Claude DeBellefeuille
Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, Quebec · Bloc Québécois · Canada
“We are also told that it would have been easier to stop an organized network of pedophiles operating on the Internet. I asked if that means that such criminals cannot be arrested today, because we do not have a law on lawful access on the books. The answer is no.”
“We then asked the government if the commissioner could come back. What was happening was that department officials were completely dismantling all of the amendments proposed by the Privacy Commissioner. It is easy to understand why I was a little skeptical. I wondered if the commissioner and his team had really been that wrong.”
“Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her kind words. I think she is brave, because she came during the clause-by-clause study, like my NDP colleague did. They did not have the right to speak, but they were there, hard-working and rigorous, and they proposed amendments. I have a lot of respect for these two members.”
“All the amendments I proposed came either from the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Quebec Bar Association, or the chair of the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. I did not propose far-fetched amendments. They were based on expert testimony that sought to help us strike a balance.”
“He is telling us that Canada is lagging behind. What exactly are we comparing ourselves to? The United Kingdom does not have a charter protecting people's rights, and neither does the United States. They have street cameras in the U.K. that film people.”
“However, it is still a parliamentary tool that can be used as a last resort when one feels that, no matter what people say, the government's primary goal is to run out the clock, hold a few hours of debate, and then, after about 20 hours, bring in closure and claim that the opposition parties are wasting their time.”
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“The Bloc Québécois will support this bill, and our party will work hard to convince all our colleagues that it must be passed, because it is a humane response to a terrible tragedy. Most importantly, the EI fund can afford it. We are not talking about the general population or a large number of people. There is no financial reason to oppose this bill. We are not talking about a large number of deaths that could bankrupt the fund. (1410) I hope that, this time, the Liberals, the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc will agree to amend the Employment Insurance Act and allow these parents, who are facing a human tragedy, to focus on their grief without being forced to return to work too quickly before their wounds have begun to heal. We do not ever completely get over the death of a child. A part of us is always broken.”
“I understand how my colleague feels. Bill C‑265 passed through all stages of the legislative process. We defended it successfully in committee, and it received virtually unanimous support from all parties in the House. However, when all the cancer patients were waiting for the news, in the end, the Liberal government in power, this same Liberal government, refused to give it a royal recommendation. People who had aggressive forms of cancer and needed their energy to fight the disease unfortunately were left with the bad news. Benefits went from 15 weeks to 26 weeks, even though we knew full well that many serious illnesses take longer than 26 weeks to recover from. I understand my colleague and I want to reassure him.”
“I could name people who had to go back to work or borrow money, in short, people who had to go into debt and subject themselves to financial stress, because they did not have enough weeks of special EI sickness benefits to live comfortably and, most importantly, to be able to focus their energy on fighting their disease. When someone is grieving the loss of a child or suffering from a serious illness, they should not have to spend time worrying about their survival or about how they are going to pay the rent. They need to muster their fighting spirit. People who lose a child in tragic circumstances need that energy to grieve and overcome their ordeal. I know of nothing worse in life than losing a child, either at birth or in the course of the child's life. In my opinion, there is no right age to lose a child.”
“I know how he feels because we had to convince our colleagues here that the EI program could afford it, that the fund has enough money from workers and employers to be able to offer that number of weeks to those who are battling cancer, for example. I also had the names of people with colorectal cancer, for example. It is has been scientifically documented that getting through this form of cancer takes at least 37 weeks of special EI sickness benefits. Although treatments are increasingly effective, they take a longer period of time and can take a heavy toll on a person's health.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am deeply moved and feel privileged to speak on the bill introduced by my colleague from Burnaby North—Seymour . I know exactly how my colleague must feel in introducing a bill that responds to a very obvious need expressed by the people around him, people who have experienced the tragedy of losing a child and having to return to work quickly without being able to grieve because EI is not adapted to this type of situation. I know how he feels because when members have to enter a lottery to introduce a private member's bill. If they win, they get the privilege and opportunity to debate one of their bills. I had that privilege in 2021. I introduced Bill C‑265 , which sought to increase the number of weeks of special EI sickness benefits from 15 to 50.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am also deeply moved. I think there can be no greater tragedy than losing a child. I congratulate the member for introducing this bill, which brings all the current limitations of the Employment Insurance Act into full view. I would like to know whether, as a member of the government, he has verified that this humane amendment to the act will receive a royal recommendation.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to reiterate to the members opposite, including government members and the NDP, that the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives do not oppose Bill C‑3 , quite the contrary. We have shown our support for the bill. However, we did propose amendments to provide a slightly tighter framework for determining whether or not someone is a Canadian citizen when they live outside Canada. Can my colleague reassure the government that the committee did a thorough job? Should members not take that into account today in this next step in the House of Commons, which is the vote on the bill?”
