Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I believe the temporary foreign worker program has been so destroyed by the Liberal government that the only way forward is to abolish it. I am very clear, especially as the member of Parliament for a lot of rural constituents and farmers, there needs to be a stand-alone stream for temporary labour for the agricultural sector. That is important and it is part of a long-standing init…
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Madam Speaker, I will say no to my hon. colleague; I noticed it before I got here. It is one of the reasons I wanted to come here, because we do see from the Liberal government a sense of breaking something, then showing up and all of a sudden it is the one we are supposed to trust with the solutions. Again, on the immigration file, I would be remiss to not point out the Liberal government promise…
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Madam Speaker, I am relatively new to this chamber, but I sense a trend, which is that there is no shortage of words from the member for Winnipeg North on any issue imaginable. Not all of us in this chamber, especially new members, have had the opportunities this member has had to engage on issues in this place. I am here speaking about an issue that has been tremendously relevant to youth and the…
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Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. I remember so fondly the first real job I ever had. I was 14 years old. I did not get a glamorous job. I was busing tables in a hotel restaurant in south London. I was occasionally doing room service if they needed someone to pitch in. When they opened a new café, I got to try my ba…
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Mr. Speaker, I do sincerely appreciate my colleague's understanding of the significance of the automotive sector in southern Ontario. Virtually every family has someone who has been touched by the sector. There is not a positive outlook right now and I do not think the people affected, from the conversations I have had, want to hear about supports. They want to hear about a plan for how they can g…
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Mr. Speaker, I rose in this House a couple of weeks ago in the wake of the terrible news out of southwestern Ontario that 1,200 workers at the CAMI plant in Ingersoll were losing their jobs because of a failure by the government to fulfill a promise to stand up for and save Canada's auto sector. CAMI is not in my riding, but many of the workers of that plant do live in my riding, in St. Thomas, Lo…
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Mr. Speaker, as a proud, law-abiding firearms owner, I have the great privilege to present this petition to the House. It comes from law-abiding firearms owners who are concerned about past legislation from the Liberal government and a stream of orders in council that serve no other purpose than to target the law-abiding community of gun owners in this country. The petitioners say that Bill C-21 n…
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Bowmanville—Oshawa North's speech was incredible. He and I had a similar experience, starting out working in restaurants. I would rather be scraping crusted lobster off plates than listening to some of the talking points from the member for Winnipeg North. The reason I bring this up is that my hon. colleague was one of the first people in the chamber to identify how har…
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Madam Speaker, sadly, the member's experiences in his community are not rare. They are the same things I hear from the police officers I work with in my riding and what my colleagues have been hearing as well. This makes it all the more shameful that the Liberal government has ultimately ignored what they have been saying for so long. Even now, it is falling short. I would love nothing other than …
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Mr. Speaker, this is a very important issue; in fact it is one the Conservatives have been sounding the alarm about for many years, urging the government to take action on it. Would the member acknowledge the failures of previous Liberal bills, notably Bill C-75, which law enforcement officials have said has directly allowed for the catch-and-release bail policies that have necessitated the respon…
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Mr. Speaker, I note that the Guelph Police Service's board in my hon. colleague's riding was pushing for bail reform years ago, endorsing a nationwide campaign of police service boards joining police chiefs and municipalities, calling on the Liberal government to act on this and to recognize the shortcomings in Liberal government policy that have gotten us here. I fully share the hon. member's des…
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Madam Speaker, it is a great privilege and an honour, as always, to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for York Centre. When I was first elected, I was shocked at how quickly crime became the issue I had to contend with as a member of Parliament, because it was the significant issue that galvanized the community of St. Thom…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Canadian youth are struggling, but Liberal elites have never had it so good. Youth unemployment is at 15%. Young people are writing off the dream of home ownership as simply a fantasy, but the gravy train is chugging along for the Prime Minister's friends. Seventy-nine per cent of Export Development Canada executives cashed in bonuses averaging $143,000 each. BDC executives got bonuse…
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Madam Speaker, I already said, in my remarks, that I look forward to working on this bill in committee. I welcome the member for Winnipeg North joining us for a meeting, if he would like to contribute. I find it interesting that the member for Winnipeg North said, in a previous intervention in the House, “Bill C-75 actually made it harder to be released on bail.” That is the precise opposite of wh…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. This is a debate about the Liberal government's legislation, Bill C-14. However, on three-strikes laws, we put a motion before the House that would call for one. I would ask my hon. colleague if his constituents agree about this for people who repeatedly flout and violate the law, terrorize communities and are back on the street. How many strik…
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Mr. Speaker, the retooling of the CAMI plant at Ingersoll was supposed to be a great success. Taxpayers kicked in hundreds of millions of dollars. The finance minister said this was “proof that Canada’s auto sector is here for the long term.” Now, 1,200 of the plant's hard-working employees, many of them in St. Thomas, Elgin and London, are out of work. This is all despite the Prime Minister pledg…
