Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I rise in this place acknowledging that we stand on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe Nation, and essentially this building sits on Algonquin land. To them, I say meegwetch. I am very pleased that we have seen another incarnation of Bill C-20. The fundamental essence of this legislation, for those who may just be joining the debate, is to ensure that two really signifi…
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Mr. Speaker, the government of the day, which happens to be the current government, brought forward the legislation without a real commitment to see it through. When legislation dies on the Order Paper, sometimes it is inevitable, but in this case we have been debating it and calling for change. As I said earlier in a question to another colleague, I remember raising this in Parliament when the mi…
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Mr. Speaker, it was a real blow, because she had a job set up and some arbitrary guy decided no, he is not letting her fulfill her life's dream. It was his decision and there was no appeal. Obviously having an appeal would help, but so too would examining the day-to-day operations of CBSA and providing more guidance. For instance, an officer should not have full discretion to decide whether they l…
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate the hon. member for Victoria remembering the Elsipogtog standoff in New Brunswick. It was a non-violent protest and was demonstrated in many ways to be a non-violent protest. It was also widely supported. The indigenous land defenders of Elsipogtog, part of the larger Mi'kmaq, Maliseet and Passamaquoddy nations, were widely supported by settler culture New Brunswic…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague from Fleetwood—Port Kells, both for his congratulations that I am leader of the Green Party of Canada and for splitting his time with me. My chance will come up very soon. I wonder whether, as a British Columbian member of Parliament, the member has been disturbed by the videos, which I wonder if he has seen, of the arrests and the treatment of indigenous peo…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to raise something that is a bit tangential. The member mentioned the head of the RCMP, Brenda Lucki. It is very much on my mind that the Parliamentary Protective Service officers here had to work three years to get a decent contract. They do not get back pay. They have to report through the RCMP now. That is a change that I opposed. I want to ask all hon. members in this place…
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Mr. Speaker, for a long time it has been manifestly obvious that there is systemic racism in our police forces: the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency. We know that up until now, there has been no oversight body to deal with Canadian border services. I think that with the debate so far, in the very little amount of time we have had Bill C-20 before us, it is also manifestly clear that this…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre, who knows of what she speaks when talking about the abuse of indigenous women and indigenous people in a disproportionate fashion. I will briefly say this. My own experience with the RCMP officers, when they led me away while arresting me for violating the injunction to protect the Texas pipeline company Kinder Morgan, was that th…
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Madam Speaker, first, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his kind words of congratulations. Second, I support this. I have been waiting and waiting to see action taken, as it has been promised for many years. I remember that the initial questions I raised about the Canada Border Services Agency were directed to the minister at the time, Ralph Goodale, who is now our high commissioner to the C…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague and neighbour from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford for sketching out, as I would have as well, that the RCMP has had instances, which are in the minority of RCMP behaviour, that were alarming. I note that, in the Fairy Creek example my hon. colleague raised, even after the Supreme Court informed the RCMP that the way it was interpreting the injunction to …
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Madam Speaker, rising yet again on a time allocation debate, I am reminded of when, in previous Parliaments, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper used time allocation again and again and again. I sat in that corner with the Liberals when they were the third party. Consistently, every time, they said that if we allow this to happen, eventually Parliament and democracy will be diminished and time …
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Madam Speaker, I know that the topic now is time allocation, but perhaps it is important to note what happens when we let the Liberals talk more in this place. Rather than hearing that they are climate leaders, the hon. Minister of Tourism has confirmed that we are focused on oil and gas. He said that we are putting more investment into oil and gas. I hate to have to remind the government that a s…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House to present a petition from concerned constituents who are calling on the government to follow the lead of the European Parliament in banning the unnecessary use of animals in experimentation. The petitioners point out that there are newer methods that will decrease the concern of biohazardous waste and zoonotic diseases. They are looking for a phas…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a real honour to take this moment to review a question I asked back in June. Particularly and unusually for Adjournment Proceedings, I am following my colleague, the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, who in debate just pointed out to the hon. parliamentary secretary the inadequacies of the current government's plan. At this point, I am taking up on a similar theme, but based on …
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Mr. Speaker, as predicted, government spokespersons raise the good things they are doing, and they are good. Heat pumps are good. More charging stations for electric cars are good. We pile them up, and we have a drop in the bucket. Then we see the buckets of money going into violating indigenous rights and to forcing through the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is only halfway built and the most dan…
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Madam Speaker, I want to follow up on the question from the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis to the member for Kenora, because a really critical point is understanding that what we are experiencing now is not typical inflation. Real costs have really gone up. I was recently talking to a farmer in Alberta who had real drought that meant that he could get a yield of only about half the barley he woul…