“Mr. Speaker, I think that my colleague's speech laid out our basic argument quite clearly. As far as the numbers go, we disagree with representatives of the NDP and the government on the amount people this would affect. However, if there is one person held in high regard by all members of the House, that would be the Parliamentary Budget Officer. He said that a lot more people would be affected than the Liberal Party or the NDP seem to be letting on. Can my colleague shed some light on that for us?”
“On behalf of the Bloc Québécois, I would like to thank the 54,000 professionals in the independent community action network and the 4,500 organizations that, day after day, bring these spaces of hope and social transformation to life.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is national independent community action week in Quebec, and I rise today to pay tribute to the thousands of organizations across Quebec that work with passion and determination to build a more just, inclusive and supportive society. These groups are rooted in our community. They are the glue that holds us together. They defend people's rights, support the vulnerable, promote civic engagement and fight against inequality. Their independence is an asset, because it allows them to operate freely, according to the real needs of their communities. This week of recognition is a fitting time to commend their unwavering commitment, creativity and resilience.”
“Mr. Speaker, as the public safety critic for the Bloc Québécois, I can say that we have studied Bill C-12 at length. We have also heard from a lot of witnesses. I am an MP who is capable of weighing the pros and cons. Bill C‑12 contains some good measures, such as the one that gives the Minister of Health the power to identify precursor chemicals to fight the opioid crisis. Does my colleague think that giving the Minister of Health the power to quickly identify precursor chemicals is a good idea?”
“Mr. Speaker, I listened closely to my colleague's speech. Can she give me her opinion on the fact that Bill C-12 proposes to integrate the Coast Guard under the defence umbrella, under the umbrella of the Canadian Armed Forces, yet there are no plans to arm the Coast Guard? Does my colleague believe that our Coast Guard is genuinely being integrated into the military?”
“Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a very specific question. Bill C-12 provides that railway companies and port authorities must pay for suitable facilities where border services can carry out inspections. Does my colleague agree that companies, not the government, should pay for these facilities?”
“If these parts of the bill are so important, as the parliamentary secretary said, then we need to talk about them, educate people and make sure everyone understands them. The debate needs to go beyond the House of Commons. I am pleased with the parliamentary secretary's tone and I can assure him the co-operation of the Bloc Québécois throughout the process of studying Bill C‑12. However, does he agree with me that, on the issue of resources, we must also listen to workers, RCMP officers and border officers, who are also asking for suitable tools, technology and infrastructure? Right now, we are seeing that more people are being hired but nothing is being said on the issue of providing support through more advanced technological tools, for example. Could the parliamentary secretary expand on this issue?”
“Madam Speaker, I really appreciated the parliamentary secretary's constructive tone when speaking about Bill C‑12 generally. We have a lot in common. We both agree that border security needs to be enhanced and that much tougher and more robust measures need to be taken to ensure security. As he said, we agree that the Coast Guard should be given more powers and more tools for surveillance and communicating information. As for the other changes he is calling for relating to invasion of privacy and information sharing, it is not just the opposition parties that have a problem with that. Civil society as a whole stood up and spoke out, and many people have contacted members from all parties to express their concerns.”
“I think the best solution would be for the Minister of Public Safety to clearly announce that the three parts that have been removed will not reappear in any form.”
“Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague with whom I have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. I would say that, to calm things down a bit, the Minister of Public Safety should make it clear that the three troubling parts that were removed from Bill C-12 need to be scrapped for good. Bill C-2 should die on the Order Paper and there should be no strategies or negotiations to bring those three parts back for debate or to be passed. I think the minister needs to be very clear. So far, I have to say that the minister is trying to have it both ways, which means that we are not quite sure where he stands on this issue. Sometimes, in one newspaper article, he says one thing, and in another article, he says something else.”
