Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, on June 12, Filipinos worldwide celebrate Philippine Independence Day. As we celebrate, we recognize the rich history, culture and enduring spirit. Filipino Canadians have made remarkable contributions in every field, from health care and education to business, the public service and the arts, and certainly to charitable initiatives, helping to strengthen and enrich our country. At th…
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Mr. Speaker, by moving this motion, the government is shutting down debate about the very underpinnings of our democracy: our elections. There are a number of concerns that I could have raised. There are some positive things in here. For example, when it comes to foreign influence, there are some positive steps, but it still remains open in terms of so-called third parties being able to bring in f…
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Madam Speaker, the answer to that is quite simple. First of all, I thank the government and the hon. member for expressing openness to this, and I hope they are going to actually take the action. I really do. We have been fighting for this for a long time. I would encourage the member to go back and look at the motion that was brought forward by Conservatives in the past, which the government reje…
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Madam Speaker, I certainly want to recognize that this effort was stalled out a bit after the previous Conservative motion was defeated in the House. The member brought forward a petition, which has re-energized this effort, and I thank her for that. I am sure the member has had some conversations internally. Could she speak a bit to the next steps on this, when we can actually expect to see this …
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the member's speech and his comments about the importance of recognizing our heroes. Can the member talk about why it is important for the government to put words into action?
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Madam Speaker, today is not just about the Victoria Cross and Jess Larochelle, but about veterans of the war in Afghanistan. I think they often do not feel recognized in the same way that maybe their World War I, World War II and even Korean War colleagues are, whether that be by the Legion, the general public, the government or the people of Canada. I think we saw that reflected a little recently…
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Madam Speaker, the apology needs to come from that member and his government because, I can tell members right now, what they did there is very hypocritical. That office is, in fact, closed and has been closed. Not only that, but essentially every office in this country is closed to veterans because what happens now is they must go online and make an appointment. If they just show up at an office,…
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moved that the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Veterans Affairs, presented on April 30, be concurred in. Mr. Speaker, I stand today in unity with veterans from all across Canada who have been tirelessly fighting to right a historical wrong. For too long, veterans have faced these kinds of issues where, first of all, they deal with a cold and heartless bureaucracy. Second, they struggle t…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for highlighting the importance of recognizing our veterans and heroes. Can the member explain the potential consequences of the government failing to show veterans the respect they deserve, and how this lack of recognition might hinder recruitment into the armed forces?
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague. The great author and evangelist C.S. Lewis once said, “Since it is so likely that [children] will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.” Since it is so likely that Canadian children will grow up facing hardships and hearing about evil in the world, le…
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Madam Speaker, I will just say that I do not have time to tell Bruce Moncur's story, but his story is one of bravery and courage. He believes that his life was spared so that he could see this through. We are going to help him to do just that, so that future—
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Madam Speaker, I will just say that the member raised a lot of very good questions. They are questions that do not have answers. I think the reason they do not have answers is that the government is deliberately trying to avoid being accountable and being transparent. This is another way, just another way of many, to reward all of its friends, all the Liberal insiders, and it is being done at the …
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Madam Speaker, I would be ashamed of myself if I was to stand and ask a question like that. I understand the role that the parliamentary secretary plays to defend a Prime Minister who is indefensible, frankly. However, when he stands up and tries to tell us that $4 billion is for cuts to cannabis, how much cannabis are the Liberals planning on handing out to veterans? That is a heck of a lot of ca…
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Madam Speaker, before we get too much into that debate, the members over there who are heckling right now should understand that that is exactly what happened. The members over there are taking a very hypocritical action. That is for sure. I stand today to address Bill C-31 and division 16 of that bill. I cannot help but feel a sense of concern among Canadians about what we are seeing here. It see…
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Madam Speaker, the first thing I would say to that is there is a bit of a premise to the question that I would take disagreement with. The member mentioned the idea of veterans remaining a priority. I would argue that veterans have never been a priority for the government. This budget only further proves that. I mentioned already some of the things that we have seen cut, but the member, very corre…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member something that is absolutely related to this. We hear this talk about the investments that we have yet to see that the Liberals claim they are going to make in our Armed Forces. They claim that it is going to mean huge increases in recruitment for the Canadian Armed Forces, but we see the way they treat our veterans. We see the massive cuts that have b…
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Mr. Speaker, all veterans get from the Liberal government are excuses and cuts. The Liberals slashed billions from veterans services, leaving veterans facing longer wait times and fewer supports, and now they are covering up the fact that the housing minister hid $3 million they cut from homeless veterans, claiming they could not find any. Unfortunately there are thousands of homeless veterans in …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister sold himself as a financial expert, but since taking office he has doubled the deficit and he is adding $1 trillion to the debt. Despite the illusions, it is more cost, more taxes, more debt, more on the national credit card and more of the same that we got from Justin Trudeau. Canadians are paying more for groceries, housing and everything in between. When will the…
