Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague said it very well. The government creates problems and then fans out money to try to solve them. Often those solutions do not happen. I think that is one of the reasons why Canadians have grown very weary of the government over the last 10 years. It is why there are such high levels of angst in our country. It is why there is a lack of trust in government in general. We a…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today to present a petition on behalf of the residents of Saskatoon West. These are residents of Fairhaven, Meadowgreen, Parkridge and Confederation Park in Saskatoon who are concerned about crime in the city. Violent crime is up 10% in Saskatoon, with an increase in assaults, murders and robberies. Saskatoon has had 14 homicides in 2024, an almost 15% increase…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to present a petition on behalf of residents of Fairhaven, Meadowgreen Park and Confederation Park in Saskatoon, all of whom have faced significant challenges as crime, chaos and disorder take over their neighbourhoods. The petitioners note that drug use and homelessness have overrun their neighbourhoods, making public areas, schools and even private backyards uns…
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to split my time with the member for Kitchener South—Hespeler. This legislation, in my view, is flawed and redundant. We already have laws to cover what this legislation would be doing. I am going to talk about the real issue that I see, which is enforcing criminal laws in our country. It is one of the problems we have in our country right now, not the lack of laws. I also …
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Mr. Speaker, of course we all want fewer hate crimes in our country. Of course we all abhor hate crimes when we see them. However, there are already many laws on the books to deal with pretty much any kind of hate crime that can be there. There has been the burning of churches, as an example. A lot of these crimes go unsolved, or the laws are not enforced. There are current laws on the books that …
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague asked an excellent question. The short answer is no, I have not heard much logic from the other side, frankly, on just about anything in the House. There are laws on the books. A great example is the situation in St. Thomas I cited, which happened just a few weeks ago, where there was a symbol involved, and police officers reacted to that. They were able to charge the hom…
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Mr. Speaker, we have to be really careful that we focus on what needs to be focused on. We have to make sure that we stop and reduce the amount of hate crime in our country. We have to remember that we have existing laws on the books that can be used for this purpose. We have to make sure that our law enforcement has the tools it needs in order to enforce those laws.
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Mr. Speaker, when I look across Saskatoon West, past the shopfronts along 22nd Street, and the family homes and small businesses that built the west end of Saskatoon, I see the real cost of 10 years of Liberal failures on crime, drugs and immigration. The government broke these systems, and Bill C-2 is its frantic omnibus attempt to look tough at a podium while ducking accountability at home. It s…
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to hear that the Liberals are finally listening to what Canadians have been telling them for 10 years. However, we have seen over and over again a lot of talk and ideas, but the action is not there. Maybe they will introduce something, I do not know. We have not seen it. This is a pattern we have grown to become very used to on this side of the House over the last 10 years…
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Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. The most important thing we need to do as a country is to make sure that we have the best controls we can on asylum seekers so that we are not attracting people. Former prime minister Trudeau famously said that Canada was open and invited people to come to Canada. Guess what. People came. Of course they did. It is really important that we make sure we have sys…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague bringing up the issue of temporary residence in Canada because this is a major issue right now in our country. The data from the member's own party shows that well over 7% of the population right now is temporary. This has been totally caused by the government's lack of attention to this area and its encouragement for people to come to Canada, with absolutely…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to fix the Liberals' broken bail system, but has not delivered. It is another broken Liberal promise and another Liberal bait and switch because the Prime Minister is just another Liberal. Chief McBride, Saskatoon's top cop, says that it is a struggle every day with repeat offenders. The Prime Minister said he would get tough on crime, but since the Liberal…
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With regard to the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan and the statement in the backgrounder that “the plan will reduce the housing supply gap by approximately 670,000 units by the end of 2027”: (a) how was that number arrived at; (b) were any empirical studies done to corroborate this figure, and, if so, (i) what were the names of these studies, (ii) what specific conclusion did these studies reach…
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With regard to the various changes made by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to the international student program: (a) how does the government plan to measure the effectiveness of these changes in reducing fraud and improving student experiences; (b) how does the government plan to monitor the implementation of the letter of acceptance verification process to prevent fraud; (c) what typ…
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With regard to the electoral district of Saskatoon West: what are the details of all the grants, contributions, loans and any other payments from Government of Canada departments, agencies, and Crown corporations, but excluding the Canada Revenue Agency, to all other levels of government within and outside of Canada, First Nations, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and charities, from …