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Mr. Speaker, if this is what the Liberals see as an exceptional job, I would hate to see what they view as poor work. With 3,000 workers in Brampton, 1,200 in Ingersoll, 700 in Oshawa and 300 in Sainte-Thérèse, Quebec, that is the Liberal record of just a few weeks. The Prime Minister promised he would protect auto jobs. I wish he had been more honest and said that he meant in the United States. T…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to rise on behalf of the people of Elgin—St. Thomas—London South to ask the government once again to address a critical issue facing communities not just in my riding but across the country, which is the rampant lawlessness that exists on streets across this wonderful nation. Specifically, we are talking about drugs and people who are responsible for unleashing…
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Mr. Speaker, it is rich for a representative of the party that claims it wants to rein in and regulate misinformation to peddle so much of it in such a short period of time. I have only a minute, so I will say that the law enforcement officials whom the parliamentary secretary claims to be respecting are the ones who have been sounding the alarm about what the last 10 years of Liberal policy have …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for what I am assuming was intended to be a response to the question. The Conservatives have zero objection to cracking down hard on online child sexual exploitation, and I hope the government will support the bill of the member for Calgary Signal Hill taking aim at that. However, the Liberal government, in Bill C-36 and Bill C-63, lumped that in wi…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a great privilege to rise in this House once again and ask the government a question that it has not been all that forthright in answering: What, precisely, are its plans when it comes to its long-standing desire to censor what Canadians see, say and do on the Internet? Not that long ago in this House, I asked the Minister of Canadian Identity what he was planning to do. Actuall…
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Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise to present to this House a petition by Canadians concerned with what has become of the MAID system in Canada. There is a grave concern, which these petitioners express, that allowing medical assistance in dying for people who are not already dying devalues their lives; it endorses the notion that life with a disability is optional and, by extension, dispensable…
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Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to Bill C-9, although I have grave concerns, not with the objective, but with the manner in which the Liberals have gone about trying to achieve it. From the outset, let me say that I am grateful the Liberals have finally recognized there is a wave of hate sweeping this country. I am glad they have realized what the Jewish community in this country, among …
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Mr. Speaker, I do not need much time to say what I have already said, because I do not think the member was listening, which is that we need to enforce the existing laws where they already cover what is happening in this country on hate, but, moreover, we cannot allow the Liberal government to sneak into law a lower threshold for defining “hate” that will be used to curb free expression in this co…
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Mr. Speaker, the question from our delightful colleague from Winnipeg seemed to indicate that the Liberal government, which put forward the bill, believes that there are no redundancies built into the bill and that the things they are criminalizing are not already covered by existing law. I want to ask my hon. colleague about this, because we know that intimidation is already a crime and threats a…
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Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague has had the opportunity, as I have, to take in some of the debate so far. We have heard the Liberals accuse Conservatives of being conspiracy theorists for raising very legitimate questions about freedom of expression, which by the way have been raised by civil society groups on the left and the right in the last few days. I want to ask my hon. colleague this: Has …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I should probably say, on behalf of Canadian firearms owners and on behalf of the Conservatives, how grateful I am to the Minister of Public Safety for telling the truth about the Liberal government's sham of a buyback. Unfortunately he has not been so candid in the House of Commons when he knows the cameras and the microphones are rolling, but when he was speaking with a constituent,…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, we can go through the list, although not in the time we have tonight, and look at all the models that have been prohibited by the government and are used by hunters or, in some cases, by hobbyists. I will mention one firearm in particular. I do not know if the word translates well into French, but it is called the Plinkster. “Plinking” refers to shooting tin cans as a hobby. A model o…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, every dollar the Prime Minister spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians because of higher Liberal taxes and inflation. The Prime Minister said that we should judge him based on the prices at the grocery store. Well, let us. Food inflation in Canada is rising 50% faster than in the United States. Food bank usage is at record highs and rising. The St. Thomas Elgin Food Bank will ha…
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if the parliamentary secretary has a copy of the Criminal Code handy, but I know she is a lawyer, and I want to ask her whether she agrees that hate symbols are already covered under subsection 319(2) of the Criminal Code, which pertains to the wilful promotion of hatred, by virtue of the list enumerated in subsection 319(7) of the Criminal Code, which talks about comm…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his commitment to interrogating what is not in this bill. The reason I raised what I did about the lack of stiff penalties for people who assault places of worship in heinous ways is that this is not theoretical or hypothetical. We see it happening, sadly, on a regular basis in this country, and it is not covered by this proposed Liberal law. Liberals in the p…
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I believe the hon. member was making some pretty baseless smears about Conservatives in general, and I am wondering if this is in keeping with how the Liberals view free speech and how they want to weaponize the process against people who—
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Mr. Speaker, I wish the member had spent less time working on what he thought was a zinger and more time listening to my speech, in which I detailed in excruciating and, I will argue, painful detail the real hate that is occurring against Christians and the Jewish community. I mentioned the firebombing of synagogues and shootings at Jewish schools. By the way, the member should be well aware that …