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Mr. Speaker, do you know what Albertans see as the problem with the Liberal government? Every promise of change has turned into another charge on the national credit card. Canadians are now paying more: more at the grocery store, more for housing and more in taxes, all to cover for reckless Liberal overspending. When will the Liberal Prime Minister get serious and end his costly credit card budget…
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Mr. Speaker, I table the Conservatives' supplemental report to the veterans affairs committee's report on suicide prevention. Suicide among veterans is an epidemic in the country and is claiming more lives than many of the conflicts that have happened in this century. Despite all the cries of broken-hearted spouses, parents and siblings, the government is still failing to do enough about this. Alt…
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Mr. Speaker, sometimes when we debate bills such as this, we are debating a problem that could exist in the future or that may exist. In this case, that is not at all what we are talking about. We are talking about something that is not a hypothetical problem. We are talking about something that has happened and is happening to veterans in this country. This is something that was raised quite publ…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that anyone here is suggesting that. If we are to talk about workplace safety, let me talk about the workplace our veterans serve in. Our veterans are willing to lay down their lives for this country. They put themselves in the most difficult positions, ones that any of us could never even imagine. They do that because the government asks them to do that. The only thing …
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot about it already, but clearly, in the defence committee, a lot of witnesses came forward, like veterans, and in particular, women veterans. They talked a lot about having the ability to choose and how the justice they needed to receive would be done. The Conservatives listened to that. We worked across party lines to see improvements to the bill. The Liberals did n…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to table a petition today that discusses Bill C-260, the care not coercion act. This is in the wake of many veterans' experiences in this country. When they reached out to Veterans Affairs seeking help to live their lives, they were instead pushed towards the idea of medical assistance in dying. The petitioners are concerned with these instances and are calling on the governmen…
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Mr. Speaker, what the Liberals are doing with Bill C-11 follows what I would call a really troubling pattern of behaviour toward veterans in Canada, especially when it comes to women veterans. This is the same party that proudly claims to be feminist, but it will happily disregard what women are advocating for the second it no longer suits its political agenda. I will remind everyone in this House…
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Mr. Speaker, what I need to remind the member of is that we are hearing, and the committee heard, from veterans, from women veterans, who have come forward, and they are saying that they need to have the choice. That is what the amendments, which the government is ignoring, are seeking to do. The government can stand up and pretend it is listening. It can claim that it cares. If it really cared, i…
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Mr. Speaker, if I were to really summarize what I hear from veterans all the time, and I hear it frequently, it is probably summarized best in the words of former prime minister Justin Trudeau when he told veterans they were “asking for more than we [can] give”. That is what veterans feel like they are being told by the government, consistently and constantly, that they are asking for more than we…
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Mr. Speaker, on April 26, as we commemorate the one-year anniversary of the terrible attacks in Vancouver at the Lapu-Lapu festival, we have in our prayers the victims, their families and the survivors. The entire nation was shocked at the news of the tragedy, and Canadians from coast to coast grieved for those who were lost. The Filipino community in Canada is an integral part of many communities…
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Mr. Speaker, around the world, countries are searching for secure and reliable sources of energy. Many, including Japan, South Korea, India and Germany, have expressed a growing interest in Canadian energy. Canada has the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world and the ability to help meet that demand responsibly, yet despite years of promises, the government has not approved a single new pipelin…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the incredible performance of our tourism sector. Leading the way is my home province of Alberta, guided by the work of Travel Alberta under the leadership of David Goldstein. Alberta's tourism sector reached $14.4 billion in visitor spending in 2024, receiving global recognition as a destination of choice from several leading international travel publications. Alb…
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Mr. Speaker, there it is again. I mentioned it. The Liberals deny they are even making the cuts, and then they blame everybody else. They go back and blame a prime minister who was in office more than 10 years ago for the cuts being made today. The Liberals do not even want to admit to these cuts, but they are taking away from disabled veterans and from veterans who are in long-term care, while sp…
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Mr. Speaker, what the member has touched on here highlights the biggest problem that we see. I spoke tonight to the veterans' situation, but there are a lot of other reasons to be concerned about what is going on here. At the end of the day, the most important thing to point out here is that the deficits and debt being created lead to inflation, and that inflation harms the people who are the most…
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Mr. Speaker, that is an important point that I did not get a chance to speak to. This was a mistake that was made by the Liberals. They are going back to veterans who are in long-term care in one case, and to veterans who are disabled in another. They are demanding repayment in one case. The Liberals are retroactively changing legislation to avoid having to reimburse the veterans they were overcha…