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With regard to section 243 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, which requires foreign nationals removed from Canada to repay the removal costs under subsections (a) and (b) if seeking re-entry: (a) what is the total amount recovered by the government for removal costs, broken down by the amounts set out under sections 243(a) and 243(b) and by calendar year since 2016; and (b) ho…
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Mr. Speaker, I just heard the member for Vancouver East talk about championing the government's bill, and it made me think back to the last Parliament, in which the party of which she is a member continually, on issue after issue, championed the government's legislation. In fact, the NDP always supported it. It sounds as though, even today, its members have not learned much, and they are still con…
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Mr. Speaker, one of the questions that was asked to the government in the prior Parliament was how many people this bill might affect. That was when it was in its previous form, as Bill C-71, and the Liberals did not have an answer. They had no clue, basically. They could not make an estimate, which then leads to obvious questions. The member spoke about health care, but it also raises questions a…
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Mr. Speaker, two points have been raised a number of times today, with the legislation as it is proposed, relating to language requirements and criminal history. I would like to hear from the parliamentary secretary whether there is any indication, any acceptance or agreement from the government that these things should be considered. We consider them with all other types of immigrants to Canada. …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for an amazing speech. The question I have for him has been talked about today. The government has not put forward any sort of number as far as how many people this bill might affect. The PBO did an estimate, but the government has not been able to make any of those estimates with respect to the number of people, which of course then relates to the costs that are …
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Mr. Speaker, one of the issues that a lot of new immigrants have when coming to this country is getting through security screening. Those of us who process files in our offices know they can take up to a year or even longer to get through this security screening process. I would note that in the bill, there is no proposal for those who are going to be given citizenship to have any kind of security…
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Mr. Speaker, as this is my first speech in the new Parliament, I just want to take a moment to thank the citizens of Saskatoon West for once again returning me to Ottawa as their MP. Of course at the same time, I want to thank some of those who helped me. I start with my family. We all know we cannot succeed in this place without our family behind us. I want to thank my wife, Cheryl; my sons, Kyle…
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Mr. Speaker, the member is speaking about lost Canadians and the people who should not lose their citizenship. We supported that. I supported that in the previous Parliament. That was the whole purpose of the senator's Bill S-245. It was to fix that problem. That was a simple bill that came forward. Then that member and her party, along with members of the NDP, hijacked that private member's bill,…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I do great work together at the committee, and I hope to continue that. We have to be careful in ramming things through this place. He is not wrong. We do need to deal with this issue. We need to get the amendments that we want out. We need to speak about it and have that debate, yet I hesitate to agree to push it through quickly because that is how mistakes get made.…
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Mr. Speaker, as everyone in the chamber knows, Canada is suffering from an increase in crime because of the way the Liberal government changed the laws, particularly around bail, and weakened statutes, along with other ways that have made it easier for criminals to stay out of jail. We have to be very careful about crime and to not do anything to potentially increase it. That is why I am very conc…
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives are concerned about citizenship and want to make sure crazy things are not implemented into our system. That is why we take the time to look at things. We make sure that we give it proper investigation and bring in the proper experts, and that is what happened. The member mentioned Bill C-71. That was completely under the control of the government. That had nothing to do…
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Mr. Speaker, the member knows well the processes of the House. Obviously, it could be done at committee. That is a good thing. We all know of unique cases that have happened. We cannot craft legislation that covers every single situation. Sometimes it works out well for people, and sometimes there is a bit more work that is required. What is really critical, from my perspective, is that the legisl…
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree. That is one of the key things. If we look at some of the other countries, we see they have much more stringent requirements. I think we should have at least a consecutive requirement. Even three years, in my mind, would not be enough. If we look at the U.S., for example, it has a five-year requirement, and two of those years have to be after the age of 14. I think …
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Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the speech, and it honestly sounded like most of it was written by the government PR department. It was something I might have heard on a reel in EPCOT Center at the Canada Pavilion, although there was some discussion about Bill C-3. When this was at committee last, Conservatives asked many questions about how many people it would potentially give citizenship to…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that we did just hear a number from the member. That is great. I have heard that number before, in relation to just one segment of the bill. However, I do not believe the main part of the bill, which is the citizenship by descent for generation after generation, is covered by that number. We have heard estimates of hundreds of thousands of people. If we do not get numbers…
