Jean-Denis Garon
Mirabel, Quebec · Bloc Québécois · Canada
“The government is likely going to keep Parliament in session until very late this Friday. That is okay because it is our job to be here. However, this is happening because the government is not communicating with the opposition parties properly.”
“Mr. Speaker, as I said, this is one of those rare instances where Quebec will get its share of the cash, and it is a sign of recognition that the federal government is not good at this, not good at building things. The federal government is not on the ground; it is a government that is far removed from immediate matters.”
“Allowing air passenger complaints to be outsourced to private sector companies chosen by the Minister of Transportation , who is himself buddies with the airlines, which may even choose the companies that will handle complaints about them, was not part of the Liberals' platform.”
“At this point, we are taking the minister's word for it that he has reached an agreement with Quebec and that, based on this agreement, Quebec will receive its share of the funds, no strings attached. However, we had no way of knowing this from reading the bill.”
“The bill also states that amounts are to be paid out “at the times and in the manner that the Minister...considers appropriate.” Now we find ourselves in a situation where we have a vague bill, and we are realizing, after months, that the intent is there, that negotiations are happening, but also that our questions were legitimate.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge all the brave men and women who are here tonight and who will be staying up late. I was joking around earlier with my colleague and neighbour, the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles . All kidding aside, I think that she knows that I really like her.”
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“We may be negotiating trade agreements with the White House, but we do business with companies across the United States that still value their relationship with us, and it is with those companies that we trade. We need to strengthen our relationship with them. This shows how important it is to launch these negotiations with the United States. Mexico has already started. Formal negotiations have begun. (1125) When the Prime Minister was elected, he told us he was the best negotiator in the history of humankind, that he needed to be elected, that he would perform miracles and that the negotiations would go smoothly. That is what he told us. Since then, we have observed that the things that win votes in Canada hurt our relationship with the U.S. Some very harsh remarks have been made.”
“Government spending is also helping to offset that. Procurement is starting up, but these government expenditures are not a recipe for growth. What is wrong with the GDP? Let us break down the GDP figures. I see the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin : He knows this, because he breaks down these figures. He is a bit like me: He loves this sort of thing. What is driving the weakness in GDP is exports. We are in the midst of an export crisis. If I may coin a term for educational purposes, it could almost be called an “export recession”. This highlights the importance of our relationship with our American neighbours, as well as the importance of improving that relationship, even though they are not always easy to deal with.”
“He talks about it like it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, an unprecedented novelty, as if accelerating depreciation were a generational change. It is taxation 101, and it shows that this language is just hype, just rhetoric. The minister's parliamentary secretary told us that investment has increased and that consumption has held steady. It is true that household consumption has held steady. That is because we are showing solidarity. The Prime Minister is doing something that is taught in a first-year university course. It is called stimulus measures. When people are struggling, cheques are sent out to support consumption. This adds to the government deficit and will have to be paid back at some point. It is working for now, but sending out cheques is not a recipe for success over the next 10 years. What we need is growth.”
“In reality, the superdeduction is the chantilly cream of fiscal policy. It is not a superdeduction. Are members familiar with chantilly cream? It is whipped cream with a bit of sugar mixed in. The pretty name is just to make it seem more appealing. The same goes for the superdeduction. It is not a superdeduction. It is the same accelerated depreciation found everywhere, including in the United States. On top of that, they have picked the winners. Some companies are telling us that Canada has a digital sovereignty problem. They say that they want to get into fibre optics because the Minister of Finance forgot about fibre optics in these sectors, because he picked the winners. Now, the government is telling us that it is a superdeduction. It is not a superdeduction. It is accelerated depreciation.”
“There may be early signs of a recession without any job losses because our businesses are resilient and do not want to lose their workforce straightaway by laying people off. We have talked about the importance of the wage subsidy in maintaining employment relationships for people who are being laid off. These days, if a company lays off its workers, someone else will poach their expertise. Of course, the Prime Minister has been telling us for a year now that the situation will soon be resolved. However, once the situation is resolved, the businesses will not be able to get their employees back. As I was saying, there are warning signs. I listened carefully to the member for Whitby . It is not always easy, but I did it. He broke down the GDP for us. He told us that investments are ongoing thanks to their superdeduction.”