“the President and our Prime Minister , there is talk of trying again to get us to pass Bill C-2, which contains three parts, including mail searches and the serious violation of the privacy rights of Quebeckers and Canadians. I think it is only a matter of time. I urge everyone to be very vigilant because that is what the U.S. President really wants. I think that we can only conclude that the current Liberal government will do everything it can to satisfy the American administration.”
“Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. We do not have the inside track, so we will talk hypothetically. I agree that the U.S. President's team must be disappointed, given that the U.S. government did not get what it asked for. The Liberal government backed down on a number of decisions that were made in the House to please the U.S. government, in the hopes that it would have some impact on the tariffs that were imposed. Unfortunately, that strategy has not worked so far. As we know, businesses continue to be impacted by the tariffs. I think that Bill C‑12 is a first step. I am sure that, in private discussions between the U.S.”
“I hope that people are listening today and that they will keep up the pressure on the government so that these three parts, which invade privacy, are never passed.”
“The government is not very quick on the draw, as they say. It is not very quick to respond to communities' urgent and pressing needs. The most problematic parts of Bill C‑2 , namely, the privacy invasions, were taken out of Bill C‑12 . Bill C‑2 was completely unacceptable. Canadians, Quebeckers, all organizations and everyone were against the fact that the government would allow such a major invasion of the privacy of Quebeckers and Canadians. When the government saw that its bill would not make it any further than this if it did not make amendments, it finally listened to reason and introduced Bill C‑12, which removed the three most problematic parts of Bill C‑2. What concerns me is that the government does not seem to have given up on these three parts.”
“Madam Speaker, I tend to agree with the first part of my colleague's question; it is true that workers are losing their jobs right now because of American tariffs. It does not seem as though the government is acting very quickly to support the small regions and medium-sized businesses that do not have the cash flow they need to cope with these changes. Quite frankly, we had very high expectations of this Liberal government based on what we heard during the election campaign. Unfortunately, we have been very disappointed. Take, for example, the aerospace industry and secondary processing facilities. There have been closures and staffing cuts in my riding and across Quebec. Unfortunately, the government is not paying much attention to that and does not seem to be acting very quickly.”
“Madam Speaker, I think I said this, but perhaps my colleague missed the beginning of my speech. I said at the outset that the Bloc Québécois agrees to refer Bill C-12 to committee so that we can hear expert opinions on this bill. We will be able to hear from witnesses to determine whether we should propose amendments and whether we can improve the bill. The answer to my colleague's first question is yes, we will send the bill to committee. As for the changes we might make, I would say that witnesses are very important to me. Before submitting amendments or ideas for amendments, we want to take the time to listen to witnesses and experts, who will help us make the right decisions and improve the bill, if necessary.”
“Are the 1,000 officers really going to be assigned to the border? It seems not. Instead, we hear that 800 border officers will be trained at Rigaud and another 200 will be assigned to intelligence or administrative investigation duties. These are some of the areas we will have to clarify when we ask questions in committee. In closing, we obviously intend to take a serious and thorough approach to Bill C-12. We are going to help improve it, and we hope that the governing party will listen to our amendments and recommendations.”
“The government is going to take resources away from the Coast Guard, give it a little more power and move its officers to priority areas, thereby neglecting other areas, including areas in my riding, which is a hot spot for gun smuggling, tobacco smuggling and human trafficking. For the past year or year and a half, the government has been making one announcement after another. I think this is the fifth official announcement of plans to hire 1,000 border officers. Hiring 1,000 new officers takes a lot of organization; after all, border officers do not grow on trees. It takes at least 18 weeks to train them, not including the specialized training delivered at various campuses in Quebec and Canada. What is less clear in the bill is who will be training them. Do we have enough instructors?”
“We can have that debate during committee hearings when we study the bill more thoroughly. As long as we do not know the answers to these questions, if the Coast Guard's only mandate is to provide information and surveillance, then we have to wonder whether it will truly be integrated under the umbrella of the Canadian Armed Forces. I think everyone knows that this is needed first and foremost for the Arctic, to safeguard the border and protect Canada's territorial sovereignty. However, as a member of Parliament representing an area near Lac Saint-François that also borders the Akwesasne reserve and New York State, what I am seeing is a decrease of at least 50% in maritime patrols in that area. The government talks about adding resources, but I think it is more a question of managing resources.”
