Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, in the last year, new home sales are down across the country. They are down 45% in the GTA, 52% in the Golden Horseshoe and 56% in Vancouver. The Canadian Home Builders' Association said that allowing these sale conditions to continue will create a lost decade for home ownership in Canada. The Prime Minister promised that the Liberals would help Canadians buy their first homes, but ho…
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Mr. Speaker, last year, over half the people who became Canadian citizens did so by clicking a box online. That is crazy. There is no justification for this. In-person citizenship ceremonies are an essential unifying bedrock of Canada's civic life. Swearing the oath of citizenship in front of an official should be upheld as an integral part of committing to the responsibilities that come with bein…
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Madam Speaker, earlier, I asked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister if he thought the 13.6¢ per day that a single senior in this country is going to get as relief through this particular budget bill they are putting through is enough for a single senior who is struggling to pay for their groceries. When they go to the grocery store, they are making a decision as to whether they shoul…
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Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the member's speech. He invoked the name of former prime minister Stephen Harper on several occasions. What he conveniently forgot to mention, of course, is that in 2015, under the Harper government, we had a balanced budget in this country. That means that every dollar we took in we spent, but we did not spend more than what we took in. He also referred to…
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Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for you and this House. The Liberals cannot say one thing one day and say something different the next day. They cannot inhale and exhale at the same time. I hope those words are more appropriate.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals continue to disrespect other parliamentarians. That is very clear. They rejected all of the committee's recommendations and they are not respecting the democratic process. I agree with what my colleague said in her question.
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Madam Speaker, I do not know if the member opposite has had an opportunity to read the amendments, but clearly this issue was addressed at committee. The Conservatives put forth some very meaningful amendments that would have addressed the case she mentioned of the constituent in her riding. Unfortunately, she and the rest of her colleagues in the Liberal Party voted those amendments down.
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Mr. Speaker, the safety of our fellow citizens must always be a priority for us all. I have a simple question. Can my colleague explain why she thinks the Liberals opposed criminal background checks for people coming into Canada under this bill?
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Madam Speaker, Bill C-3 is once again before us. The Liberals have dismantled our immigration system and turned it into a circus. They have thrown open our borders, inviting in millions of people over the last decade without the necessary housing, health care or jobs to support them. Let us look at the results. Housing prices have shot up to unattainable levels. We were already in a housing defici…
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Madam Speaker, I will attempt to address the ridiculous question from the member opposite. She and other members of the Liberal Party have stood up on the bill and on other bills and said to us, before the amendments were presented in the House, to take it to committee and to come back with recommendations and amendments. Of course, we did that. We came back, but the Liberals voted down the amendm…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to address the issue of doing a background check, of really doing a criminal check to ensure the people coming into the country are people who are going to be safe walking around our communities, our schools, our malls or anywhere down the streets near our homes. I really fail to see why the Liberal government does not understand the importance of doing these criminal checks. U…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand once again in this chamber to speak to the legislation before us. I was disappointed to hear that our Liberal colleagues are working to overturn the common-sense amendments that the Conservatives and the Bloc passed at committee in our deliberations on Bill C-3. It is not surprising that they are getting help from their traditional coalition partner, the NDP…
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Mr. Speaker, the member probably has not read the bill in its entirety and probably does not understand the impact the bill would have. There are going to be people in the member's community who came into the country and have not had any background checks and do not speak the language but simply say their mother and father were here 30 years ago; they graduated from university and were able to obt…
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Mr. Speaker, that was a very well-thought-out question. Clearly the member has read the legislation and understands the impact it would have on our communities. It really does not make sense in any way, shape or form to think that someone who lived here 50 or 60 years ago could bestow citizenship in perpetuity to generation after generation simply because they were here 50 or 60 years ago, without…
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Mr. Speaker, I am perplexed at how tone-deaf the Liberals seem to be on the question of why they would be so supportive of not having criminal background checks on people coming into our country. No matter what stream of the immigration system people come here through, why would the Liberals support that? My question to the member opposite is simple. Are people in his community satisfied? Would th…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals think that a proper way of presenting the bill or defending it is by having the government whip sit in this space, thinking he is properly representing the people of Kingston and the Islands by heckling when someone is speaking in the House. This is not a serious government—
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Mr. Speaker, if government members were serious, they would be putting Canadians' interests first and would not be putting their political nonsense of partisan politics first.
