Parliamentary Speeches
194 speeches by Anthony Housefather — Page 3 of 4
Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I thank my hon. colleague for his excellent speech. Unfortunately, the hon. member may not have heard that the bodies of two of the three Canadians we thought might have been taken hostage were found today. That means the Canadian dead now number seven. Does my hon. colleague agree with me that it was an attack not only on Israel but on Canada, on the United States and on humanity?
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Mr. Chair, I thank my hon. colleague, a good friend who delivered an excellent speech. At the United Nations and at international organizations there is frequently something that happens, which is Israel being treated differently from everyone else in the community of nations. At the UN Human Rights Council, Israel is the only regular item on their agenda. Israel is disproportionately singled out …
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Calgary Heritage on his excellent speech. Like many Jewish Canadians, I have taken great comfort from the debate tonight and general unanimity in the House that Israel has the right to defend itself within international law because it was attacked by a terrorist entity and we are all better off if that terrorist entity is destroyed. There tend to …
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Mr. Speaker, Alexandre Look, Ben Mizrachi, Adi Vital-Kaploun, Shir Hana Georgy, Netta Epstein and Judith Haggai are six Canadians who were brutally murdered in the war launched by the terrorist group Hamas against our friend and ally, Israel. There are over 1,400 dead, scenes of sickening brutality, infants slaughtered and elderly survivors of the Holocaust butchered. Innocent civilians, Israelis,…
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear from my friend from Calgary Nose Hill, who I have to applaud for founding the emerging technology caucus, which I am proud to co-chair with her. She calls herself Cassandra. I do not think that anybody believes that nobody understands or believes the prophecies she tells. I think she has a lot more credibility than that. Can the hon. member give us an e…
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Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate the speeches from my hon. colleague. It is a pleasure to join him in the justice committee. I have a question related to his articulation of the argument for automatic registration for all sexual offenders. While I think we might agree with that proposition, did the court not strike down exactly that requirement in a recent case? How does the member propose to acco…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his contributions on justice issues. I think we all share the perspective that we want to make Canada safer and make sure that the rights of victims are protected, and I think the legislation goes a long way toward doing that. I wonder whether my hon. friend would be willing to share his reflections on the amendments that were made by the Senate and whether…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I will close with this thought. First of all, we absolutely share the desire, the hon. member and myself, as well as, I think, people from all of our parties, to make sure that everybody in this country has a home, that everybody in this country who is vulnerable is given the chance to have affordable housing. That is what we all need to strive for. As to the question from the hon. …
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. Housing affordability is one of the most important challenges in the country today, especially for the most vulnerable people. Everybody needs and deserves a place to call home. It is why we have made housing a priority since the beginning of our mandate. It is why we launched Canada's first-ever national housing strategy in 2017, and it is why…
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Mr. Speaker, in April, members of Parliament observed commemorations of the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide and the genocide in Rwanda. Remembering is vital, but education is equally important, if not more so. Racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and other forms of hate are proliferating today at an alarming rate, especially online. We need our children to know about the history of genocide and wh…
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Mr. Speaker, I would disagree with my hon. friend about whether working out is a way to bond or not. I invite him to come run with me; if you want to join, Mr. Speaker, I would be delighted to have you and the hon. member for Winnipeg North as well. In the end result, the committee should be focused on the big picture questions of whether we should outsource as much as we do and whether the integr…
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to spar with the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who is definitely one of my favourite members to talk to in the House. Let me start by referencing one of the things that the hon. member said in questioning our minister. He said, “The Prime Minister is a very close personal friend of Dominic Barton, who is the managing partner of McKinsey.” As …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the current total projected cost of the Centre Block rehabilitation project is $4.5 billion to $5 billion, which remains the same as the baseline established in June 2021. Given the complexity and scale of work involved, the cost range was independently evaluated by Turner & Townsend, a third party cost, time and risk advisory consultant. The established schedule forecasts an estimate…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to hear a politician talk about division and then use it to attack his opponents. We should all, as members of Parliament, in all political parties, aim to unify. We should all work together and recognize that we each have different positions, but we can work together. That is the government's position. We all want to work together.
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to be a friend of that hon. member because we can, across party lines, still agree on a lot of things, and I think that is important here. A lot of times we yell and scream at each other, and it is important to say that people are able to work together despite their differences. With respect to the global question of that, we do need to look at our integrity regime to see…
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Madam Speaker, as the hon. member heard, Dominic Barton has been gone from McKinsey for years and is no longer a shareholder at McKinsey, so Dominic Barton's name should not be part of that. Public Services and Procurement Canada is responsible for $104 million of contracts with McKinsey since 2015. There are other smaller contracts that have been given by other departments.
