We generally agree that red tape is an issue when regulations overlap with other regulations again and again. I do not understand why the Conservatives are unhappy with what the Liberals are doing. I thought they would be happy: The Liberals are scrapping all the laws to allow for oil infrastructure projects. I thought they would be happy.”

• Answered
  ?

  Reply to a debate question

  Relevance 100 of 100

  Of this reply, 100% addressed the question or point raised.

  See full analysis →

In response to a question from Greg Fergus

“We support building things, but we must protect our modern social standards. This bill rolls those protections back. I want the member across from me to speak up about this in his party's meetings.”

“Madam Speaker, I respect my MP too. Whenever I am here for work, I stay in an apartment located in his riding. That makes him my MP. I receive his householders too. They have far too much writing for my taste, since they are in both languages, but that is his choice. I digress. He brought up the topic of railroads. No one wants to revert to using the labour involved in building that railroad or the conditions of the time. That is what we are discussing today. I was saying that we are not against progress or construction but, over the years, we have adopted standards. We have adopted social standards that must be respected. That is important. Personally, I think that the Liberal government is triggering a major rollback, but I am counting on the member who represents me when I am on the Hill to protect my interests and make my voice heard in this caucus. I know that he cannot do that here, but I ask him to do that in his caucus.”

“I am voting against this bill, and the Bloc Québécois will too. It attacks the right to strike and lets the government shut down labour disputes without taking the blame. It also lets ministers ignore environmental laws and fast-track big projects before proper reviews are finished. The government is using the trade crisis with Donald Trump as an excuse to grab too much power.”

