Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to present a petition today that is really important for women's rights. The petitioners are particularly concerned with and focused on the gender apartheid of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which is depriving women and girls of fundamental rights. Girls are denied the right to learn and to go to school; these are full violations of international law under the…
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to say something that perhaps will shock some. Bill C-69 was an abomination. It continued the Harper process of moving to discretionary project lists instead of the tried-and-true, 40-year experience this country had with federal jurisdiction and the federal government having an obligation to review its own projects under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. That act …
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak at second reading to Bill C-5, but I wish I never had to speak to the bill, because I wish I had never had to read the bill. Reading it and understanding it has been one of the most crushingly depressing experiences I have had since I was first elected to this place in 2011. The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona quoted noted journalist Althia Raj say…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a tautology problem. In order to designate a project in the national interest, we have already denied indigenous people free, prior informed consent. It is the way it works. We need a time machine to make this thing work not to offend the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. As to section 35 rights, the problem again is that it says there must be a con…
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Madam Speaker, I share many of the concerns that the member has identified and highlighted. Like the Bloc Québécois, the Green Party has a lot of issues with the gag order on an omnibus bill like Bill C‑5. My question is simple: What can we do now, in a minority Parliament, to gain the other parties' support for opposing the current effort against age-old democracy and the work of Parliament itsel…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present my first member's statement in this new Parliament. I will begin by thanking the people of Saanich—Gulf Islands for returning me to Parliament to work on their behalf. I want to highlight an event that happened this week, which is the reason I am participating remotely. As some may know, I am a practising Anglican and try to follow the path of Jesus Christ i…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my hon. colleague's respect in appreciating working with our friend from the Bloc Québécois. The Greens love working with the hon. member for Lakeland too. People will be surprised, perhaps, though not the member for Lakeland, to find that I voted against Bill C-69 because I think it is really terrible legislation. One of the things that I think the member for Lakeland a…
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Mr. Chair, I am participating virtually and sharing my time, which I believe is 15 minutes, with the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona. I will start my questions to the hon. President of the Treasury Board through you, Mr. Chair. I have gone back to the 2021 mandate letter, the last I could find, to the President of the Treasury Board. I am wondering if he can tell us whether pursuit of the gree…
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Mr. Chair, my question was whether we should be relying on the United States for purchases that could be made from other countries that are not currently hostile to our economic success as a nation.
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Mr. Chair, through you to the President of the Treasury Board, is whistle-blower protection a priority?
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Mr. Chair, the President of the Treasury Board spoke earlier tonight of $9 billion in defence spending. Given the Prime Minister's comments that our relationship with the U.S. as it once was is over, I would like to ask if the government has any concerns that putting billions of dollars of Canadian funds into defence systems that require going back to the United States for spare parts is a wise in…
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Mr. Chair, I am trying to keep my question short to keep the minister a chance to answer it briefly. In 2021, another priority was to improve whistle-blower protection in the Government of Canada. Does that remain a priority, yes or no?
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Mr. Chair, I learned from our former colleague John McKay that, when he was touring Scandinavia as chair of the defence committee, he asked why Sweden had such successful high-tech and defence contractors. The Swedish government told him it was because it provided free post-secondary education and, therefore, attracted a very skilled workforce. Would the President of the Treasury Board consider ad…
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Mr. Chair, would the government recognize that post-secondary education is underfunded but little discussed, and that it would be a wise investment for our economy to provide more support for universities and post-secondary?
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am rising this morning to present a petition of concern to many constituents, and probably Canadians coast to coast, on the treatment of our veterans. The Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act calls on Canada to show just and due appreciation for veterans and members for their service to Canada, yet we still have a law that requires a five-year s…
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Mr. Speaker, I completely support this motion. It is very clear, and I put it to the member, that we need to start a law proceeding, based not, as the hon. secretary of state suggested, on fraud but on breach of contract, and it should not stop with GC Strategies. We should go back and also sue IBM for damages for the failed Phoenix pay system, which cost this country billions. Does the member agr…
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Mr. Chair, by my clock, I have now used six minutes and 40 seconds. I have seven minutes and a half. I would like to suggest that it does not violate the rules of this place to do something unusual. I have been watching my colleagues, for the fifth night in a row, sitting in one place and abiding by our rules, which the Chair is executing brilliantly. It is tough. It is short answers. People are n…
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Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that the former SNC-Lavalin, now AtkinsRéalis, is behind the small modular reactor projects?
