Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am fascinated by the remarks of my colleague from Jonquière about small modular reactors. I do not think they are a source of clean energy and I think it is a big—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I see no need to start over from the beginning, but I will say that my friend from Jonquière said some very interesting things about the nuclear industry and small modular reactors, which are not a source of clean energy. It is a serious distraction, moving us further away from the need to tackle the climate emergency. My question is this. Why does he think we are facing a new nucle…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, just in time for Earth Day, this government approved a devastating, nature-killing project, massively expanding the Port of Vancouver at Roberts Bank. It is also a job-killing project, because the head of the longshoremen dock workers union says that it will be devastating, but wait, I am going to anticipate the minister's answer and save him some time. He is going to tell us that the…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise virtually this evening to pursue a question I initially asked in question period on February 13. This was in advance of receiving our federal budget from the Minister of Finance. The Minister of Finance did respond, on the floor of the House, to the question I asked that day. I have contrasted what Canada is doing to go after the excess profit garnered by par…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is easily researched that the Government of Canada charges less tax on oil and gas companies than the United States does, and this is in a period of time when we are still subsidizing oil and gas. While I do appreciate the comments from my friend, the hon. parliamentary secretary, we are still subsidizing oil and gas, with increased subsidies in budget 2023, by providing more acc…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am very strict with my ability to speak to petitions without saying if I am for them or against them, but forgive me for saying this is heartbreaking. E-petition 4356 has 4,239 signatories begging the government not to do something it has now done. The petitioners ask that the government consider that terminal 2 of the Roberts Bank establishment in the Fraser estuary will destroy cr…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, I intend to vote for Bill C-11, but I would vote for it with more enthusiasm if the government had accepted the amendment from the Senate that excluded user-developed content. I wonder if the member could explain, because so far I have not had any explanation that makes sense to me, why the government has rejected that amendment from the Senate.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I think the hon. member for Saskatoon—University might consider his recent remarks and reflect that he went a bit too far when he said that things that are on the Internet should never be censored and nothing should ever be withdrawn. I am going to give him that opportunity right now. We have seen moments where families have been shattered by mass attacks and slaughters. Families of…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I wish Farley had not passed away before I got a chance to introduce the member. I would have loved for him to meet my friend from Nunavut. The concern about algorithms is a real one because algorithms are being used right now to do things on social media that are referred to as “rage farming”. This is a very murky and dangerous world, and I think we need to do much more to regulate i…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I respect my colleague enormously and I understand why he feels he will vote against the bill. I am very much informed by constituents, particularly in Saanich—Gulf Islands but across the country. I am very much in touch with the artist community, with writers and actors. They are begging for this to be passed because they need protection against these digital giants, the streaming en…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am maybe not going to make the Liberal bench, from which the question emanated, as happy as it might have been. There are reasons that this legislation has critics, and that is a big problem. I would rather vote for this bill with the Senate amendment to refuse any regulation of user-generated content, which has now been rejected. In fact, my colleague from Kitchener Centre brought …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by thanking my hon. friend from Vaughan—Woodbridge for splitting his time. This is the first time in my life that I have been able to rise in this place and say to the hon. member for Abbotsford that I get to answer his rhetorical question: How could Margaret Atwood's words “creeping totalitarianism” be misconstrued? I have been in constant contact over the last little…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I agree that the hon. member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies must assume that I am about to give a rant about women's rights. When Margaret Atwood's name is invoked so often with a novel that is entirely about women losing their rights in a dystopian future, where unbelievable things have happened like the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade and women having to f…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I cannot tell the hon. minister how distressed I am to see the hon. Minister of Health defending closure on debate on a bill that has nothing to do with his portfolio. Everything about closure offends basic democracy within Parliament. I have said this before, and I will say it again. When I was first elected in 2011, I watched the then Conservative majority start the process of usi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank my Bloc Québécois colleague. I think we have a different strategy for our arts and culture sector. Imagine if there were a movie being filmed in Quebec that generated money for the economy but that was entirely in English, with American actors and screenwriters who speak only English and write only in English. Would that support Quebec's cultural industry? I think that is why …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to present this petition regarding insect pollinators, specifically honeybees. Honeybees are essential to our food system, to food security and to our ecosystem. It is clear that honeybees are threatened by insecticides, specifically the pesticides known as “neonicotinoids”. Global studies, including studies from the European Commission, prove that neonicot…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise at this hour to bring forward a question I asked the Prime Minister on February 1 of this year. The budget was tabled yesterday, so when I referenced it in my question, it was in the drafting stage. I had thought that one might, in drafting the budget, look to the previous promises made by the governing party to see if they did not create a