Madam Speaker, I would like to wish you a good evening. It may be a long night for you as well.

Since this may be my last speech before the House adjourns in the next few days, I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone in my riding a very happy Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day and national holiday. We are going to celebrate in style. We are going to celebrate our national holiday, our French-speaking nation in Quebec. We will be celebrating from Saint-Placide, Kanesatake and Oka to Saint-Joseph-du-Lac. We will be celebrating in Sainte-Marthe-sur-le-Lac and in all areas of Mirabel, as well as in Saint-Eustache. There is a new part of my riding in Saint-Eustache, and I fully intend to get involved there. I would like to tell all my constituents that I look forward to seeing them. Once the House adjourns in this very troubling democratic context, I cannot wait to spend time on the ground visiting the people who elected me. I am really looking forward to it.

I began my speech this way because we need to find moments of joy in the House. We need to find them because what is happening in the House is sad. The business of supply is sad. The situation is sad, and what is even sadder is that I forgot to say that I will be sharing my time with the member for Berthier—Maskinongé. Sharing my time with my adored whip is another moment of joy. We need to find these little moments. This is one of them. The business of supply is very sad.

It is hard to get the truth out of ministers and the government. I will give one example that I referred to when I asked a question earlier. The Minister of Finance is not supposed to be a door-to-door vacuum salesman. He is the Minister of Finance.

We spoke to him on Thursday about how he had run out of funds for subsidies under the incentives for zero-emission vehicles program. We talked to him about how he had made a promise to car dealers in Quebec and about how they had advanced 70% of the money owed by the federal government out of their own pockets. We asked the minister whether he intended to keep his promise and fund the missing subsidies. The minister, who never answers a question, floundered. He did not answer. He was all over the place. In the end, he never did answer the question.

Today, we put the question back to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, whom we love because he puts on a very good show. We asked him whether the government intends to pay back the dealerships the money they are owed, given that they are small businesses. There are some in my constituency, and people have been talking to me about it. The parliamentary secretary congratulated me. He told me to keep lobbying in the corridors and that I would get there eventually.

Twenty minutes later, I read a newspaper article saying that the minister had announced that the program would be reinstated. However, the funding is still not there. With the Liberals, we have to see the money to believe it. However, at least there has been an announcement. It is not easy getting honesty and truth out of the Liberals. Frankly, the conclusion we have come to from studying the appropriations is that the government makes decisions on a whim. The Liberals do not know what they are going to announce from one week to the next. There might be good news on the military spending front. We do not even know if they came up with that the day before, the day before that, or three days prior. We do not know.

The same applies to reimbursing Quebeckers for the rebate on the carbon tax that the eight other provinces did not pay. During the election campaign, the Liberals said that they would abolish the carbon tax while giving an advance rebate to provinces where the tax had not been collected. During the consideration of the business of supply, we told the Minister of Finance that he owed Quebeckers $814 million. We asked him many times to confirm that these cheques had been sent out before the tax was collected. We asked him once, twice, three times, four times, but the minister refused to answer. That is clear proof of the strange relationship he has with the truth, to say the least.

Yesterday, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Mr. Giroux, was in the Senate. According to the Senate committee blues, Mr. Giroux said, “The Canadian carbon rebate, or CCR, is an advance payment to offset what people will pay for the carbon tax. Since the rebate was paid in April, but the carbon tax is no longer being collected, the money will come from the consolidated revenue because there will no longer be a fuel tax rebate or surcharge. The money will come from the consolidated revenue fund.”

It will therefore come out of the consolidated revenue fund, and Quebeckers will pay for it. That is what the Parliamentary Budget Officer said yesterday in the Senate. Senator Forest asked again if everyone would pay, then, including Quebeckers. Mr. Giroux, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, answered that that was exactly right.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer would make a good finance minister, because he knows what he is talking about, he tells us the truth and he says things clearly. The corollary to what was said yesterday at the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance is that Quebeckers paid for the Liberals to buy votes. The Liberals bought votes. They handed out rebate cheques. However, it was not a rebate, because if something was not paid, then it cannot be rebated. Quebeckers were robbed, and they need to be reimbursed. That is how the business of supply works. We moved a motion, and the Conservatives joined forces with the Liberals to steal from Quebeckers.

Earlier, the Conservative member for Bow River said that the Conservatives were going to vote with the Liberals and that they never expected the Liberals to steal so many of their ideas. They are not stealing ideas, but they are stealing from Quebeckers. Where in the Liberal platform did it say that Quebeckers would be robbed? Where in the Conservative platform did it say that they were going to steal $814 million from Quebeckers? I am being told that the Liberals stole this idea from the Conservative platform. It is this murky relationship with the truth that is preventing us from carrying out the business of supply properly.

That is to say nothing of the government's Bill C‑4, which will pass with little or no study. The Liberals say it is urgent because people need the tax cut immediately. The notice of ways and means motion means that people are already entitled to the tax cut. It is now in effect. We have all the time we need to properly study the bill and invite witnesses to appear before the committee, particularly with regard to the housing measures, about which we have technical questions to ask. The tax cut is already in effect. In this case, the Liberals and the Conservatives have an unhealthy relationship with the truth.

The same goes for Bill C‑5, which should have been split in two. In that case, the ministers will not be lying in committee because they will not be appearing before the committee. We know that there is a cult of personality among the Liberals. The Liberals could almost have a Mao-Zedong-style poster of the Prime Minister and everyone would prostrate themselves before him. It is a cult of personality.

The Prime Minister appoints the minister he wants and the minister can select the projects. After that, he can do bogus assessments. When he adds his project in a schedule and to a list, all the legislation that might have been able to protect the public, the environment and the ecosystems are suspended. The Liberals tell us that is what we are going to do to build Canada strong. They need to stop saying that. When the pipeline is built, Donald Trump will no longer have been in power for six or seven years. This gives certain companies incredible lobbying power over the minister. This gives the Prime Minister discretionary power. The Liberals are telling us that no minister will be appearing before the committee. The Liberal ministers are too busy to come testify.

Although they support the bill, and we understand why, the Conservatives are voting to muzzle Parliament. The new trend among Liberals is to tell us that everything was in their election platform and that replaces the work normally done by legislators. Was it written in their election platform? Where in the Liberal election platform did it say that the platform would replace legislators if the Liberals were elected, even as a minority?

The problem in all this is that we have a Prime Minister who fails to grasp that he is the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister thinks he is a CEO. He thinks he can show contempt for the House. He thinks he can show contempt for our work. He thinks he can show contempt for our committees. He thinks he is a CEO, but fortunately, he is only a minority shareholder. His party does not have a majority of seats. Do people realize that this gentleman is behaving like the majority shareholder of Canada, like the CEO of Canada? I want to look the Conservatives in the eye and tell them that they should be ashamed to hand him such power.

No budget was tabled. The Liberals' fiscal framework was flawed and incompetently put together. The government budgeted an expected $20 billion in revenues from retaliatory tariffs. That amount currently stands at $1.6 billion. Obviously, we are not going to get to $20 billion. The tax cuts were supposed to be paid from that amount. This framework was in the Liberals' election platform. Why is no budget being tabled? Why is that no substitute for legislators?

That is the problem. The problem is that we are unable to do our job as parliamentarians because neither the government nor the ministers give us the sort of respect we need to do our job. That is upsetting. It is also upsetting to see the Conservatives supporting this process.

Jean-Denis Garon

$515,003.00