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Mr. Chair, I have questions for the Minister of Natural Resources. I do not want to appear rude, but I have been hearing what the minister has been saying. I need to ask him whether he has read the one Canadian economy act.
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Mr. Chair, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre. I want to start with my questions to the Minister of Housing, and welcome him, a fellow British Columbian member of Parliament, to the House of Commons. I want to ask him whether he is aware of the work of Dr. Carolyn Whitzman, who found that CMHC has six different definitions of affordable housing, and whether he would…
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Mr. Chair, we could commit to ensuring not what Canadians generally agree on but what the department and CMHC will stick to as the unified definition: that affordability and deeply affordable housing is 30% of before-tax household income.
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Mr. Chair, the minister has mentioned in the media nuclear projects. The only time in the history of this country that a debate was scheduled to discuss nuclear energy, its pluses and minuses, was under the former minister of energy, Ray Hnatyshyn, in the government of Joe Clark. Would the minister care to commit to having an open debate on nuclear energy in the House of Commons?
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Mr. Chair, the minister should understand his own legislation. Most of what has been said in the media about this bill, most of what the minister has said, constitutes unenforceable promises and press releases.
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Mr. Chair, on the fundamental basis on which the legislation works, I refer the minister to clause 5 of the act, which shows that the decision-maker is the cabinet, and the cabinet is made up of politicians. Does he not agree?
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Mr. Chair, the minister refers repeatedly to the criteria as if they have some force in law. Does he not understand his own act, in that there could be no reference to any of those factors and still follow the law?
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Mr. Chair, none of what he has just said is actually what Bill C-5 says. There is no requirement for consensus, nor is there any legal requirement that any of the factors that are listed are actually considered by cabinet.
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Mr. Chair, it is very clear in the proposed act, and I refer the minister to the language of the act, which is, “Governor in Council may consider any factor that the Governor in Council considers relevant”. Does the minister understand the legal meaning of the word “may”?
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Mr. Chair, I am asking because I took notes of the minister's saying, “politicians do not pick the projects.”
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Mr. Chair, is the minister aware that none of what he just said would have any force in law under Bill C-5?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Souris—Moose Mountain. He has raised something that I have been concerned about, which is this: What the heck does part 4 of the bill, changes to the Canada Elections Act, have to do with affordability? I want to know if the member has any comment on another section. I am sure he noticed it. Section 49, which we can call the “time machine” se…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the chance to speak to Bill C-4. First of all, I want to make a couple of observations about the legislation we are seeing in this place under the new government. I am distressed. It may be a manageable issue, and maybe I am the only one who is noticing that almost every bill that comes before us is in omnibus form; in other words, many different bills are addressed withi…
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Mr. Speaker, in 2017, our current Prime Minister said that most fossil fuel reserves are “unburnable” under any reasonable climate targets. In 2022, he said that transitioning our economies to net zero is an enormous opportunity and that the transition is “capital-intensive” and “job-heavy”, and is what the world needs for the future and right now. Given that growth in solar, 25%, and batteries, 5…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to point out that I have been here for this entire debate, but it is very difficult to get a chance to speak. As he said, there is concern about fossil fuel subsidies. I want to add that, during the election campaign, the Green Party asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer to tell us how much these subsidies amounted to. We wanted to know how much money was being paid to busines…
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Mr. Speaker, I am distressed that the member is happy the government's first act was to remove the one climate measure that was actually reducing emissions. I want to ask him if he is aware of when Canadians will be told what the new government plans to do to try to get on track to meeting our legal obligations under the Paris Agreement for the year 2030. We are far off target, and we just killed …