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Mr. Speaker, truly the only word that comes to mind is “incompetence”. We are now on the seventh Liberal immigration minister in the last 10 years. The bill is actually a copy of a previous bill. Members of the government just changed the title from Bill C-71 in the previous Parliament to Bill C-3 now. They introduced it in the month of May or June and then took the summer off. They all went home.…
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Mr. Speaker, I was born and raised in Quebec. I am proud to say that I was born in the great city of Montreal. My response to the hon. member's question is simply that the 200,000 asylum seekers, growing by tens of thousands under the Liberal government, have created this problem in Quebec. I agree with my colleague that it is not fair to Quebec. It is not fair to any province in Canada to have to…
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Mr. Speaker, that was a very thorough and informed speech. I have a question. We have a Liberal government that has been in power in this chamber and governing the country for the past 10 years. It is now 10 years later, and the government is pretending, in my opinion, to be serious about border security. I wonder if the member feels that after the government's first attempt with Bill C-2, Bill C-…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to speak to Bill C-12. I hope all colleagues in this chamber had an amazing Thanksgiving. I enjoyed the week in my riding, but I am back in Ottawa to continue the important work we do here on behalf of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We are debating this bill today because this is the Liberals' second attempt in the same Parliament. Their first atte…
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Mr. Speaker, of course the Liberals are going to try to deflect from the debate in the House. We are talking about Bill C-12, which is a changeup from Bill C-2. We are talking about people being murdered in the streets. My colleague may not have heard what I said, but let me tell her that there have been two murders in my community in the last 30 days. It is shameful that the government wants to p…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree 100%. Legislation needs to be debated in this House and amendments should be taken seriously. The Liberal government has a record of ignoring amendments and ignoring good ideas when they come from other elected members in this House who happen to not be from its party. This is what the House is all about. This is the House of democracy. The voice of every Canadian is represent…
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Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the government has two very similar bills on the Order Paper right now: Bill C-2 and Bill C-12. The second bill is missing a few things that the first bill has, but the government has still retained the first bill on the Order Paper. We asked the Liberals this question this morning, over and over again, to get an understanding of why they would have both of these bill…
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Mr. Speaker, Liberal hug-a-thug policies have created crime and chaos in our communities. After 10 years of reckless Liberal laws, there are 29% more homicides, 76% more sexual assaults and 330% more incidents of extortion. Canadians deserve to feel safe in their parks, streets and own homes. After years of Liberal catch-and-release policies, they do not. Countless Canadians are victimized every d…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government passed legislation allowing criminals convicted of sexual assault, including date rape, to serve their sentence under house arrest. Now the Liberals want Canadians to trust them with this new legislation. How can the Liberals be trusted to enact justice reforms to protect members of the Canadian Armed Forces against sexual misconduct, given their record of allow…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to negotiate a win with President Trump and get a deal by July 21. Three months later, there is still no deal. He promised elbows up and then he caved on countertariffs and more, getting nothing in return but higher U.S. tariffs. He promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7 but delivered the fastest-shrinking G7 economy, with the second-highest unemplo…
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Mr. Speaker, peculiarly, this bill the Liberals have put together addresses things that are already covered by the Criminal Code of Canada. There are already laws that provide protection against and speak to things like the swastika and others. Could the member elaborate a bit more on why he thinks those things, already covered by law in Canada, are being virtue-signalled by the Liberals in debate…
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Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of Liberal chaos, the housing market is a mess. Prices are still too high for buyers. Sellers cannot sell, and builders cannot build. The Prime Minister promised change, but it is just another bait and switch. Housing starts have crashed. Preconstruction sales in the GTA have plunged to levels not seen since the global financial crisis. Young people are still unable to …
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Madam Speaker, I am inclined to believe the Liberals are not going to do anything they said they would do because the Prime Minister has been there for the last six months. In that six months, he has made a bunch of promises, none of which have been fulfilled. It was the Prime Minister and the Liberals who decided to prorogue Parliament, to not come back for the summer and to not allow committees …
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Madam Speaker, I was here 10 years ago. I was part of the Conservative government. We had an immigration system that was the envy of the world. We had an immigration system that worked. It responded to newcomers coming to the country. It provided the best possibility for positive outcomes for them and their families, while at the same time contributing to the Canadian economy. Unfortunately, the L…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the question and the point my learned colleague has made. Certainly, it is not part of the legislation. The warrant requirement is not there. I happen to believe, as many Canadians believe, that we should not leave the opening of our mail to the discretion of the mailman who has the piece before him.