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague nailed it. The reality is that this fall economic statement has virtually nothing new on climate at all.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, this Sunday is World Children's Day. It is observed internationally. My constituent Raffi, whom many members will know, is an advocate for children's rights and for Canada to be a child-honouring society, yet the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly asked Canada to live up to the Convention on the Rights of the Child by putting in place an advocate or a…
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Mr. Speaker, residents of Canada are calling on the Government of Canada to have nothing to do with purchasing Kinder Morgan's pipeline and continuing construction as a Crown corporation of the Trans Mountain pipeline.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to speak today and I would like to point out that I am on indigenous lands. It is Algonquin and Anishinabe land, and I am honoured to be here on behalf of my constituents from Saanich—Gulf Islands. Today we are taking up Bill C-32, the legislative interpretation of the Minister of Finance's fall economic statement, as tabled on November 4. I will start with the things I …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to parse the hon. parliamentary secretary's question a bit more by saying that there is no case for new nuclear installations in order to avoid climate hell. There is a case for maintaining existing operating reactors and phasing them out when they come to the end of their natural lifespan. I encourage everyone in this place to examine energy alternatives by a couple of a…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my respected colleague from the Bloc Québécois for his question. He is absolutely right. However, I believe that many members here think, as individuals and human beings, that we are in an urgent situation and it is unacceptable to continue with the Liberals' fraudulent policies or the Conservatives' policies of denial. We have to do more, urgently. The Intergovernmental Panel…
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Mr. Speaker, even though this is not a climate impact, my thoughts are ever with the women in Afghanistan who are at risk from the Taliban, including some prominent feminists we need to help. I will also say that obviously, in any society, when things are desperate, whether through war such as in Ukraine, or through extreme drought, or through things like hurricane Fiona, it is the women who face …
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague is quite right when he references the fact that Canada raced to the bottom of industrialized countries in terms of our climate performance. In fact, throughout the previous Conservative government and the current, since 2015, Liberal government, no federal government has gotten the direction right. They set reduction targets for carbon; however, with the exception …
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am really pleased to have an opportunity to speak at this moment in the history of Bill C-228 and extend my deep appreciation to the member for Sarnia—Lambton. There have been many attempts in this place to ensure workers are secured creditors in bankruptcy. It should not be so hard. I will be voting for her bill with enthusiasm and merely want to thank her.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to ask a question about something my hon. friend from Elmwood—Transcona, whose speeches are always thoughtful and well-informed, did not touch on. In today's debate, we have heard a lot, particularly from the Liberals, about their commitments to net zero by 2050. I wonder if the member happened to see recent news coverage about our former minister of environment, Catherin…
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Madam Speaker, it is rare for me to be able to intervene in the Private Members' Business hour, and I am pleased to be able to ask my hon. colleague from North Okanagan—Shuswap how he sees this bill as making a difference. I know he covered a lot of this in his speech, but how will this bill better enable Canadians and the Canadian court system to protect our children?
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am raising tonight a question I initially asked in June of this year. I was basing my question on a written question on the Order Paper relating to the ongoing costs to the Canadian taxpayer of the reckless and pointless Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. In the question on the Order Paper, I pointed out that the Minister of Finance had said earlier that year that, with the rising…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, my heavens, I need to say a few things. I intervened in the National Energy Board process. I read all 23,000 pages of its so-called evidence, and I can swear on a stack of Bibles that nowhere in there was there a cost-benefit analysis. In fact, the National Energy Board blocked the evidence from Unifor, the largest union in the oil sands, when its representatives testified and had e…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to stand in the House and present a petition on an issue of a high degree of concern from residents in Saanich—Gulf Islands. It relates to the destruction of old growth forests and the combined issue that old growth forests are on indigenous lands and protect biodiversity and play an important role in sequestering carbon. The petitioners call on the government to work …
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Madam Speaker, I have just a small note, given the last statement by the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby, but the worker bees of Parliament are quite often the Greens. To the hon. government House leader, as Greens, we do not have access to the House leaders meetings. I know that cannot be discussed as they are in camera. However, I am at a loss to know why a procedural motion to allow thi…
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Madam Speaker, I have tried to remember the context in which one hon. member from the Conservative Party talked about the Constitution. In fairness, it was not an effort to say that the Constitution said that MPs do not want to work late. The point was that our committee work is also important work in Parliament. On this issue I feel torn. I will certainly vote for the main motion that we should b…
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Madam Speaker, on the subject of quorum calls, I was troubled to see the other night during a quorum call that it was clear there were members in the lobby who did not come out. I looked at the Standing Orders, and we have no standing order that requires a member of Parliament who is within a few steps of the chamber to show up when there is a quorum call. Would the hon. member agree with me that …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, as COP27 opened last week, UN Secretary General António Guterres said: We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator. Did the Prime Minister stay away because he knows he is over the speed limit? Did he stay away because he knows we are part of the problem and not part of the solution? There is still time for the government to do the right thing at COP27. …