framework or guida…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is good to be able to recognize progress on a key commitment, the Canada water agency, but nothing is more pressing, particularly in light of the intergovernmental panel on climate change's last report, which says that we are absolutely running out of time. There is no wiggle room and there is no time for procrastination. I have to say that I was deeply shocked to find, on page 1…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, at this point we are looking at legislation that we know is urgently needed but quite flawed. It need not have been so complicated to create a carve-out for charitable organizations. Could the hon. member for Edmonton Manning comment on what they did in Australia, what they did in the U.K. and what our other allies in democratic efforts and in supporting the rights of women around the…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I very much welcome this legislation coming forward, although I share some of the concerns of the hon. member for Victoria. Many of our allies and other donor countries did not have the problems we have had as a country with getting aid workers into Afghanistan without tripping up into the rules against terrorism. I welcome this legislation. We need to get it through quickly. I was …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, this is very difficult, because we did want this legislation. We wanted to see the carve-out for humanitarian help. My question for the member is very specific. I am looking at the way the legislation is drafted and imagining that we vote for it to get to committee to think about how we might be able to improve it at committee. I am not sure we will be able to, so my question for he…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the fact that we are debating Bill C-11 in a political context and in terms of what my constituents see as a barrage of false information about it taking away freedoms is very distressing. However, it is also not perfect legislation. I want to tell my hon. parliamentary colleague, the parliamentary secretary, that I absolutely could not agree more that this bill does not affect freedo…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, petitioners are asking that the House consider the current ecological, social and economic crises and the way in which they are interconnected; that the importance be recognized of making decisions based on scientific evidence; and that it find ways to ensure that the environment and sustainability matter in the decisions we make. Petitioners particularly want us to focus on the cha…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with the speech given by my dear colleague from Shefford. I just want to say a word in English. When the member for Lethbridge was speaking, she talked about “the big unions”, as if artists are represented by big unions. I think she may think that is true, but there is no collective bargaining among artists. There is a group called The Writers' Union, a voluntee…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, over the next two days, members in this place will have the great honour of meeting some of the finest Canadians they will ever know. Members of the International Association of Fire Fighters are here for their 30th legislative congress. They will be meeting with all of us with the agenda they bring forward for their safety and taking care of all of us. They demand that we get rid of …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, something pretty shocking happened in this place last week. I refer to the statement made by the hon. member for Don Valley North. I am pretty scandalized that anonymous smears from CSIS end up destroying reputations with no real opportunity to respond. It is not like CSIS ever gets anything wrong. Just ask Maher Arar. What the heck is going on here? Will an inquiry find out who in CS…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, first of all, I want to tell my hon. colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie that I totally agree with what he said in his speech. It is so hard to be here and have a debate when some parties are saying that this is not true and that Bill C-11 is regressive and violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Why does he think the Conservatives have become so successful on social media…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it has been a very interesting debate on Bill C-11. I quite seriously think there is a deeply held belief that this bill is going to hurt freedom of expression that is entirely on the part of members and the Conservative caucus. I am so grateful, and I am not going to claim that law school makes a person understand everything, but statutory interpretation is one of those things that…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, The Handmaid's Tale has come up a great deal in this debate, and there is time to actually dig into why. The Handmaid's Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, once adapted to the screen, did not count as Canadian. It is fairly easy to look it up. It is described on Wikipedia as “an American dystopian television series created by Bruce Miller”, an American. For the film, the screenwriter …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Yorkton—Melville is a friend of mine, and I understand that she believes what she is saying. I cannot see it in this bill. I see nothing in this bill where faceless bureaucrats are going to tell Canadians what they can watch. That is not the case. This bill is about ensuring that our creators in this country would have work up against what is a monolithic, multin…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, as the hon. member for Oshawa was speaking, all I could think is that somewhere there is a Liberal war room clipping all of that to use in ads to make sure no one votes Conservative.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, there are a number of things about this legislation that I wish were different. I do not think I have ever seen a bill in this place, even the ones I would be persuaded to vote for, that I thought was perfect. However, the difficulty I have in this debate are the exaggerations, and I am pleading with colleagues on the Conservative side. Comparing Canada with the People's Republic of…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, there has been a lot of commentary particularly, from both sides of the House, on Canada's climate record. As a Green, I can also say in a non-partisan way that no government in this country has ever met a single climate target to which we have signed on in legally binding agreements. Neither Stephen Harper nor any Liberal prime minister has done so. Not only have we never hit a tar…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