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Madam Speaker, on Tuesday at the government operations committee, OGGO, this member and her colleagues came to try to prove two things. One was that Dominic Barton was a close personal friend of the Prime Minister. Number two was that Dominic Barton was involved in McKinsey getting contracts from the government. They failed abjectly. Dominic Barton said he was not even a friend of the Prime Minist…
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Madam Speaker, the answer to that question is generally zero because there are no insider friends who got any money.
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Madam Speaker, I took note of Australia's decision. It is definitely time to consider the future of the monarchy in Canada. People have very different opinions about this. The monarchy has served Canada very well to date. That said, it is always interesting to hear my colleague's position.
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Mr. Speaker, Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, has identified the following properties for disposal in Fort Simpson: 9829-102 Street, 10110-99 Avenue and 9817-101 Street. As per the Treasury Board directive on the management of real property, a property identified for disposal is circulated through a formal process, granting priority to stakeholders to determine if they have an inte…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, 'Tis the last sitting week before Christmas And one thing unites the nation.We all heartily dislike the scourge of inflation.It has been quite the year.Who ever thought we would seeOur very own Prime Minister Singing “Bohemian Rhapsody”?A different Queen passed away,Leading to great lamentationBut her death was quickly followedBy [the opposition leader's] coronation.The previous leade…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Thank you, Madam Speaker. In addition, during the rehabilitation of West Block and the Senate of Canada building, more than 90% of construction waste was diverted from landfills, and a number of environmentally innovative measures were incorporated to save energy and reduce water use. We are also committing that starting in 2030, 75% of new lease and lease renewal floor space will be in net-zero c…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my friend from South Okanagan—West Kootenay for his sponsorship of the bill, for his advocacy and for his hard work on this. I really appreciate it. I think he has done a yeoman's job on this file, including through his meetings with firefighters and others. I thank him. I think this is a very good bill, and I am pleased to speak about how we can make our government …
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Mr. Speaker, in response to part (a) of the question, on October 21, 2021, PSPC learned from media reports that the United States Customs and Border Protection had issued an order that prohibits imports from Supermax based on reasonable information that indicated the use of forced labour in the company's manufacturing operations in Malaysia. In response to part (b), all active contracts for Superm…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I am rising to mark the accomplishment of my constituent, Morris Goodman, who has received his welcome into the Order of Canada. Morris is being recognized for his incredible achievements in business throughout his career, as well as his dedication to transformative philanthropy. Morris has been a pioneer of the Canadian generic pharmaceutical business for decades, including co-foundi…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his speech. He is a good friend, and I find that he always has relevant things to say. I completely agree that we should not block the motion by saying that it is not an important issue. We can indeed chew gum and walk at the same time. For me, this is a constitutional issue, which makes it very complicated. Even if I agree that we should be ask…
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Madam Speaker, the government has already announced that the app is now not mandatory and it is voluntary. The app was put in place at the beginning of the pandemic to save lives. The app was used appropriately for the last two years and now the government has allowed the app to be voluntary in order to expedite people moving forward at the border more quickly.
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Madam Speaker, I will make no apology for an app that saved the lives of tens of thousands of Canadians. This was part of a global health strategy to protect Canadians, and this app was put in place in April of 2020 one month after a global—
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Madam Speaker, this app was put in place one month after a global pandemic was declared. To return to answering that question, where the hon. member insinuated the price was entirely related to developing the app, that price is related to development, accessibility, support, maintenance and multiple different contracts. It was not related just to the development of the app.
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Madam Speaker, we will not apologize for an app that saved lives. The app was put in place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to protect the health of Canadians. Thousands of lives were saved as a result of actions taken by the government to protect the health of Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, we all understand that Canada's public servants deserve to be paid properly and on time for the important work they do. We recognize that these pay problems create stress and hardship for employees and their families, and we are committed to fixing it. We are prioritizing cases that could have a significant impact on an employee's pay. We will continue to work to improve the system.
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Mr. Speaker, workers absolutely deserve to be paid properly and on time. We have hired more people. Our team has been working on Phoenix 24/7. I am well aware that we have to fix this. We also have a plan to implement the NextGen system, which will definitely improve the system. At this point, all I can say is that we are aware of the issues and we are working on them.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, with regard to part (a), the NCC contracts the services of a property management company to take care of the O’Brien House property. Measures taken to maintain the property include, but are not limited to, exterior maintenance such as landscaping and snow removal; cleaning; general repairs; and building security. With regard to part (b), the building was vacant during this time frame.…
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Mr. Speaker, SSC invests in technology that supports a whole-of-government or “enterprise” approach by enabling organizations to shift toward the use of common information technology systems. SSC’s contract with BMC reflects this approach to IT transformation, in that it provides for a modern information technology service management, or ITSM, tool available for use across the Government of Canada…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to support Bill C-9, an act to amend the Judges Act. This bill proposes to overhaul a process that is essential to maintaining public confidence in our justice system, namely the mechanisms used for examining allegations of judicial misconduct. If there is one class of legislation that everyone in the House should be able to agree on unanimously, it is …
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Mr. Speaker, I cannot provide any information as to when the position will be filled, as I am not involved in that process. I can say that I share the view of my colleague that it is very important to protect the rights of victims of crime, and I am certainly hoping the position will be filled at the nearest possible opportunity.