“It means that warehouses are filling up. They have not laid anyone off yet, but there are closures. There are significant impacts on businesses. However, some companies have decided to maintain shifts, not lay everyone off and build up their inventory. Warehouse space is finite. They cannot keep stockpiling goods indefinitely. What this tells us is that when it comes to exports, trade and negotiations with the United States, we are sitting on a ticking time bomb. The state of inventories is critical. For the same reason, the economy occasionally recovers after a recession, but without adding any jobs, because businesses start selling off the inventory that was sitting in their warehouses, without rehiring people.”
“(1120) More than that, this debate is obscuring the fact that the economy is not doing well. It is appalling that we would spend a whole day wondering whether we meet criteria 1, 2, and 3, whether we will meet them in two months, or whether the first month of the second quarter is positive or negative. It is appalling because no one believes the Canadian economy is sustainable in its current state. I think this is a distraction from the real debate. However, it is reasonable to fear a recession because, while the unemployment rate is high, it has remained stable. The employment rate has held up relatively well, but it is fragile. That is true, and it is one of the criteria for a recession. As we can see from the GDP data, Canadian companies that are having trouble exporting have started to increase their inventory. What does that mean?”
“Howe Institute that has its own criteria. To determine whether we are in a recession, we need to assess the extent of the variation in the GDP. In this case, Canada saw a contraction in the first quarter, but it was very small. We need to look at the duration. There can be a recession with just one quarter of contraction. If the economy were to plummet by 30%, then we would not have to wait for the next quarter to see that we are in trouble. It depends on the specific circumstances. It depends on the extent of the slowdown. We want to know how many industries are affected. We want to know whether there has been a significant impact on GDP across many industries. Are we in a recession or are we not? No one knows. Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals can say for sure. This is an absolutely absurd debate.”
“However, when the data for the past few quarters was revised, positive quarters became negative. In the second quarter of 2025, the GDP dropped by 0.2%. The data for the fourth quarter of 2025 was also revised, but not in the government's favour. When the data is revised and things are worse than we thought, the Liberals should be taking some of the blame for that, but they are not. How do we know if we are in a recession? First, it is not up to Statistics Canada, the government or us to decide that. In the United States, the National Bureau of Economic Research is the one that decides whether the country is in a recession based on a set of criteria that is generally in keeping with two consecutive quarters of negative growth, but the criterion is not two consecutive quarters. In Canada, we have the Business Cycle Council at the C.D.”
“Can someone have a bout of the technical flu, but not the flu? That is not how it happens. Either we are in a recession or we do not know yet and we will find out later. There are symptoms. It is a bit like psychiatry, in that there are clinical criteria. Sometimes, not all of the criteria are met. Sometimes, no one is sure of the diagnosis and it gets figured out down the line. However, one thing is certain: Things are not going well. The Liberals are telling us that we are not in a recession. I would like to send a message to the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin. GDP data is constantly being revised. Right now, the growth is negative, but perhaps it will become positive when we look at future versions of the data. That is what the Liberals are telling us. They are saying to wait for the forthcoming data.”
“We know the data will be revised, but for now there was a very slight decrease of one‑tenth of a per cent. First of all, I do not like the term “technical recession”. I was talking about this yesterday with the member for Marc-Aurèle-Fortin , who says we are not in a recession. He is not saying that the economy is doing well. He is saying that we are not in a recession, as if that is some sort of award, as if he could skate off with the puck by saying that we are not in a recession and that that is their objective as a government. In an economy, the aim is not to avoid a recession; it is to achieve real growth that increases people's purchasing power and raises living standards. I do not like the term “technical recession”. Think about having pneumonia. Can someone have technical pneumonia, but not pneumonia?”
“He is a philosopher, yet he stood up in the people's assembly and, with a philosophically straight face, said that, if AI suits his partisan agenda, AI is right, and that is just the way it is. Personally, I believe we are capable of having healthier debates in the House, especially since this is a technical debate, a debate on numbers, and since we might end up having to meet somewhere in the middle. With respect to this motion, what will ultimately determine how we vote will probably be the accuracy of the facts cited. According to the motion, we are in a recession. We have had two consecutive quarters of negative growth. There was a significant contraction of 1% in the last quarter, followed by a quarter for which we have only preliminary data.”
