Official Hansard
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.