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in this place to speak to an issue of great concern to my constituents, as we live in a coastal area where single-use plastics and marine contamination of plastics is a major issue. The petitioners call on the Government of Canada to strengthen current lax regulatory definitions of single-use plastics to include more harmful items and close loopholes that curre…
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say to the hon. minister that it was very disappointing that during Veterans' Week, the fall economic statement ignored the need for veterans to have their spouses, if they married over age 60, recognized as actual surviving spouses so they can receive the benefits they would have received as a widow or widower after the death of their spouse who served this country. This wa…
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Madam Speaker, what issue could possibly unite prairie grain farmers, the Grain Elevators Association, communities up and down the coast of Vancouver Island and Coast Salish first nations? It is the mismanagement coming out of the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, CN and CP and the complete failure to be able to get prairie grain to a port on time. That is why my communities have free parking for f…
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Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the hon. parliamentary secretary and other hon. colleagues in this place. Yesterday, I spoke of war heroes who happened to be my constituents. I specifically mentioned retired commander Charles “Chic” Goodman, who served in France and Belgium and helped liberate the prisoner of war camp in the Netherlands. I mentioned he was near death. He died this morning. The nurse pla…
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Madam Speaker, I thank all my colleagues in the House. I thank the Liberals, the Conservatives, the Bloc members and the New Democrats for giving the Green Party of Canada the opportunity to make some comments. I appreciate that. We have reviewed the 2022 fall economic statement. It is not a budget. We have yet to see the 2023 budget and the decisions that will be made in the spring. Still, the Mi…
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Mr. Speaker, I would say to the hon. opposition leader that comic timing is definitely his forte. He suggested that the Liberals have invented a complicated term called “quantitative easing”. Does he really believe the Liberals invented it? If so, I would urge him to ask Dr. Google about the quantitative easing quotes by Jim Flaherty.
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Madam Speaker, a couple of years ago, the Canadian Labour Congress published a piece on the new world of work. What does our economy look like for workers when we look at artificial intelligence? We have a gig economy that has already made many people insecure in the jobs they have. I completely agree with my hon. friend. What we are seeing is that as people retire, we have a demographic bubble of…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hull—Aylmer for his excellent question. We are now in a long emergency, as a book title called it. Madam Speaker, about a decade ago, there was a book by James Kunstler called The Long Emergency, which predicted that we were going to see our economy significantly rocked by what will happen as fossil fuels become more expensive as we move away from fossil fu…
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Madam Speaker, this is one of the big disappointments in the fall economic statement. With work being done on Bill C-22 in this place and with the unanimous support that Bill C-22 received at second reading, I would have hoped to see something of an emergency short-term fund to ensure that no Canadian in the disability community is living below the poverty line. We know that all too often people l…
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Madam Speaker, the minister, in her speech, talked about “tackling housing speculation”, but the flipping piece, which is the only measure in there, was already announced. We need to do much more. I would recommend addressing how much of our housing is not accessible for people to live in as dwellings and has become part of an Airbnb market that is global, unaccountable and pays very little tax in…
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Madam Speaker, I thank all my hon. colleagues for their keen interest in ensuring we have quorum. I want to particularly thank the hon. member for Whitby, who I know had to interrupt a very important meeting on climate finance. I want to recognize that one of the pieces of this fall economic statement will be much improved when we move ahead with climate finance reforms. I particularly want to men…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise today among all my colleagues to mark Remembrance Day. Each one of us has been touched deeply and personally by the sacrifices of people within our own families and in our communities. I want to thank the minister for her words. I want to thank the hon. member for Banff—Airdrie for his thoughtful comments, as well as the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles…
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Mr. Speaker, I request unanimous consent to offer some thoughts today.
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Mr. Speaker, I apologize to my hon. colleague from Regina—Lewvan, but in the last debate on Bill S-5, the great majority of the speeches had no connection to Bill S-5. I rose on a point of order several times at that time, and I reference at this point Standing Order 11(2), which says that when the attention of the House is called to the conduct of a member whose presentation is irrelevant or repe…
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Mr. Speaker, I am afraid this is the treatment I got in the last debate, particularly from a number of members who attacked me for raising our rules. I know a lot about farms. I am from a rural riding. The hon. member may not know how many dairy farms are in my riding, but this is not about me. This is about trying to listen to the Standing Orders so that this place will work better.
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to present a petition today, in which the petitioners are looking for transparency and accountability in government. They acknowledge that transparency and accountability are the two main pillars of good governance and that the Liberal government has no external tools to hold elected officers accountable. They note this is at least partly based on the lack of proportiona…
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