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Mr. Speaker, that is indeed one of the glaring issues with this. The parts of the bill that there is no objection to by me or my colleagues are about things that are already illegal in Canada, making this redundant in a lot of ways. I pointed to a recent case where someone was charged for displaying a hate symbol under existing hate laws. I have to draw attention to the fact that not half an hour …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I had the opportunity to rise in this chamber not long ago and ask the Minister of Public Safety about the scourge of crime on streets in my own community back home and across the country. So much of this problem of rampant criminality is a direct consequence of Liberal government catch-and-release bail policies. These policies put repeat, often violent, offenders back on the street…
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Madam Speaker, it is very important to talk about the causes of recidivism, notably the largest cause, which is the Liberal government and the bail laws that have allowed this to run so rampant. No more than two hours ago, I heard from a police witness at the justice committee who said Bill C-48 did nothing to improve public safety. The government likes to lean on its record while ignoring the con…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the first job of the public safety minister is to keep Canadians safe. The public safety minister admitted to not knowing what a firearms licence is. He said he does not know what the classifications of firearms are, and he could not even defend his own Liberal government's gun confiscation scheme to his tenant on the most basic questions. This is the minister responsible for Canada's…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the thoughtful engagement of my hon. colleague opposite with respect to this issue. However, I have to point out a glaring question. I have spoken to thousands and thousands of constituents, and not one single person has raised this issue as being their top priority. The number of people who have said they are fed up with the way that crime has run rampant after the last …
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Madam Speaker, right now, there is a wave of unity across the country. Canadians of all stripes from all regions have realized that the Liberal government has failed in reining in crime and has failed by allowing immigration to run rampant in a reckless way. Canadians are also in agreement about the many problems the government has caused on affordability. When so many Canadians agree about the ve…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a bizarre question. I think the Liberals have broken so many things that it will take several different stages to undo this damage. I would ask a more important question: Where is the Liberal legislation that they keep promising, the contents of which they have never provided even an iota of detail on? That is the real question the government should be answering, not wondering w…
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Mr. Speaker, the motion that we put forward today is a motion that I am quite ashamed has to exist in this country. We are calling for the House and the Liberal government to acknowledge the gravity of repeat and rampant criminality in Canada, in communities of all sizes across the country, and to replace the Liberal approach to bail with a “three strikes and you're out” law, one that will stop cr…
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Mr. Speaker, I know that people in Quebec are just as affected by these crime and justice issues as people across the country. We need people who are going to champion solutions, and I admire and respect my colleague for actually coming forward with a tangible solution, which the Liberal government has not done, except to say there is a mythical bail bill that we will eventually see, while obstruc…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an important question. I have a lot of small communities in my riding where these are very real issues. Very known people continue to retraumatize communities and victims. By the way, the probation and parole process also continues to retraumatize people, as they are forced to see even serious multiple murderers, who continue to bring victims and the families of victims back to …
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North just said “if the legislation materializes”, so even he does not know if it is real. I would encourage him to leave this chamber for even an hour or two from time to time, look at what is happening on the streets and realize that Canadians are calling for real action. We are prepared to deliver it, even though the Liberal government is not.
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Mr. Speaker, the member expects us to just trust him and the government that they are going to be taking all the concerns about bail seriously. He says there is going to be some bill coming this fall. Will the government, in the bill, be repealing the principle of restraint, yes or no?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Liberal bail laws have broken the system beyond parody. In St. Thomas, a repeat offender was arrested for breaking and entering and released on bail with a curfew. He had to be in his home by 10 p.m. every night, but there is an issue: He is homeless. He does not have a home. The Liberals have made it so ridiculous that people are getting released on bail with a curfew to nowhere. Vio…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, the time to honour the children and their families facing cancer. MPs today are wearing gold pins to emphasize the importance of awareness, hope and research for childhood cancer, the leading cause of death by disease for Canadian children. Dave and Maureen Jenkins from Belmont, Ontario, provided these pins in memory of their daughter Mag…
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Mr. Speaker, I have noticed a trend with the Liberal government, where they identify a legitimate problem, but its solution only targets the people who are not perpetuating that problem. An example is money laundering. There is no argument from us that this is the real issue, but banning law-abiding citizens from transacting in cash is not the answer. Gun crime is a huge issue, in fact even bigger…
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Madam Speaker, I know my hon. colleague has, as all Conservatives have, spent time engaging with police chiefs and police officers in his riding and across his province. Has any police chief said that the pressing crime issue they need to deal with is people using cash? The bill goes far beyond what the Liberal government says it will. It would prohibit otherwise law-abiding citizens from buying a…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of Canadians alarmed by the House of Commons finance committee's recommendations in its pre-budget report: recommendation 429, which proposes revoking the charitable status of pro-life organizations; and recommendation 430, which proposes removing “advancement of religion” as a recognized charitable purpose under the Income Tax Act. I have received from houses of wors…
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