Madam Speaker, let me begin by saying that the Bloc Québécois stands in solidarity with the people of all Canadian provinces, and especially Ontario, who are dealing with a resurgence of the pandemic, which has become alarming in many respects. Quebec seems to be managing a little better for the moment. Let us hope we can get out of this situation as soon as possible.
Quebec and Canada, like the rest of the world, have been hammered by a devastating and unexpected pandemic, the scale, scope and devastation of which no one anticipated. This was followed by a serious, significant economic crisis that has rocked key sectors of our economy, including everything from self-employed workers and small, local businesses to big multinationals and the greedy giants that the airlines have become.
The government has done the right thing in one respect, specifically, taking advantage of its huge borrowing capacity, which compares favourably with most other OECD countries, to be able to inject significant amounts of money into the Quebec and Canadian economies. It is the right thing to do. Some $50 billion will be spent this year, followed by $100 billion over the next three years, to invest in the actual economic recovery. That is something the government can do, and it is certainly what needs to be done.
In some ways, it listened to the Bloc Québécois—not just the Bloc, that is not what I am saying—when it came to addressing the interests and needs of Quebec and what Quebec was calling for. The government did listen, to some extent. In some cases, there was more talk than action, but the government did pick up on some of the themes that we, together with the National Assembly of Quebec, deemed to be absolutely essential for stimulating economic activity.
I am thinking about the aerospace sector, which appears in a Canadian budget for the very first time. I am thinking about the biopharmaceutical industry, which is now gaining prominence under the current circumstances after being neglected in recent years. Canada and Quebec in particular, were a hub of pharmaceutical research until the sector was decimated after years of neglect.
I am thinking about the electrification of transportation. Let me say from the outset that this is very much a Quebec issue, subject, and expertise. Quebec is an undisputed leader in this area just as it is in the aerospace industry.
I am thinking about the forest-based bioeconomy. I suspect, and I will say it with a smile, that it would not be in the budget if not for the very eloquent and strongly worded statement, addressing the reality of the Quebec regions, made by what we call the Bloc Québécois “caucus du bois” at the initiative of the member for Jonquière and the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. We agree that it is not huge. More money has been allocated before, for example to fight the spruce budworm. However, it is a good start that some funding will be invested in forest-based bioeconomy and that intent is what we were looking for. We will see later whether it is significant or not.
I have to admit that there is some concern associated with that. Where will this money be invested? For example, had the federal government decided in 2021, as it did in 2009-10, to inject a massive amount of money into the automobile industry, we would not expect it to go to Drummondville or Val-d'Or. We would expect it to go to Ontario. If the government injects substantial amounts of money in aerospace, we expect that half this funding will go where half the aerospace industry is located, that is, in Quebec, which is a world leader in that sector.
The pharmaceutical industry was seriously gutted. The expertise was Quebec-based and research capacity is still Quebec-based, not exclusively, but for the most part. Initiatives were brought in during the pandemic by Quebec businesses and corporations.
The electrification of transportation is more than just an economic sector in Quebec. It is our identity. Quebec cannot take full credit. Its geography and history have made it a place where clean hydro-electricity, drawn from its rivers, has shaped our province as a leader in clean energy and everything that follows, including the electrification of transportation. It seems only natural that such leadership would be recognized.
Buying Quebec products, such as charging stations by AddÉnergie Technologies, and installing them across Canada would be a good way to recognize our production capacity and technology. There are several other companies such as Elmec in Shawinigan.
However, we would have reservations and concerns if the plan is to take our expertise and move it somewhere else, diluting the competence and expertise that Quebec is renowned for, to benefit Canadian provinces with our own money. That goes for the forest-based bioeconomy as well, although there is obviously a large forestry industry in British Columbia and a little in New Brunswick and Ontario. This expertise must not be moved, because that would undermine Quebec's competitive edge in key economic sectors. We will have to be very vigilant.
In the aerospace sector, for example, the federal government had no problem retroactively passing a bill allowing Aveos jobs to be transferred from Montreal to Manitoba. If that is where this is going, we are not interested.
When the government decided it was interested in the electrification of transportation, it initially announced $500 million for a Ford plant in Ontario. That does not mean there will not be any plants in Quebec, but we in Quebec obviously know that Ontario is not a hub for transportation electrification.
I remind members that the government made investments to combat spruce budworm in the Maritimes but not in Quebec, which was also having problems with that pest.
Glaring omissions like this have happened repeatedly in the past. Here is another example from this budget: the Davie shipyard, one of Quebec City's economic powerhouses that represents 2% to 3% of a budget merrily hovering around $120 billion, even though it accounts for half of Canada's shipbuilding capacity. The government says it is because Irving is failing to deliver, so bureaucrats will be hired to go support Irving, which will keep on failing to deliver. There is nothing here for Davie, which makes no sense.
This tendency to cherry-pick Quebec's expertise and use our own money to generously distribute that expertise across Canada could turn into an issue. Are these amounts enough? Bioforestry is a special case.
We certainly applaud the fact that something that has been good for Quebec is being applied to the rest of Canada. Quebec has been innovative and has gained international recognition for the child care policy my premier, Ms. Marois, implemented. According to every economic analysis, not just Quebec-based ones, that policy massively increased women's presence in the workforce. The fact that Canada has at long last decided to implement a similar model is worth applauding.