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Mr. Speaker, first, I want to say that I am sharing my time with the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona. I will ask my questions, through you, Mr. Speaker, to the Minister of Finance. The International Energy Agency forecasts global oil demand will peak imminently and drop 25% by 2030. Before demand drops that far, OPEC intends to monetize its five-million-barrel-a-day spare capacity, threatening…
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Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to join Parliament virtually to present a petition on behalf of constituents who are petitioning the Government of Canada to take action to implement a guaranteed livable income. The petitioners point out that this would be essentially a tax measure. It does not include administrative burden, as it would be relying on the social insurance number, and it would not be need…
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Mr. Speaker, it is my great honour to rise to present a petition on the subject of public transit. The petitioners note that the 10-year transit plan that was funded will end in 2027 and that the funding was inadequate to meet the needs of a modern, industrialized country. They ask for a continuation and an expansion of the fund, and for all governments to pull together in order to ensure that Can…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, there is no way on God's green earth that Bill C-5 is ready for passage. Concerns and alarms have been raised by every environmental law association in Canada, by the Climate Action Network and now by the grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations. The Canadian Cancer Society has pointed out that the interprovincial barriers that come down may lead to a race to the bottom on health …
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Mr. Chair, through you to the minister, how does the minister reconcile her claim with the expert opinion of the experts I cited?
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Mr. Chair, in an earlier exchange with the member for Repentigny, the Minister of Environment misinformed this House. I would like to ask if she has read subsection 5(6) of the bill, which says all the factors for consideration are purely discretionary and the cabinet may consider them.
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Mr. Chair, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Vancouver East. How much time do the two of us have to share?
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Mr. Chair, there are two minutes to each of us then. I begin with the Minister of Immigration. At 9:27 p.m., Minister, you said, “Legitimate asylum seekers, we want to protect you.” Minister, can you reconcile that with the expert opinion of Amnesty International and the Canadian Association of Refugee Lawyers, who say that Bill C-2 is an attack on the human right to seek asylum?
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I am concerned about is this. It is great to know that we are hiring more law enforcement officials, but has the government read the Mass Casualty Commission report on the Portapique shootings and the quite substantial recommendations that RCMP officers need more extensive and better training that lasts years? Are we going to see the implementation of the Mass Casu…
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Mr. Chair, I will share my five minutes with the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni. I apologize to the ministers I would like to talk to more, but we have to go fast. To the hon. Minister of Public Safety, there has been a commitment to hire 1,000 more RCMP officers. Given it has been two years since the Mass Casualty Commission recommended that the minimum training for RCMP officers go to three y…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour for me to rise today to add my voice to those paying tribute to our dear friend Marc Garneau. It is a big shock that he is no longer with us today. It was a great honour to work with him. We had been friends for over 14 years. I worked with him here, in the House. When I was elected in 2011, the Conservative Party had a majority government on this side of the Hous…
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Mr. Chair, unfortunately, it sounds like the answer is no. Please read the mass casualty report.
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Madam Speaker, this is my first opportunity to get in on this debate. While Canadians, obviously, are looking to the government for a policy that addresses borders, there are a lot of details in this bill. It is an omnibus bill and changes 14 different laws. I am particularly concerned about the sections that would make it impossible for people who might have had refugee status to apply for it now…
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Mr. Chair, will the hon. Minister of Transport commit to bringing back Bill C-33 on rail safety and ports that was at report stage when it died on the Order Paper?
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Mr. Chair, my Bloc Québécois colleague raised the issue about the long delays on VIA tracks, because the Venture trains are being held up by the risk-averse CN. Will the minister intervene and ensure Via Rail does not go broke?
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Mr. Chair, the minister mentioned Roberts Bank. I want to draw to her attention, if she is unaware, to the fact that scientists have urged the government to say no as it will lead to the extinction of species.
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