“Madam Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues for contributing to the debate on this important motion. I am not saying that everything in it is right, nor am I saying that everything in it is wrong, but it is an important motion. Before I begin, I want to say that we have concerns about the impact AI will have on our lives. Just today, in fact, I think we saw an example of how AI can insinuate itself into parliamentary debates. The government whip stood up and read us some AI text from a source that cannot be verified. There is no way to tell if it is true or false. Then there is the member for Whitby , with whom I get along very well. We do not agree on everything, but we have a good working relationship. He studied philosophy.”
“She was recently a member of the NDP caucus, and I think she was interested in these figures when she was a New Democrat. Now that she is a new member on that side of the House, is she pushing for those figures to be made public?”
“Madam Speaker, as my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île said, a lot of climate policies have been walked back. The government ended the carbon tax and, for all intents and purposes, the industrial carbon tax. It is also allowing hydrogen made from methane to be classified as clean hydrogen, granting new oil subsidies, and so on. Despite all this backtracking, including the funding for new pipelines, the government is telling us that it will be able to fulfill its obligations under the Paris Agreement as early as this year. Bloc Québécois members play fair. We criticize, but we ask for figures first. We are asking the government what figures it is basing its claim on. However, there do not seem to be any figures. I would like my colleague to tell me one thing.”
“On the day the government needs to order aircraft, it is unacceptable to have to decide whether to import them from Sweden, order them from the Americans, or open new factories. That is what happens when there is no strategy. I think there are some fundamental questions that need to be asked, because we have an electioneering government that goes from announcement to announcement, and there is never any thought about the long term, particularly in the case of the aerospace industry.”
“Mr. Speaker, I enjoy hearing the member talk about aeronautics and aerospace. There have been developments. We are happy to see that. For years, the federal Liberal government has refused to have an industrial policy on aeronautics and aerospace. We do not have one. There are even members from my region who go around telling unions that people do not want one, that it is pointless and that even the industry does not want one. However, we heard from the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada at the Standing Committee on Finance last week. They said that they wanted and needed a civil and military strategy, because there was none, and that a procurement process was not enough.”
“That is what it is for. That is why this standing order exists. In this case, however, the government introduced a bill, denied the opposition parties a technical briefing, did not put the bill on the agenda for debate, and then suddenly on a Friday morning, it announced that it was going to limit debate because nothing had been done for three weeks and time was now of the essence. That is not how time allocation should be used.”
“Mr. Speaker, if we had had more time to debate this bill, we could have discussed the parts that should have been removed. That would have made the member for Acadie—Bathurst happy. We could have discussed the parts that could have been voted on separately. Since the member for Acadie—Bathurst is going to vote in favour of time allocation, we will not be able to do so. However, all joking aside, time allocation does serve a purpose. The government usually begins by letting things take their course. We have debates, and legislation moves forward, but all of a sudden, a roadblock springs up. Opposition parties sometimes act in bad faith. At some point, since the government has budgetary responsibilities, it will have no choice but to impose time allocation to move the process forward in the face of the opposition parties' bad faith.”
“Mr. Speaker, questions like that are a waste of time. Even a bad 300-page novel will have seven or eight good pages. That does not mean the whole book makes for pleasant reading. That is the government's same old strategy. It throws a few good things in with a bunch of unacceptable things. Backbenchers stand up and cry foul when we vote against the bill as a whole. If they think it is so important that we vote for the bill, let them ask for a separate vote on those items.”
“There is nothing about the $814 million stolen from Quebec. There is only more and more subsidies to oil companies. What is this bill, then? It is an incomplete and ill-conceived bill with so much potential for controversy that the government wants to avoid debate. There is no clear indication that it will be passed before we leave. This bill could be passed in the fall, so there was no need for a closure motion. We have a government that is being run like a business and that is trying to reduce government accountability and transparency. I stand with all those who think that Parliament deserves better than what the Liberals are currently doing.”
“We have been ignored. There is nothing about EI reform. We are just lurching from one temporary measure to the next. There is nothing for seniors. There is nothing for the forestry industry, nothing about buying back the countervailing duties that are paid to the United States in advance and that will eventually result in a victory for our timber exporters years from now. During those years, our forestry companies have no cash flow. We are asking the government to purchase this asset, which is money tied up in the United States in the form of countervailing duties, to give them some breathing room. It is an asset. It does not even count toward the deficit. It is an asset. There is nothing about this. There is nothing about Quebec's request for $733 million for the influx of asylum seekers.”