,seconded by the member for York Centre, moved that Bill C-226, An Act respecting the development of a national strategy to assess, prevent and address environmental racism and to advance environmental justice, be read the third time and passed. She said: Mr. Speaker, there are not really words to describe the joy, pleasure and deep sense of gratitude when a private member's bill gets to third rea…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I thank my dear colleague, the member for Joliette, who is also the Bloc Québécois finance critic. I have a question about next week's budget. What does he think about the money being wasted on the fossil fuel industry? For example, the Government of Canada owns the Trans Mountain pipeline. The cost of the project has ballooned to $30 billion of public money. What does he think abou…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, it is good to have a right of reply when I started the speech by saying I was quite sure I would forget someone if I tried to thank all the people who have helped the bill. I also want to make sure to thank the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis, who was the seconder on the day this bill came forward for first reading, back in February 2022. I also want to thank my colleague and friend, …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary has opened up a personal reflection on his deep commitment to climate action. I saw that in his face when we debated here in the emergency debate in October 2018 when the IPCC said the future of humanity is at stake and that we have very little time. I put it to the hon. member that we are in no better position now than we were in October 2018 because …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, constituents in my riding have submitted this petition on an extremely important issue relating to genetically modified organisms and genetically modified foods. The petitioners point out that these food products are not labelled as genetically modified. Consumers do want to know. Over 80% of Canadians have said that they would like mandatory labelling of genetically modified foods so…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, this is an area where I appreciate the member's expertise in identifying where the actors are that attack our cybersecurity. Does the member think, from what he knows, that there is any level of response from the Canadian government that would not always be playing catch-up with cybercriminals who are ahead of us?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the IPCC report of this week is sobering reading. It requires of all of us that we be prepared to do more, be braver and be bolder, because nothing less than our children's future is at stake. It is a ticking time bomb, as it has been described. The report finds that deep emissions reductions are required in the near term, before 2025 at the latest. For Canada, that means banning frac…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to take the floor to agree with the important points being made here today by the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby. The Greens are also calling for a public inquiry that is expanded rather than being limited to foreign interference from the People's Republic of China. As the member was just pointing out, there is abundant and very clear evidence of Russian int…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I wish I could have stood and cheered at every syllable of the speech by the member for Timmins—James Bay, because it is exactly right. We lived through an era, particularly through the 1990s, of triumphalism of transnational corporate rule. That included the World Trade Organization rules that we were not permitted to ask “Was this product made by child labour?” That was called a p…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, this is a rare opportunity in this place to bring into sharp focus one reason the Government of Canada has consistently failed, regardless of who is in the PMO, to meet climate targets. The reason is directly related to the debate today, and it is trade rules. The World Trade Organization interceded. We used trade sanctions that made the ozone protocol, the Montreal Protocol of 1987, …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, as I rise to present a petition today, I am struck by how timely it is. We would not have known, when I pulled this petition for today, what we would be debating in a concurrence debate. The petitioners from my riding are calling on Canada to pay attention to the fact that companies within Canada, Canadian-based companies, are responsible for human rights abuses around the world, such…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, permit me for a moment, because I am sure members felt the same sense of nostalgia for Pier 21, to call out the name of the woman who made it possible, who was a dear friend of mine, the late Ruth Goldbloom. I also want, for my hon. friend for Winnipeg North, to give a shout-out to Gail Asper, who was a similar driving force in her work and gave us the Canadian Museum for Human Rights…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, this is also not the first time I have presented a similar petition. The constituents in Saanich—Gulf Islands remain devastated by the deaths from the opioid crisis, both near our home and across Canada. The opioid crisis in Canada is a poisoning crisis. It has not yet been declared, but the petitioners call on us to declare it a public health emergency based on the number of deaths i…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it may be that the Green caucus is the only one here prepared to say it has not decided how it is going to vote. There are many good and compelling reasons to want some sunshine and daylight on this matter, but the part that makes me not want to vote for the motion is the excessive hyperbole and partisanship and some of the cheap shots at people like David Johnston and at the Trudeau …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to rise in the House on the lands of the Algonquin Anishinabe peoples. I am speaking today as a follow-up to a question that one might think was stale-dated, but it gives us an opportunity to pursue what was a remarkable success in Montreal at the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is nice to be able to recognize the succes…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, a lot was accomplished, as I said in my moment, but what I really want to focus on now is what is next. The question will remain: How do we recognize this language? The targets from Kunming-Montreal are truly transformative. This is the first UN document that has referenced mother earth; our relationship as humanity with mother earth; the leadership of indigenous peoples around the …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. minister. I want to acknowledge that he has been working extremely hard on a number of supply chain issues that have an immediate impact on indigenous nations in Saanich—Gulf Islands and throughout the areas of the Salish Sea. I want to acknowledge that this bill is encouraging to many of us, but I want to ask a question very bluntly. Can there be amendments…
Read full speech →