“Madam Speaker, I will start with one of the parliamentary secretary’s favourite lines. At the end of the day, it boggles the mind to hear him tell us that his government believes in the right to strike, but that sometimes decisions have to be made and the right to strike will therefore be taken away. That is what he is saying. Worse than that, with Bill C-39, the Liberals not only want to undermine the right to strike, but they do not even want to take responsibility for it. The infamous provision that we have denounced repeatedly over the past few months will now be used by the Canada Industrial Relations Board. The next time we rise in the House to ask this government questions, the parliamentary secretary will tell us—since there is about a 98% chance he will be the one who answers us because he is always here—that the Canada Industrial Relations Board is independent and that it is not the government. That is what the Liberals are doing with Bill C-39. It is not off to a good start. That said, I still think the parliamentary secretary is a nice guy. I even briefly thought I was glad to see him when we shook hands this week. However, what he is telling me brings me back to the harsh reality that we do not often see eye to eye. It is appalling. They claim that Bill C-39 is intended to strengthen the economy, but the measures included in Bill C-39 are not designed to strengthen the economy. They are designed to destroy, weaken or circumvent the laws that protect the public, workers and the environment. The reason that environmental assessment standards were established over the decades and that laws were implemented to create a framework for labour negotiations is because they were necessary. The government cannot sweep that away in five minutes. However, that is what Bill C‑39 does, on the grounds that we are in a crisis, that we need to stand up to President Trump, that we need to be strong and get busy building. The government wants to get things done at lightning speed and flout every law. Since we returned to the House in 2025, the same things have been said about every bill. With every bill, some minister wins the lottery and gets the right to suspend a bunch of laws. We should come up with some kind of tally system to figure out which minister won the right to get rid of the most laws this Parliament. It is pretty mind-boggling, and “mind-boggling” is an extremely polite word choice in the circumstances, because I could come up with few others. This bill is not about the national interest. It is about the personal preferences of the Prime Minister and his friends. That is what it is about. The government is going to pick out projects that were included in Bill C‑5, so-called projects of national interest, and it is going to say that those projects do not need laws. The government is claiming to have a monopoly on the truth and deciding that such and such a project is essential and important. Too bad for workers, too bad for the environment and too bad for everything else. Worse yet, the government is even going to create energy corridors. That is completely ridiculous. The federal government will decide that it can do whatever it wants on certain land. When the Liberals rise to ask us questions later, they will say that we separatists are always looking for trouble. Why do they think we are here? We are here to defend Quebeckers and fight back against terrible bills like these. Laws are not made to be suspended, abolished or circumvented. They are made to regulate community life and protect the common good. The purpose of an environmental assessment is to determine whether a project is safe and whether the resulting drawbacks will be offset by the benefits it brings. Are the drawbacks too significant? Sometimes, of course, when the analysis is conducted by independent scientists, we may not like the answer. That is for sure. However, that is what they are there for. We are not all scientists here. We cannot make decisions like these lightly. This reminds me of how, just before the summer break, the government gave the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food the power to authorize the use of pesticides and herbicides that the agencies responsible had previously declined to approve. What did the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food study in school? How do I find out? Is he qualified to make these decisions? I hope he gets some some good advice, because that is extremely frightening. I do not want to be told 10 years, eight years, five years or even six months down the road that this product really should not have been used, that scientists warned against its use but that the minister decided that it was no big deal and said that it could be used anyway. That is the Canada we are living in. It does not make any sense. That is just one of the many reasons why Quebeckers need to leave Canada. It is because of things like this. I am really looking forward to his response. I hope he will ask me questions because this is not a matter of national interest. What is more, these projects will be exempt from the laws because they are oil and gas projects, energy projects. The next pipeline will sail through the approval process. It will be done within a year at most. We know how these bills work. The government throws hundreds of pages at us and we have just a few hours to analyze them before speaking to them. My understanding of this bill—and this is the icing on the cake—is that the minister even has the power to approve a project before it has been assessed. Not only do they want to fast-track impact assessments and complete them within a year, but they can also turn around and allow construction to begin in the meantime. Imagine a scenario where a project is launched. It is really exciting. A brand-new pipeline is being built to transport oil. The environmental assessment begins while the project is performing well, but after six months, the conclusion is that there are simply too many impacts on this or that ecosystem and that the project either has to change tack or be redesigned. By then it will be too late. The trench will already be dug. This is backwards logic. I might seem less calm than usual. I swear I am trying to stay calm, but when I read things like this, I cannot believe they are actually doing this. Is this really flying under the radar? As for Mr. Trump, everyone says that the Prime Minister is going to save us. It is all well and good to use the tariff crisis as an excuse, but we know what is going on. I want to reassure all parliamentarians here today and everyone watching us at home that we are not against efficiency, effectiveness or economic development. We simply believe that precautions need to be taken. We think that the Prime Minister is currently giving himself powers that make no sense and granting powers to the executive branch that far exceed the mandates given by the people. This is especially true since, yes, the Liberals did win some by-elections this summer, but their majority was essentially created by floor crossers and backroom deals. I feel a need to remind my colleagues of that from time to time. Some folks will tell me to stop saying that, because everyone knows it. Yes, I will continue because that is more or less what real life is all about. I heard the Prime Minister say this week that he has a mandate to do what he is doing. I disagree. My NDP colleague asked earlier where it was written in the Liberal platform. He was right to ask. I would like the parliamentary secretary to respond to that, if he would like to chat with me. Where in their platform did it say that they were going to do this? We did not see that anywhere. I briefly mentioned workers’ rights at the start, but what this bill does is crazy. It basically says that workers have the right to strike, but that the strike must not last long or cause any disruptions, that they must not make too much noise—that is specified in the bill—and that the government has the right to decide when it gets to be too much. That means that workers have no rights. If workers go on strike, it is too bad, but that is what the reality of bargaining looks like. First of all, when a strike occurs, it is usually because the employer has acted in bad faith. In any case, typically, though I do not want to generalize, there is no agreement. The parties are at a standstill. Strikes are meant to hurt the employer a little. That is called bargaining power. If there is no power, there will be no gains. The bill says that people have the right to strike, but that they no longer have any power and that they can be stopped at any time. Actually, it gets worse, because the members of the government will not even take the blame for stopping strikers; the Canada Industrial Relations Board will do it for them while they sit with their feet up by the fire and tell themselves that it is not their fault. That is the kind of government we are dealing with. Obviously, members will have guessed that the Bloc Québécois will vote against Bill C‑39.”

• Personal attack
  ?

  Speech on a bill

  Respect 99 of 100

  This statement targeted a person rather than their actions or views: “the personal preferences of the Prime Minister and his friends”.

  See full analysis →