“We were the ones who informed the Prime Minister, in April, that the formula had been revised. The first time, he was taken aback. The second time, he told us he would provide a response during the budget statement. There was nothing when the budget statement was tabled, and we had to wait. There is nothing in any of this about enabling companies that will have to temporarily halt production due to these tariffs to keep their workers on the payroll. These workers will end up relying on employment insurance. Given the fund's actuarial rules, EI cannot withstand two shocks at once. That is why we are calling for a measure that costs the same amount, namely, wage subsidies, which will ensure that EI can continue to be appropriately managed without raising contributions for businesses that need something other than higher taxes these days.”
“The issue here is no longer just about moving closure, cutting off debate or bypassing committees. The issue is that airlines may have seen a bill before we, the elected members, did. I understand the seriousness of what I am saying, but that is what we suspect. Here is the context: President Trump increased tariffs based on a new formula in early April. They now stand at 25% on a wide range of goods, and 25% of Quebec's exports are affected. Quebec is the hardest-hit province. However, when the Liberals tabled the budget update, they failed to take that into account. They used the wrong figures and calculations. They announced no measures to help the businesses that would be affected by this new tariff formula. We had to wait weeks, and the Prime Minister actually learned about it from us, during question period. I am not joking.”
“For the government, an ombudsman is a problem. Obviously, the Liberals are not going to abolish the position, but it is like they are plucking every feather from a duck's wings and telling it that it should still try to fly. That is what they are doing. That is exactly what they are doing. That is a problem, and it deserves to be debated. Division 17 will be voted on separately and has nothing to do with the budget. It was not in the budget speech. It was not in any document. To reduce the backlog of air passenger complaints, the Liberals are allowing the minister to have complaints handled by private companies that could potentially be chosen by the airlines. There may be an issue of parliamentary privilege here, because we hear that Air Canada was getting ready to select companies before we parliamentarians even saw the bill.”
“It deserves some debate, at the very least, especially because we know this bill is going to pass now that the Liberals have a majority. All we are asking for is a debate to share the views of those who elected us and who disagree with this, but we are being denied that debate in a democracy. (1630) Some measures are designed to give the government more power and allow for less transparency. Some measures limit who can file complaints with the procurement ombudsman and restrict the complaints that can be reviewed, at a time when spending, particularly military spending, is set to reach record levels and procurement will play a greater role than ever before. What does that mean? It means that the government does not care about protecting citizens, which is the whole point of having an ombudsman.”
“We could spend hours discussing that. This bill expands subsidies to the oil industry and allows hydrogen produced from methane to be classified as clean hydrogen, whereas in Quebec, for example, hydrogen must be produced from renewable resources to be classified as clean. We recently had industry experts in to testify during the pre-budget consultations, and they clearly explained to us that—from a scientific perspective, as accepted by the industry—hydrogen produced from methane does not qualify as clean. Why is the government hiding this in a 300‑page document that will see virtually zero debate in the House? It is because it is in cahoots with the oil companies and is subsidizing them. The member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie just quit over this, and now here it is in Bill C-31.”
“The heritage minister is the one discussing the budget today. That seems to be the arrangement. The heritage minister told us that we did not need a technical briefing. People can go look at the blues. They will be outraged that this is happening in the House of Commons. He told us that we did not need a technical briefing, that 300 pages is a long read and that three weeks is not enough time to read it. Today, he comes back and tells us that the government is going to impose time allocation, that we are going to debate all of this within a few hours and that that is plenty of time for us. I know that the heritage minister is smarter than some of the things he says in the House make him seem, but that does not mean he is entitled to treat us like idiots. That is a problem. What is the problem with this bill?”
“It is a lot of work for the party critics, because it is a bill that discusses everything and nothing, not only the budget, as the Speaker confirmed in his ruling on the point of order I had raised regarding division 17. We asked for a technical briefing. We did not get a response. A week went by. Two weeks went by. Three weeks went by. We finally got an answer last Thursday, with a technical briefing organized at the last minute, when a number of critics could not even participate because their committees were sitting. Today, we are told that we are going to rush through debating this bill, even though parliamentarians have not been given the tools they need to study it. When we were debating time allocation earlier, the heritage minister was here. He was the one doing the government's dirty work for today.”
“It secured a majority with 50% plus one, because that is enough for the Liberals here. This government is imposing closure motion after closure motion. It is shutting down committee work and ordering in camera proceedings on the Driver Inc. issue, when the chair of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has been attending events put on by some of the organizations behind this scandal. What the Liberals are choosing to do is to put an end to debate. In addition, in terms of what happened with Bill C‑31, I consider it to be an injustice to parliamentarians. We had requested a technical briefing on this 300‑page bill.”