Now, as I have said elsewhere, students do not tell teachers how to correct their work. The federal government will not tell Quebec how to run a child care system. Instead, it should express an interest in learning how Quebec runs its system. There can be exchanges of ideas and free consent to improvements. Generally speaking, the concept of free consent should be the basic principle underlying Quebec-Canada relations.
If the strange notion of an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec means something other than a simple transfer of Quebec's share of the funding for child care with no strings attached, then that is unacceptable.
This morning, the Quebec finance minister, Mr. Girard, was very clear. He does not intend to negotiate. Quebec just wants its share of the funding. That is the way it should be, even though, yesterday, the Minister of Finance was unable to resist saying that the money should be invested the way she says it should. To put it bluntly, it is none of her damn business.
Quebec does what it wants with Quebec's money. Quebeckers have a Quebec government and a National Assembly that deal with such issues. The other Parliament, where we are currently, has no right to tell the National Assembly what to do with its money. That is a bad habit that the federal government has gotten into and is having a hard time overcoming. It is almost genetic. In this case, we are informing the federal government that we will take the money, but we will not be told what to do with it.
The same thing is happening when it comes to long-term care centres for seniors. It is the only federal contribution in health. This is something much larger than an elephant in the room. We are coming out of a pandemic. It is a health issue. Who are the primary victims of the pandemic? Seniors are. We saw that. The loss of life has been dramatic, especially among seniors. What is the budget missing? It is missing help for health care and help for seniors.
I scratched my head. I even thought that in terms of electoral opportunism, a skill this government has mastered, I would have done something. However, there is nothing and it is a slap in the face to Quebec and all of Canada's premiers who are being told that they will not be getting their health transfers. Quebeckers and people elsewhere in Canada might take note and get fed up with this lack of respect. As for the rest of the budget, anyone could have come up with it. The right decisions were easy to make. However, the bad decisions are shocking.
I was talking about CHSLDs, or their equivalent across Canada. The federal government said it would invest $3 billion over five years, which should mean roughly $120 million a year for Quebec. In the context of long-term care, that is not a lot of money. On top of that, the federal government said the money would have conditions attached, because it is Canada, which is intrinsically superior to Quebec's jurisdictions.
However, this fails to acknowledge that the underfunding of the health care system is largely to blame for what happened. In fact, Ottawa has not been paying its fair share for quite some time now. The average age is higher in Quebec than elsewhere.
The federal government likes to take a moral stance and tell others how things work, even when it has no experience in the matter. The federal government has never run a health care facility, but it knows everything because it is the federal government, and they are the Liberals so they are, by definition, superior. This constant tendency to meddle in Quebec's affairs makes no sense, especially considering that Ottawa can barely manage its own jurisdictions, such as border control.
Word choice is a problem here. The federal government uses words like “aeronautics”, “forests”, “health” and “electric transportation”, but the measures themselves are quite vague. In reality, we will debate the budget for a number of days, after which we will vote on this budget, with all of the consequences that entails. We will then move on to the budget implementation bill and other things.
I want to get back to the very important topic of seniors. The Liberal government, that eternal warrior against all forms of discrimination, be they imaginary or real, decided to invent a new form of discrimination, distinguishing between real seniors, aged 75 and older, and phony seniors. If I were a senior 75 and over, I would not be having a big celebration, thinking that I was going to get something. In reality, I would get a $500 cheque in July, which is less than $50 a month over the year. That is insulting enough as it is, but seniors aged 65 to 75 do not even get a little something. They get nothing at all.
I do not know what planet the Prime Minister is living on, but since yesterday, we have all been getting messages at our riding offices and on social media from people aged 65 to 75, who are furious, or even pissed off, if I may say so. They are feeling disrespected.
Because we are good people, as everyone knows, we will urge the government to make things right.
The government's economic statement last November predicted a deficit of $380 billion, a figure that ended up being $350 billion. The $30 billion difference is the same amount that it would cost to implement the provinces' demand to increase health transfers from approximately 22% to 35% in one year. It absolutely would not get the government in trouble. This is something it could do.
If the government accepts our amendment, the Bloc Québécois proposal would increase old age security for those 65 and over by $110 a month. That is a significant sum that would total approximately $4 billion a year. That is just a little more than 1% of last year's deficit for the group of people who were most affected by the pandemic.
We should be able to talk to one another. If our amendment were adopted, we could be in a situation where this summer's disappointing $500 would be accessible to everyone 65 and over pending the adoption of implementing legislation for next year. In this context, there would be legislation next year because we would work together to bring in this law.
We will not be headed to the polls as early as the government would have liked, but we will presumably still be on the campaign trail come fall. Therefore, there will be no legislation to increase old age security before next summer. It will not happen. We could accelerate things if our amendment were accepted because it would create fairness compared to the profound unfairness of the current version.
We are therefore tabling an amendment to the Conservatives' amendment. I have the pleasure of reading it.
That the amendment be amended by deleting paragraphs (a) and (b) and substituting the following:
“(a) does not include any increase to the Canada health transfers;
(b) abandons seniors between the ages of 65 and 75; and”,
and by adding after the words “economic growth” the following:
“, support health care systems by increasing the Canada health transfers to 35% of health care costs and contribute to the quality of life of seniors aged 65 and over by increasing Old Age Security as of age 65 and dropping the age for the one-time payment of $500 for the summer of 2021 to age 65.”.
The door is wide open for the government securing the Bloc Québécois vote for this budget and significant appreciation by the simple application of Quebec's basic rules of fairness.