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Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be back in the House representing the good people of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill. After a long summer away, I confess that I have mixed feelings about that. I am happy to be back, but at the same time, this is the 22nd day this year that we are sitting in the House. I think that Canadians would have expected us to work through the summer rather than be …
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Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that very thorough and thoughtful presentation she did on the inefficiencies of Bill C-3, which the government is trying to ram through. How is it fair to legitimate immigrants who spend their entire lives contributing to this country when the government is ready to give citizenship away to people who have never actually lived here?
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Mr. Speaker, I understand the need to present a new piece of legislation, but this is not a new piece; it is a cut and paste of the old piece. The member knows very well that this has gone through committee in the past, with both Bill C-71 and the Senate bill, Bill S-245. The member also knows very well that for us to consider legislation to fix what he is saying and address the issue of the court…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Christiane Dupuis for her good work in helping the member in her work. I wish her every success in her future endeavours. It is important that we address the issue of the court decision. What we are saying here today is that we hope our colleagues in the Bloc and, quite frankly, in the Liberal Party will join us in ensuring that the piece of legislation we put t…
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Mr. Speaker, citizenship ceremonies are very emotional, as I said in my speech, and they are very important in the lives of the folks who are obtaining their citizenship on that day. I certainly believe that this bill needs to be studied a lot further. I hope the member opposite will speak to her colleagues in the Liberal Party to seriously consider amendments that we will be putting forward for t…
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Mr. Speaker, I honestly believe that the legislation, as it has been presented by the Minister of Immigration, would make things a lot worse if passed. It would continue to get worse as long as government members keep playing musical chairs in the tired Liberal government. There have been seven different immigration ministers in a 10-year period. The government is not looking at the file seriously…
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Mr. Speaker, of course, we want to study the bill. We want to propose amendments to the bill that would make it a better piece of legislation. We have spent one day on it. It appears that the member has an issue with our spending all day on it. I would argue that it is not enough because the long-term ramifications of passing through a bad piece of legislation like this could be catastrophic for t…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this piece of legislation this evening here in the House. After 10 years of the tired Liberal government, our immigration system is broken. I say that somewhat with a heavy heart because I look across at my colleagues and I know they like to be referred to as a new government. It is anything but new. What the Liberals have done is …
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Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here all day attentively listening to the debate and the questions and comments from both sides of the House. I have also received several emails and phone calls from the good people of my riding of Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, who, quite frankly, are a little perplexed that something that appears to be a no-brainer, a very simple motion, is creating such animo…
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Mr. Speaker, the member opposite seems to be confused. He does not appear to know the difference between a ways and means motion and a budget. There are Canadians across this country, young people, who are seeing a very bleak future for themselves. They cannot afford to buy a home in the community in which they are born. Seniors cannot afford to eat the same way they were eating just three years a…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of citizens and residents of Canada who would like to draw the attention of the House to the plight of the people of Cyprus. The Turkish military invasion of Cyprus in 1974 was illegal and brutal, resulting in the ongoing occupation of 37% of the island and 57% of its coastline. The Turkish occupation led to significant human rights violati…
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Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the Liberal government's catch-and-release policies, Canadian communities are riddled with rising and record crime. People are waking up in the morning hopeful that their car will still be in the driveway. Car thefts have hit record highs in municipalities like Aurora and Richmond Hill. Even worse, violent crimes, such as home invasions and blatant smash-and-grab rob…
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