“When I hear the Conservatives saying that the Prime Minister should threaten the provinces, that he should tell them to get rid of anything that people in western Canada see as a barrier or else the provinces will face the Prime Minister's wrath, I think we have heard better arguments in the House. Members can see that the lights are out behind me, and there is a reason for that. It is because this is a dark afternoon for Parliament, because we are seized with Bill C-31 , a very technical 300‑page bill with many amendments that are questionable or that need to be clearly debated in the House. However, the government is asking for carte blanche. It is telling us that it is going to impose time allocation and rush through this debate. Why is the government doing that? It is because this government has become arrogant.”
“Mr. Speaker, we have a Conservative colleague who has come right out and asked us here in the House why it is easier for a company in southern Quebec to do business with New York state than with British Columbia. I think there is a reason why geography must remain a compulsory course for high school students. It is very important. The answer is that there is a continent separating Quebec and B.C. and, when it comes to interprovincial barriers to trade, some members of my colleague's party have described bilingual signage and French-language signage as barriers to interprovincial trade.”
“Mr. Speaker, it seems we are doomed to disagree with the member for Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford today, not least because we appreciate the sound of the voice of the Assistant Deputy Speaker, who sat in the chair just before you. Beyond that, I would ask you, if possible—”
“Madam Speaker, typically, we used to be able to count on the Conservatives to champion decentralization and the protection of provincial jurisdictions, sometimes even at the cost of cutting transfers to the provinces. I just heard what my colleague said. He literally said that, in areas of jurisdiction that fall exclusively under the provinces and Quebec, like professional associations, showing leadership at the federal level means making threats to the provinces, imposing conditions on them and ultimately telling them that if they do not do what the Prime Minister wants on a Tuesday morning, their funding will be cut. Has the Conservative DNA changed over the past few weeks?”
“I would like to know whether the minister realizes that he is contradicting himself. Does he realize that his government's decision to wait three weeks to give a technical briefing and then impose time allocation is indefensible? Is he aware of how arrogant his government is, the government on whose behalf he is speaking today in the House of Commons?”
“Madam Speaker, with all due respect, sometimes very smart people, like the minister, say things that are far below their level of intelligence. The minister's answer to my last question falls into that category. I will explain why. The minister is telling us that three weeks is not much time to read 300 pages and that we were short on time. He is wondering why the government would give us a technical briefing when three weeks is not much time to read 300 pages. Now, he is rising in the House to move a motion to reduce the time allotted for debate so that we cannot debate this bill. We will have just a few hours to debate it. He thinks that three weeks is not enough time for the opposition to read the bill properly, and yet he thinks we can debate it properly in just a few hours.”
“That level of arrogance is typical of this government. Personally, I am acting in good faith. I do read the budget document. We spend a ton of time on it. It is highly technical and legislative. We did receive a briefing from officials, but we only received it a few hours before the government imposed time allocation. I am therefore asking the minister whether he considers it acceptable that it took three weeks before we received a response to our request for a briefing and that his government imposed time allocation right after that. I am also asking him whether, for future bills, he thinks it would be appropriate to provide the opposition with a timely response so that it can perform its work constructively and properly debate all the legislative issues involved in bills.”
“Madam Speaker, I understand that members want to debate the content of Bill C‑31 , but I want to remind everyone that we are in fact debating a time allocation motion on this bill and the decision to allocate a specific amount of time for debate on it. I have a question for the minister. Why did we have to spend more than three weeks asking officials from the Department of Finance for a technical briefing on a 300-page bill of which certain divisions, like division 17 on air passengers, have nothing to do with budgetary policy? Can the minister please explain why, for three weeks, we were unable to ask officials questions in order to do our parliamentary homework? There was radio silence. The minister's response was essentially that we should just read the bill ourselves, since we are a bunch of lazy bums.”
“The briefing finally took place at the end of last week, while committees were in session and most of the party critics could not even attend. I understand that some governments have used time allocation in the past. I understand that it has happened. I understand that no one has a monopoly on this. Everyone accuses others of it when they are in the opposition. I understand that. Now we are being slapped with a time allocation motion, when we only just got a briefing after the government ignored us for three weeks. What does that say about how arrogant the Liberals have gotten since they obtained a majority?”
“Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member for Madawaska—Restigouche is asking the minister how this was received by the industry, because we know that Air Canada was getting ready to implement section 17 of the bill before members of Parliament had even seen the text of the bill. Today we are discussing democracy and time allocation. We are wondering, first of all, whether the privileges of parliamentarians have been respected. I am not saying that everything in the bill is bad. However, the bill under consideration is 300 pages long. We want to do our parliamentary work. We requested a briefing from Department of Finance officials on this bill. This is standard practice, as the minister will agree. How long did it take to get the briefing? Three weeks went by without a response.”
“Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. As you know, today's schedule has been disrupted, albeit in a positive way, by the arrival of the Olympic and Paralympic athletes we welcomed earlier. In light of that, I would like to ask you to confirm what time the consideration of Private Members' Business will begin.”
“Madam Speaker, this bill is more than 300 pages long and contains many questionable amendments and provisions. Among other things, there are measures that expand the government's powers and reduce transparency. There are measures that limit who can file a complaint with the procurement ombudsman and what types of complaints the ombudsman can review. Given that procurement, especially military procurement, is set to become increasingly important, does my colleague welcome this type of measure from a transparency perspective?”
“Madam Chair, speaking of resources allocated in the estimates, the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec and steelworkers are calling for a wage subsidy to help maintain the employment relationship between employers and workers who have been hit hard by the new tariff calculation. From what I understand, not a single penny of the budget will be allocated to a wage subsidy program. The minister knows that we think that the measures that have already been announced are inadequate. Even though he will not answer, I would like to know exactly how much of the budget is allocated to the wage subsidy that the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec is calling for.”
“Madam Chair, the minister increased the funding allocated to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner by 2.5%, or approximately $225,000. I would like him to tell me what proportion of this additional spending will be used to monitor the Prime Minister 's conflicts of interest.”
“Madam Chair, I am very protective of my time. I guard it as if it were a pearl. We note that, in the budget, $229 million has been cut from Statistics Canada. I understand that the government has decided to invest elsewhere in science and research, but the last person to make such significant cuts to Statistics Canada was Stephen Harper, as part of his effort to ensure that Parliament and parliamentarians could develop public policies with fewer open data. What does that say about his commitment to science?”
“Madam Chair, the minister is allocating $710 million in additional funding to Alto, which is still officially called VIA HFR after a project that was scrapped at the last minute. I would like to know whether he is aware of how much of that amount will be used to pay for the expropriation of land, particularly in Mirabel, and how much of that amount will be used for Alto's advertising blitz, as this company has effectively become a communications firm.”
“Madam Chair, we know the Minister of Finance. He is very nice and gets along with everyone, but when it comes time to comply with the unanimous requests of the National Assembly, he disappears. That is what we see in these estimates: The amount is not there, just like—I am guessing, though I wonder why—the $814 million stolen from Quebeckers when the Liberals bought votes in the last election by sending out rebate cheques in seven provinces for a carbon tax that people had not even paid. The National Assembly is unanimously requesting that $814 million. Its 125 elected officials are unanimous. Where is that money in these estimates?”
“Madam Chair, the Standing Orders allow members, during the consideration of the estimates, to ask the minister about the expenses of the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General, which are on page 6 of the estimates. That is what I just did, having given myself that right with all due respect for the head of state. Now, through a unanimous motion, the National Assembly has asked for $733 million to compensate it for the influx of asylum seekers, which the federal government is supposed to be responsible for. Naturally, I will not ask the minister where that money is in the estimates. I assume that it cannot be found anywhere, like most of Quebec's requests. What does the minister think a motion unanimously adopted by the 125 elected members of the National Assembly is worth?”
“Madam Chair, once again, he is cutting funding for science, agriculture and the National Film Board of Canada, but he managed to find one-third of a million dollars for the Governor General. Does he think the Governor General and her office now have the resources to produce a nice film for us about the $7,000 shoes the Governor General just might buy with that money?”
“Madam Chair, again, the minister calls bowing to the U.S. President's demands generational investments. It is worth noting that the government has asked Statistics Canada, the agricultural research centres, the National Research Council of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the National Film Board of Canada to tighten their belts, yet it has made cuts while finding money for the Governor General. A full one-third of a million dollars has been allocated to the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. I would like to know whether the minister or his government intends to ask the Governor General and her office to conduct research on agriculture.”