“Bill C‑12 also provides for changes to the mandate of the Canadian Coast Guard. As we know, the Coast Guard is responsible for patrolling various parts of Quebec and the provinces by water, but it does not have the authority to relay information to other authorities. It is not allowed. I do not know if it does so in practice, but it is not supposed to. This bill therefore corrects that by giving the Coast Guard the ability to help document information it deems suspicious. Since the Coast Guard has been moved back under the military budget, what we are wondering is whether Coast Guard officers will be armed and how much they will be able to intervene. I did not see anything in the bill to indicate whether that might change. It is rather odd to be part of the armed forces but to not be allowed to be armed. That is another question.”
“I may be a pessimist but, given the times we are living in, I question whether a rail company would want to invest so much money in order to meet a government request. I suspect that enforcement delays may be much longer than what is anticipated in the context of the bill. (1315) In terms of rail companies, allowing border agents to come into marshalling yards to conduct inspections is a new way of doing things. Practices are going to change as a result. Ultimately, with Bill C‑12 , the government is announcing a lot of changes today. A law can be changed, but it can take several months or even years before the law is implemented and practices on the ground actually change. There are bills that were passed two years ago that we still do not have regulations for. The Official Languages Act is a good example.”
“I know this because it is what is required at the Port of Valleyfield for border officers to be present and for containers to clear through the port. Will the rail companies also be required to set up this very expensive infrastructure? Will they receive financial support? Will they have a certain amount of time to comply with the new requirements? As is often the case in legislation, the devil is in the details, and yet the current text of Bill C‑12 is lacking in this level of detail. In committee, we will have an opportunity to hear from many witnesses. For example, CN officials may tell us that this is not a problem, that they are willing to invest several million dollars in their marshalling yards to ensure that the agency has the infrastructure it needs to inspect the rail cars.”
“Under the bill, rail companies will have to create a space in their marshalling yards, including a warehouse and offices, because right now customs officers are unable to inspect railway cars leaving Canada for the United States. To do that, rail companies such as CN, CP and CSX will have to build infrastructure in their marshalling yards. The big question I have is this: Are those rail companies going to have to cover 100% of the costs associated with setting up this infrastructure? For example, it could cost millions of dollars to set up infrastructure that includes a warehouse and two or three offices for border officers, as well as a scanning system to detect if cars contain explosives or other important illicit substances that could threaten national security. I do not have the exact figure, but it could be more than $30 million.”
“The Bloc Québécois believes that border measures to crack down on organized crime continue to be not only necessary, but extremely important. In addition, we must have seamless co-operation among American, Mexican and Canadian authorities so they can be more effective in their response and capture the criminals, who have had it easy for the past few years. These criminals have figured out the flaws in our system and learned how to take advantage of them. Of course, Bill C‑12 also deals with the issue of refugee claimants. If the bill is sent to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, we will have an opportunity to debate it there and get a better idea of the sections that amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. I must say that the Bloc Québécois has some questions about Bill C‑12.”
“We have even seen smugglers get caught and deported back to their countries, only to return to Quebec and resume the same criminal activities. Our border control system is clearly dysfunctional. Obviously, we also want to take action in the fight against the fentanyl crisis, which, as everyone knows, is a public health crisis. In the Bloc Québécois, we agree that we need to invest in public health, which means increasing federal health transfers. The government must be more attentive to the needs of Quebec and the provinces in terms of support and funding, whether for rehabilitation centres, rapid access to emergency rooms, social worker services, supervised consumption centres, or harm reduction initiatives.”
“The Bloc Québécois also continues to demand better control of firearms that are circulating illegally and are prohibited on our soil. I represent a riding that borders the Akwesasne reserve, Lake Saint‑François, Lake Saint‑Louis, and the U.S. border in New York state. We know there is trafficking of illegal arms. We are therefore asking for more patrols and more resources to be allocated to this part of the country, where we know there is a lot of smuggling and even human trafficking, which occurs more by waterways than by land. (1310) We will continue to demand oversight to clean up the Toronto big banks and money laundering activities linked to criminal groups. We will also propose tougher penalties for border smugglers. The current penalties are a joke.”
“The training centre is located in Rigaud, in the riding of my neighbour from Vaudreuil . I had a wonderful time seeing first-hand the serious training provided to border officers and the highly-qualified personnel it produces in all matters related to border security. Why not let these officers respond to situations as they arise, leave their post, perform interceptions and call the RCMP to come and deal with packages, shipments or people trying to enter Canada illegally? I fail to understand the government's resistance to this proposal, since not a single border officer would deny that it is a good idea. In times of limited resources, it is wise to use our resources as effectively as possible. That is an idea proposed by the Bloc Québécois.”