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Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of things I could talk about when it comes to the budget from the perspective of the challenges it brings. The first thing we can look at, of course, is the fact that there is $78 billion in new debt being created for future taxpayers. What I would like to do tonight, because I have had the opportunity to speak to some of those things before, is speak directly to the v…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, we stand here today watching the Liberals once again play politics with veterans. Rather than treating our veterans as heroes who served the country, this motion is just the latest action in a string of actions taken by the Liberal government, which treats veterans as pawns for their political ambitions. In less than a year since the election, the Liberals have made several inexplicab…
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Mr. Speaker, what I often find happens when I hear a politician talk about wanting to do a study is that it is often a way to avoid taking action. With these underused properties, and there is one in my riding, I listen to my community. I know what it needs. I do not need to have a study of Parliament to decide what needs to be done with those properties. I would suggest that any member who has on…
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Madam Speaker, today I acknowledge all the grieving parents across Canada who have had to endure both financial and emotional hardship at the hands of the federal government due in large part to a systemic flaw in government programming for maternity and parental benefits. Nearly 10 years ago we began a journey together to make change in this country, to make sure that, in the future, parents who …
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Mr. Speaker, there are a lot of people struggling in this country who would beg to differ. I will talk about Justin, a middle-class dad from Airdrie, who says that the cost of living crisis is eroding middle-class stability, with families being squeezed by soaring housing, grocery, utility and fuel prices. That is all because the Liberal industrial carbon tax, the fuel tax and the food packaging t…
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Mr. Speaker, Heather from Airdrie is a senior who has worked in Canada since she was 13 years old. She and her husband paid their dues, but now, after a lifetime of contributing, they are, in their words, next to having to use the food bank just to get by. It is unacceptable that, after 10 long years of the Liberal government, the seniors who built this country cannot even afford groceries. When w…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the amazing contributions of the Canadian Filipino community from coast to coast to coast. Filipino culture is one that values faith, family, community, hard work and loyalty. From Vancouver to White Horse and St. John's, Filipino families have contributed greatly through their hard work and community involvement. Rarely will I find a church or community grou…
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Mr. Speaker, I think that what the question really illustrates is how badly the government has failed Canadians. I think that what the people who were looking for something in the budget saw was a government that wants to build up more and more bureaucracy. I mentioned veterans in my speech. The member mentioned seniors. Families, young Canadians looking to afford a home, people who cannot afford …
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Mr. Speaker, I could talk forever on this, but I know that I will not be able to. The bottom line is that those who have served our country deserve to have a government that is there for them. When they did that service, that is all they expected in return, help with the needs that they might have in the future. The government is failing them. It is that simple. There is a $78-billion deficit, but…
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Mr. Speaker, federal budgets are not just about numbers on a page. They at least should not be about just numbers on a page. They must be about addressing the cost of groceries for struggling families and about the price of gas for workers who depend on their vehicles to earn a living. They should be about whether or not young Canadians can afford a home. As I said, at least they should be about t…
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Mr. Speaker, there is still no construction date for the pipeline. The Prime Minister blames everyone else, like the B.C. government and first nations, anyone but himself. Of course, it is really the “leave it in the ground” members of his own caucus who are trying to stop it. The Prime Minister could approve an oil pipeline to the Pacific without a carbon tax, without delays and without any excus…
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Mr. Speaker, this budget does not tackle the real obstacles to growth. Instead of unlocking resource projects, building pipelines or enabling housing construction, the Liberals are busy picking winners and losers, leaving national projects that could create thousands of jobs stalled under mountains of red tape and regulation. Conservatives have a different vision, and that would be to get rid of s…
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Mr. Speaker, the member just demonstrated, exactly, the problem with the Liberals. When we think back to about six months ago, during the election, they had a very different story to tell than what we are hearing from the member today. That is the problem with the Liberals. They keep changing their story every single day. No one can rely on anything they say, and no one can count on them, ever, to…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise to present the supplemental report of the Conservative members of the committee. Our supplemental report is entitled “Conservatives Demand Action Instead of Just Words for Indigenous and All Veterans”. While we agree with much of the main report and the points that were heard from many of the witnesses, who feel left behind by the government, there were a number of concerns tha…
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Madam Speaker, today is about freedom and remembrance. As we approach Remembrance Day, I will speak about the commitment we all must make as Canadians, the commitment to uphold our freedoms and the commitment to remembrance of all those who served and sacrificed for those freedoms. Those two commitments are closely linked. Without the service of our military personnel, we would have no freedom, so…
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present a petition today that recognizes that when a Canadian serves Canada, their families serve with them. Constant moves around the country disrupt a family's ability to establish deep roots and community connections, and it hurts career growth prospects for spouses. The undersigned call on the government to recognize the critical role that families play for our servi…
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Mr. Speaker, today, I would like to recognize the incredible legacy being left behind by the Airdrie Food Bank's executive director, Lori McRitchie, as she takes her well-earned retirement after more than two decades of tireless work in making sure that no one in our community ever goes hungry. From the small beginnings of a school breakfast program, which eventually merged with the food bank and …
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