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Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question from my friend from La Pointe-de-l'Île. We made some great changes to the process following the 2015 election. We created regional committees made up of Canadian Bar Association members and people who know the community and can tell the Department of Justice whether or not a person is qualified before their name is put on the judicial appointment list. I …
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Mr. Speaker, I would certainly support a unanimous consent motion. Right now, it is up to all of us to speak to our House leaders and make sure they can agree to that. Maybe after question period, we will all be delighted to see one. Again, we should all go and speak with our respective House leaders in the next few hours.
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Mr. Speaker, as the first female engineer elected to Parliament, my hon. colleague comes from private industry, as I do. Therefore, she knows that it would be ludicrous for the human resources department to be limited to firing an employee for any type of misconduct they happen to engage in at work. There is a whole gradation of potential sanctions ranging from a verbal warning to a written warnin…
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Mr. Speaker, I am truly disappointed to have to be speaking to a programming motion today. I am disappointed because I truly believe in the committee process. I believe that House committees do really important work. I believe they are the heart of how bills get improved, the place where members from all parties give detailed advice to the government on studies and do detailed studies of legislati…
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Mr. Speaker, first, let me correct the hon. member: This bill has nothing to do with censorship. Freedom of speech is protected in this country under section 2, and it is very clear that freedom of speech is protected under this bill. Second, this bill would not be necessary except for the fact that members of the hon. member's party have continued to filibuster the committee, preventing us from e…
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Mr. Speaker, I will begin by stating that I am not the least bit embarrassed to speak my mother tongue in the House of Commons. As an MP, I have the right, as do all the other MPs, to speak both of Canada's official languages. There is an anglophone community in Quebec, even if the hon. member does not like it. I will always protect the rights of francophone minorities outside Quebec, Quebec franc…
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, let me thank the member for New Westminster—Burnaby for his always constructive work at committee. It is always a pleasure to work with him. Second, I want to say that I carefully avoided in my speech even referring to what political party or what people were not allowing us to move forward. I never mentioned a word about the Conservatives once in my speech. The end resu…
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad that the hon. member is going to let me speak to the question of witnesses. Originally, three of the four parties at the committee thought that a certain number of hours would be sufficient to hear from witnesses. The Conservative members then proposed 20 hours, which was more than the other parties thought needed to be given to witnesses, given that many of these witnesses …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Saint-Jean, who always speaks so eloquently in the House. I think that what it boils down to is that this decision was made after we saw what was happening in committee. I truly believe that, were it not for this motion, the committee would not be able to do the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill because it is always being blocked in everything i…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Châteauguay—Lacolle. Our government will begin negotiations with the Davie shipyard toward an umbrella agreement to become the third strategic shipbuilding partner under the NSS. Once the negotiations are complete, the Davie shipyard will build one of two polar icebreakers and six program icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard. This is terrific news for the ec…
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Madam Speaker, while I disagree with my hon. colleague on his framing of the bill, I always appreciate the very well-delivered speeches he gives. The member selectively quoted Jennifer Dunn in her appearance before the committee, talking about conditional sentencing. I also read what Jennifer Dunn said at committee, which is that, “Women are not protected by the law unless all mandatory minimum pe…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Saturday is National Health and Fitness Day in Canada. I plan to swim, run and play tennis at different locations in my riding on Saturday. I will then join the Fitness Industry Council of Canada's social media challenge by posting pictures and using the hashtag #letsmovecanada. I hope that all members will join me in working out and joining the social media challenge on Saturday. We …
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Madam Chair, our government has been working to address inequities by modernizing its procurement practices and encouraging suppliers from diverse backgrounds to be part of the federal supply chain. Budget 2021 proposed $87.4 million over five years, and $18.6 million ongoing, to modernize federal procurement and to create opportunities for specific communities such as indigenous people, women, LG…
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Madam Chair, our government is committed to renewing and strengthening its economic relationship with indigenous entrepreneurs and communities by providing increased economic opportunities to first nations, Inuit and Métis businesses through the federal procurement process. Our government announced the implementation of a mandatory requirement for federal departments and agencies to ensure that a …
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