“I do not want this bill to pass. It gives the government too much power to ignore laws, hurt the environment, weaken workers' right to strike, and sell off airports. It lets ministers make big decisions in secret with no oversight from Parliament.”

“Mr. Speaker, I want to start by making a brief comment on the speech given by the member who spoke before me, as I tried to listen to it. I sometimes like to practise my English, so I listen to speeches in the original language. I must say that I really sympathize with the interpreters, because I had a lot of trouble understanding everything that was said. However, I did understand a few things, because I tried to keep track of the number of times the word “pipeline” came up in the speech. I ended up losing count because it came up so often. At least I understood that my colleague was talking about a pipeline. Since we are talking about Bill C‑39, I gather that she wants more pipelines. It is not a good time to be a Conservative right now, because the Liberals are building more pipelines than the Conservatives ever built, more than they ever would have dreamed of and more than they ever wanted. Unfortunately, this is not a good time for the planet either. That is what I want to talk about in my speech on Bill C‑39. The government decided to call this bill the “building Canada act”. That is what it says at the bottom of the screen for anyone watching this debate on Bill C-39 in the House. That kind of title always surprises me. Anyone who reads the bill will soon realize that it is not a law designed to build Canada. Rather, it is a law designed to give the government even more arbitrary powers to override existing laws, to gut environmental protections, to trample on workers’ rights and to sell off our airports to the highest bidders. That sums up the bill. It is sad to see the government, which already had an authoritarian flavour when it was a minority, go even further now that it has a majority. Earlier, one of my Conservative colleagues mentioned something that we have already reported a number of times in the House. I think it bears repeating, because the Liberals apparently fail to grasp the magnitude of what they are doing. We already passed Bill C-5, one of the worst bills I have ever had the misfortune of studying and debating in the House. Unfortunately, they are now proposing Bill C-39. Apparently, they had it in them to come up with something even worse. Bill C‑5 contained limitations imposed by the opposition because, in committee, we heard from a number of witnesses who essentially told us that Bill C‑5 was similar to the Emergencies Act. The government could claim there was an emergency, like the tariff emergency or the economic threat emergency, as an excuse to gain extraordinary powers that would let it override some laws and tailor others to suit specific projects that it decided were in the national interest. At least we managed to impose some limits, such as the creation of a special committee to oversee the enforcement of Bill C-5. We also managed to include a sunset clause in the bill so that the measures would expire after five years, because an emergency is not a permanent state. It is temporary. What is more, those powers could not be used when the House was not in session, when Parliament was prorogued. That is basically all just common sense. In short, when the government is granted extraordinary powers, it must be held to account for how they were used. Unfortunately, it seems that was not enough power for the government. The Liberals seem truly power-hungry right now. They have decided to get rid of the provision that ensured Bill C-5 would no longer be in effect after five years. That is mind-boggling. In five years’ time, Donald Trump will not be U.S. President anymore. The emergency is now. If it is still an emergency in five years, then it is not really an emergency at all. It is a situation that has become permanent. An emergency cannot be permanent. Clearly, the government wanted to use the emergency as an excuse to secure concessions and permanently weaken the rule of law. I have a real problem with that. Bill C-39 clearly reveals the Liberal government’s true intentions. The Liberals must be held accountable. Worse still, there are all sorts of other provisions in Bill C‑39 that weaken protections, particularly when it comes to workers’ rights. I was the Bloc Québécois transportation critic, and I saw all kinds of lobbying for years. Every year, it was the same old tune. Representatives of ports, airports and all types of federally regulated businesses would come to my office and tell me that we really needed to find a way to prevent workers from striking. They would tell me that the government should declare that the national interest is too important for workers in pretty much every federally regulated sector to be able to exercise their rights. Of course, we know that the only leverage that workers have against their employers, aside from quitting, is to go on strike, to have everyone stand up and refuse to work in inappropriate conditions. Unfortunately, workers who are unhappy with their conditions are now left with only one option: to quit and leave other workers in the same situation. The option of striking at least enables these people to demonstrate their solidarity collectively and build up their bargaining power. Individual workers have very little power. Sometimes they are not motivated to retrain in another field. There is a certain hypocrisy here, in saying that the government is going to give people time, appoint an arbitrator, allow time for negotiations and then refer the matter to the Canada Industrial Relations Board. As we all know, the reality is that the government does not want to bear the burden anymore. It does not want to have to justify its actions before Parliament anymore. Up until now, special legislation was required. The government wants to do away with that. It wants to decide everything by decree, behind closed doors, as was the case with Bill C-5. We can see how similar these two measures are in spirit. It is also clear why these two measures are both included in Bill C-39. In a way, these measures are both meant to undermine transparency. The government wants to make decisions behind closed doors, without consulting anyone and without being held accountable. This is very problematic for democracy. It seems to me that the Liberals do not realize what they are doing. In its speeches and promises, the Liberal Party generally claims to stand for virtue, good faith and ideals. As I listen to my Liberal colleagues speak, I hear only naive optimism. They have nothing negative to say about what they are doing. However, when we actually read the bills, they are frightening. I do not know if the Liberals realize what they are doing or if they are just blindly taking their leader at his word because they are completely mesmerized, have no idea what they are voting on on a daily basis and simply accept the message. I do not know if they are actually capable of thinking critically, if they read the bills and if they ask themselves questions. I wonder if, in caucus, they actually ask the ministers and the Prime Minister questions. Personally, I am troubled b y the parliamentary dynamic that is taking shape. We saw debate cut short in the case of Bill C‑5. I hope we will not see that again with Bill C‑39. It seems that the government is interested not in democracy, but in power. The Liberals are going to realize that at some point. I cannot believe that they will not listen to their constituents who will be experiencing difficult situations or when there will be protests in their ridings in the future against projects that will have been unilaterally imposed before an environmental assessment has even been completed. It is madness, but that is where we are headed. What a sad prospect. I have a lot more to say, but my time is up.”