“I asked the minister questions at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security two weeks ago, but instead of answering me, he looked to the president of the CBSA to answer for him. That is rather unfortunate. He needs to be accountable. This is his responsibility, and he needs to answer the questions. Given the current context, we think it is high time that the government incorporated a border department into this department, where all security interventions are entrusted to a minister who is responsible and accountable. We also proposed a measure that we believe could improve border security. We propose that border officers be given more flexibility in performing their duties. On Friday, I visited the school where Canadian border officers are trained.”
“We know that it took the President of the United States to tell us that our border is like a sieve. The Speaker of the House will surely recall that, at the time, we were very critical of the fact that the Liberal government opened Roxham Road and that we were told that we were racist and unwelcoming to refugees. Slowly but surely, Ontario came around to our way of thinking, as did the other provinces, and all of a sudden, the government managed to solve the problem and began welcoming refugees through the proper points of entry. The Bloc Québécois also made suggestions about how to better monitor the borders and better protect citizens. The first was to create a department of borders.”
“What matters is that the opposition did its job. The government realized that it did not do its job properly, that it had rushed things and had been too hasty in introducing Bill C‑2, which did not at all meet the needs of Quebeckers and the people of the other provinces. Bill C‑12 was pared down, because it is better to have something than nothing at all. This bill does have some interesting parts, which we would like to explore. We in the Bloc Québécois do not simply oppose or criticize. As a political party, we truly want to improve things and propose ideas, especially when they are in the interest of Quebec. All the better if they are also in the interest of other Canadians. When it comes to the whole issue of border security, the Bloc Québécois has long been calling for stronger action.”
“One very well-known expert witness told me that parts 14 and 15 of Bill C-2 would spell the end of privacy. If those provisions were not amended, it would have been the end of privacy. The government clearly took its shot, but it wrote this in a hurry. What scares me is that if the Liberal government had won a majority, Bill C-2 would have been passed and rammed down the throats of Quebeckers, Canadians and the opposition, all because the Americans felt it was very important. However, they do not value privacy as highly as we do here in Quebec and Canada. (1305) That is scary, because there is no guarantee that Bill C‑2 will not be brought back to life. Parts of that legislation can still be found in Bill C‑12 . The minister has not given up hope of getting the highly contentious parts of Bill C‑2 passed.”
“In its report, the Library of Parliament provided a whole list of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms violations, including the section that protects the right to life, liberty and security of any person in Canada, and section 8, which provides protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Obviously, we have talked at length about everything akin to opening mail without a warrant and about section 15, which provides that every individual is equal before the law. There was a risk of arbitrary discrimination. I could not find a single organization or agency that had anything good to say about the parts that were removed from Bill C‑2. That is why we are discussing and debating Bill C‑12 today. I could not find anyone to defend those parts because they represented a potential for intrusion.”
“The Bloc Québécois has carefully examined Bill C‑12 and we want the government to know that we support sending it to committee for study. However, what worries me is that I heard the Minister of Public Safety say that Bill C‑2 has only been postponed, and I have read that too. In other words, in order to be able to pass the other parts of Bill C‑2 through Bill C‑12, he removed the contentious parts that were preventing it from being passed unanimously, namely all the parts that violated privacy or anything that did not comply with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
“With the exception of three parts, it is almost identical to Bill C‑2 , previously presented by the government with considerable fanfare. Viewers at home will recall that the bill's number, Bill C‑2, reflects the fact that the government was intent on bringing this bill forward urgently at the start of this Parliament. That is why today, in mid-October, we are dealing with another bill that has the same objectives, but is now known as Bill C‑12. What does that mean? It means that this bill was initially intended to appease the President of the United States after he set a very high bar for Canada in terms of border security requirements. The Prime Minister promised to respond forcefully to the problem and to introduce a very strong bill to secure the borders, known as Bill C‑2 at that time.”
