(Ottawa) Unless there is a major surprise, the Bloc Québécois will suffer a bitter failure on Wednesday in a vote aimed at advancing its bill to fight against Ottawa’s interference in provincial jurisdictions, and particularly in one of them.
Posted at 1:44 p.m.
The House of Commons will have to decide on the idea of sending Bill C-237 to committee, which provides that a province may withdraw from any federal program under its jurisdiction if it has a comparable program. , and that it be done unconditionally and with full compensation.
During the debates at second reading, the sponsor of the bill and dean of the House of Commons, Louis Plamondon, said that he entered the political arena in 1984 “so that we could be masters in our own house”, then taking up the electoral slogan of the Premier of Quebec Jean Lesage. And that is precisely why 38 years later he is introducing this bill.
It is ultimately on “respect for the Canadian constitution” that the political parties will have to decide, he summarized during a press conference Wednesday in Ottawa, noting in passing that “it’s funny that it is a sovereigntist who asks them”.
Bloc national revenue critic Jean-Denis Garon then argued that there is nothing partisan about the bill.
“It represents what is called the traditional position of Quebec,” he said. Since the 1960s, and even before, all the governments in the National Assembly, […] of all parties combined, have all asked that Quebec obtain the right to opt out with full financial compensation with respect to federal programs in areas of provincial jurisdiction. »
Unexpected obstacle
But the Bloc faced an unexpected obstacle, as Mr. Plamondon himself admitted: the Speaker of the House of Commons ruled that the bill would require a royal recommendation to be put to the vote during a possible third reading since it concerns the expenditure of public funds. In other words, the Liberal government has to agree to it, which it has indicated is out of the question.
“I could never, ever support such a piece of legislation,” Kevin Lamoureux, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House, said at the outset when speaking during the debates.
Mr. Lamoureux explained that the Canada Health Act is one of the prides of Canadians and what distinguishes them from the United States. In particular, this act allows all Canadians to have access to the public health insurance plan, that the care be covered by the public plan, that the care be comparable from one province to another.
The Conservatives, for their part, have indicated that they will vote against the bill because it did not obtain the royal recommendation and that “it is safe to assume” that it will not be given later. , not having been obtained at this stage.
As for the New Democratic Party, Deputy Leader Alexandre Boulerice said he had “a big problem” with the fact that by removing Quebec from the “essential values” of the Canada Health Act, it “opens the door wide privatization of health care”.
The New Democrats are fiercely opposed to this possible privatization, reiterated Wednesday its leader Jagmeet Singh, during a press conference. However, he did not clearly indicate how his political party will vote in the vote.
The elected officials will vote on the Bloc bill after question period in the middle of the afternoon.