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Mr. Speaker, the member spoke, in her awesome speech, about the fact that the government has no numbers. It got me thinking about the impact this has on the system in Canada. For example, all of us know that it takes a long time to get things through the immigration department. It has been plagued by a big backlog and delays. There are also other ways in which I could see new citizens impacting Ca…
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Mr. Speaker, it is good to hear that the parliamentary secretary had not looked at the bill until this morning and is learning all about it now. There is one thing I want to point out. He talked about how the 1,095 days might be consistent with something else. The government's website says that someone has to have lived in Canada for three out of the last five years to be eligible to become a Cana…
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that amendments are on the table and that the government is willing to listen to them. One of the things, as the member well knows, is that we are very concerned about the bill's allowing for non-consecutive days in Canada and a fairly weak connection test to Canada. I would like to remind the member that the rule for becoming a citizen is that people have to have be…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to the speech intently. One thing we need to know as we study this bill in the House and maybe further in committee is the impact of it on Canada. In other words, how many people would this bill impact? How many new Canadians would it create? I ask that because it is important. It would affect the administrative requirements of Canada with people applying for citizenship, a…
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things that is not in this bill is any sort of security check or background check on the people who might be conferred citizenship. As the member well knows, and as all of us do, security checks can be a really big, enormous, time-consuming part of getting citizenship. My question to the member is this: What does he think about that? Does he think there should be security c…
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Mr. Speaker, I was going to say it is always a pleasure, but I am not sure it is, to listen to the member from Winnipeg—
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Okay, it is a pleasure. Mr. Speaker, there are things that we have been trying to get at today that we have not gotten an answer for. I know that the member is very knowledgeable, so I am hoping that he will have an answer for it. It is the number of people who would be impacted by this legislation. It is important because we have heard numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and the government seem…
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Mr. Speaker, we have been unable to get a number from the government today of how many people this might impact. We have the PBO number. It was 115,000 people, so it is at least that many people or it could be more. What are the ways in which that many new citizens might impact Canada when it comes to the work that needs to be done in the bureaucracy and the cost to Canadians for things like old a…
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Mr. Speaker, in Saskatoon, winter temperatures often hit -30°C, so families need vehicles that actually work in the winter, but the Prime Minister, backed by his radical former environment minister, is doubling down on Justin Trudeau's plan to ban gas-powered cars and force Canadians to buy expensive EVs that do not stand up to the cold. His plan would hike car prices by $20,000 and leave families…
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what the government is doing. It is attacking the auto sector. Our supposedly “elbows up” Prime Minister promised to get tough with the U.S., but these unjustified tariffs will kill 50,000 Canadian auto sector jobs. While he is bungling the trade talks, his self-imposed ban on gas-powered cars will gut another 40,000 jobs. The combination of these two failures will be …
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today regarding recommendation 430 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, which would remove the “advancement of religion” as a recognized charitable purpose under the Income Tax Act. The petitioners recognize that religious charities in Canada provide vital services to society, including food banks, care for seniors, newcomer support…
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Mr. Chair, how can you set immigration targets, Minister, if you do not know how many people have left the country?
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Mr. Chair, just to help the minister, according to Statistics Canada, we are at 41.7 million people right now. That is 200,000 more people than at the end of last year, and 500,000 more people than the minister's plan. What is the minister doing to make sure that she achieves her plan for this year?
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Mr. Chair, they are actually increasing the population. Is that what the minister is saying?
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Mr. Chair, would the minister ever alter reports to remove data?
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Mr. Chair, last year's annual immigration plan forecast that nearly 1.3 million non-permanent residents would leave Canada. How many have left so far this year?
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Mr. Chair, the government's entire immigration plan is based on temporary residents' leaving Canada voluntarily. How many non-permanent residents does the government expect to leave Canada in the next three years?
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Mr. Chair, in the minister's plan, what is the number of people who are supposed to leave in the next three years?
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Mr. Chair, how many of them have voluntarily left?
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Mr. Chair, let us go a different way. The same report predicted a net decrease of non-permanent residents of about 450,000 people. Is the minister on track to achieve this number for 2025?
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