“I would also like to congratulate Daibhid Fraser in Dundee, Deborah Stewart in Elgin, Mark Wallace in Hinchinbrooke, André Brunette in Huntingdon, Michel Proulx in Les Cèdres, Sylvain Brazeau in Les Coteaux, Peter Zytynsky in Pointe‑des‑Cascade, Sylvie Tourangeau in Saint‑Anicet, Mylène Labre in Saint‑Clet, Daniel Pinsonneault in Sainte‑Barbe, Shawn Campbell in Sainte‑Justine‑de‑Newton, Jinny Brunelle in Sainte‑Marthe, Martin Dumaresq in Saint‑Étienne‑de‑Beauharnois, Yves Daoust in Saint‑Louis‑de‑Gonzague, Jean-Pierre Ménard in Saint‑Polycarpe, David McKay in Saint‑Télésphore and Miguel Lemieux in Salaberry‑de‑Valleyfield. Eighteen mayors out of 25 have been acclaimed in my riding. I would like to wish them all the best and may they have a successful term for the coming year. Today, we are discussing Bill C‑12 .”
“Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to speak when you are sitting in the chair. I would like to congratulate the newly acclaimed mayors in my riding. We recently had an election in Quebec for cities and municipalities. I would like to congratulate Alain Dubuc, who was re-elected as mayor of Beauharnois.”
“Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to hear that my Conservative colleague supports the Bloc Québécois's proposal to optimize the work of our officers by allowing them to leave the border crossing where they are posted to intercept migrants or goods. We know that border officers are armed and trained in self-defence. They have everything they need to better co-operate with the RCMP, which is often far from border crossings, especially in rural areas like mine. Does my colleague agree that we should bring up this idea during our study on border security so that it can be one of the key recommendations in the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security's report?”
“Mr. Speaker, Driver Inc. truckers are a danger to the public. It is good news that Ottawa wants to tighten up income traceability for incorporated truck drivers, as the Bloc Québécois has been calling for. That is a first step. However, a first step is not enough when people are being killed on our highways and Quebec is launching a public inquiry. Temporary immigrants must be prevented from working as incorporated drivers. Highway controllers must be better equipped, automatic audits must be conducted and so on. When will Ottawa finally use all the tools at its disposal to solve the problem of Driver Inc. truckers?”
“I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Louise Lebrun, the executive director, who is taking a well-deserved retirement after 32 years of service. I wish the Centre d'action bénévole de Beauharnois a happy 45th anniversary and continued success.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to proudly acknowledge the 45th anniversary of the Centre d'action bénévole de Beauharnois, a pillar of solidarity and generosity in our community. Since its founding, the centre has exemplified civic engagement and dedication to those who are most vulnerable. Thanks to its passionate volunteers and dedicated team, it delivers essential services that make a real difference in the lives of people in my community. Whether through food aid, support for seniors or support for families, the Centre d'action bénévole is an inspiring model of kindness and mutual support. I want to sincerely thank everyone who has contributed to its success. Their work is invaluable and their impact, immeasurable.”
“Madam Speaker, I enjoyed my colleague's speech. He really has a great radio voice and it was a pleasure listening to him. I might have a brief response for my Liberal colleague. Bill C‑8 was tabled in June. Let us check the current date. This is an important bill, but the Liberals seem to be having a hard time managing their legislative calendar. Now, all of a sudden, they want to fast-track Bill C‑8 because it really is very important. While this bill is indeed very important, some concerns remained after we debated Bill C‑26 . Bill C‑26 passed because we made compromises. We now have another opportunity to improve Bill C‑8. Does my colleague think there is still room for improvement in Bill C‑8?”
“Madam Speaker, I congratulate my colleague on his speech. We both have the privilege of sitting on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We will be studying Bill C‑8 together in committee. I think we all agree that Bill C‑8 is important and that we will likely pass it after the study in committee. I do not think anyone here wants to slow down the work, but I think we want to take a close look at several aspects, including privacy protection. It is also important for us to address the issue of federal interference in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction. Is my colleague willing to learn more about this part of the bill that the Bloc Québécois is keen to amend?”
“Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Winnipeg North for asking me that question. I get the sense that he is curious and wants to understand our position, which is nice. As for me, I am curious about whether Manitoba was consulted. That is something I am personally curious about. Perhaps my colleague already knows the answer. We need to see how we can avoid duplicating what is already in place and what is working well, and how we can collaborate. I believe we will explore this aspect in committee so that we can understand it fully. Perhaps we will conclude that only a small change will be necessary. Then the government will be able to offer Quebeckers and the people in the other provinces greater security for critical systems and sectors by collaborating and leveraging provincial expertise.”