Parliamentary Speeches

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, if the Liberal member of Parliament from British Columbia wants to know what is happening in small and medium-sized cities, we have had a Liberal government for eight years that has passed soft-on-crime legislation that has put repeat violent offenders on the streets, over and over again, and we are seeing skyrocketing crime rates. The Liberals broke the bail system; that is why the…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my Bloc Québécois colleague for asking me this question, which I appreciate. As a bonus, it gives me a chance to practise my second language a bit. A lot of work can be done in communities across the country to reduce gun violence, for example. There are a lot of things we could do when working with law enforcement, and not take away tools, like bail reform, by…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the member from Winnipeg gives me a good opportunity to have Canadians understand that they can read between the lines of what the member asks all the time. The bill just came back. We are not even an hour into talking about it, and the Liberals do not like the direction in which the debate is going, because Conservatives are highlighting the failed approach after eight years of the…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are increasingly frustrated as they watch Liberal-appointed senators stall and delay our common-sense Conservative bill that would carve out a much needed carbon tax exemption for our Canadian farmers. Farm businesses are seeing their carbon taxes totalling over $100,000 per year just to use propane and natural gas to dry their crops. The worst part is that the worst is yet …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I love that comment because the member for Kingston and the Islands has the same desperation the Prime Minister has. Liberals are in full panic mode. The folks in Kingston and the rest of Ontario are saying that Conservatives acknowledge that those who heat with propane and natural gas are hurting. The carbon tax is causing pain. There are tens of thousands of Canadians residing in …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, shameful is absolutely right. Tone-deaf and out of touch. In the last few months, I have had the honour and privilege of travelling to many parts of this country, including Atlantic Canada, to hear about the pain the carbon tax is causing. The food bank in Fredericton, New Brunswick, has seen a 35% increase in usage in the last year. We heard in Nova Scotia from the president of the…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House again to keep the pressure on our common-sense Conservative plan. Sadly, yesterday, the Liberals rejected fairness for all Canadians in our Conservative motion to take the tax off so Canadians could keep the heat on. I am honoured to be sharing my time today with the hon. member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition. There is one party in th…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, all businesses should pay their fair share of taxes, but I will say again that it is hypocritical and contradictory of the Bloc Québécois members to talk about taxes. The irony of the Bloc Québécois, a separatist party in the House of Commons, is that it voted multiple times on a second carbon tax that goes not to Quebec but to Ottawa, 100% of which is being added to the original ca…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, New Democrats continue to contradict themselves. Just yesterday, they voted for our Conservative motion to take the tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians. In their motion today, they are talking about only the GST portion. Let me make it clear again. New Democrats tabled this motion, but what will happen when the next budgetary measure comes forward? The Liberal plan i…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I would be uncomfortable if I were the Liberals too, called out for their failed record on combatting foreign interference. We had a resignation from David Johnston. We had 24 hours of filibustering at a committee because Liberals did not want the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify. Let us not forget the Winnipeg lab documents where the House of Commons ordered the productio…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, a lot of time with legislation, what happens is that the details, what the government is going to be doing through regulation afterward and the process will be very key. I know of many incidents and examples, by colleagues at committee, of trying to understand what protocol, processes and resources would be provided for this year. There needs to be a time frame for review for when a…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I will echo what many of my colleagues on this side have raised. Members who are on the industry committee will know, when this bill was at committee and amendments were being considered, we put forward 14 different amendments to try to add a more rigorous review process of acquisitions and investments from foreign-state enterprises entering Canada. Just to understand how seriously …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, what I am calling out is the Liberals' continued failed attempts to get to the bottom of foreign interference in this country. They appointed a rapporteur who had many conflicts of interest. They created more questions than answers around the process. They set up a process to try to cover up the truth. They did not want a public inquiry and they did everything they possibly could to…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I hear the heckling.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise in the House, as always, and add my voice to the debate we are having here about Bill C-34. When we say “Bill C-34”, most Canadians who are watching or hearing the debate here would know exactly what that means. I would remind members that today, we have heard several points of order from members on the Liberal side of the aisle who do not like the topics we ar…

Routine Proceedings

With regard to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change's trip to China to attend the annual general meeting of the China Council for International Co-operation on Environment and Development: (a) what was the minister's detailed itinerary on the trip; and (b) what are the details of all meetings attended by the minister, including, for each, the (i) date, (ii) time, (iii) location, (iv) lis…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, here is just how out of touch and tone-deaf the Liberals are. When asked if she would support giving the same pause on home heating back home, their own minister, right from Thunder Bay—Superior North, said that they do not have the same challenges in northern Ontario that we see in Atlantic Canada. I visited Thunder Bay last week, and let me say that it gets very cold there, too, jus…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are watching for today's vote on our common-sense Conservative motion to take the tax off all forms of home heating for all Canadians. The Liberal rural economic development minister said that if people want a pause on the tax, they should have elected more Liberals in the region. Thunder Bay did elect two Liberal MPs, and yet folks there are not getting any pause. Instead, …

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, as the saying goes, desperate people do desperate things, and after eight years, this is exactly what we saw from the Prime Minister last week with his last-minute, desperate announcement on the carbon tax. In a typical Liberal fashion, his own minister admitted the exemption was not granted to all Canadians across the country because they did not vote Liberal. It begs the question of…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, it is with great pride I rise today to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Optimist Club of Cornwall. Seventy-five years is not just a number. It is a testament to its longevity, hard work and dedication to our community. I have had the pleasure to see it all first-hand, from Cornwall's Ribfest to the Canada Day breakfast, Youth Achievement Awards, toy drives and organizing various …

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the current Prime Minister, Canada is in housing hell. He is just not worth the cost. While he simply offers apologies and photo ops, by contrast, our Conservative leader is offering solutions, with the building homes not bureaucracy act to fix what the Liberals and NDP broke. As a former mayor, I can say that this is exactly the type of leadership we need in this…

Adjournment Proceedings

Madam Speaker, the Liberals are using one part of their environmental platform that is working well. They are recycling the same failed ideas and talking points they had when they left here in June. In the months of our leader and our caucus travelling around the country, including into communities where we currently do not hold seats but where Canadians are desperate for a voice, we are hearing t…

Adjournment Proceedings

Madam Speaker, it is good to be back in the House of Commons here, after the summer, to bring back what we have heard not only in our communities. I have had the honour and privilege of travelling and hearing the stories of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. In sharing those stories not just from my riding in eastern Ontario, but from P.E.I., northern Ontario and the Lower Mainland in British…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of Liberal scandals and ethics issues, there is a laundry list of wasteful spending growing by the day: $27 million in bonuses for federal housing bureaucrats as housing costs double and the building of new homes is dropping; $116 million in consulting fees to the Prime Minister's buddies at McKinsey; $210 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which we…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I will just repeat what I started my speech with. I am the first to admit that this is not an easy job. It is at a high pace, it is busy; it is multi-tasking and it is a heck of a balance between work, life and family, community and all the different balls that we are trying to juggle up in the air. What I will say is that there are many opportunities and that there have been advances…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from the Bloc about the different issues and some of them being untested. Yes, we had tested them during the pandemic when we were not able to travel and were unable to get around our communities and do the work that we needed to do. Now that we are in the time frame we are in, I think there are some areas we could have found agreement on, but in this situati…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I would actually elaborate on what my colleagues on the PROC committee said in our dissenting report about separating the voting aspect. I have heard more. Again, I wish there was a better opportunity to discuss the amendments. There is a more narrow path on that, but I will go back to electronic voting. Personally in my case, I and many colleagues in our dissenting report on PROC all…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, as I begin this debate tonight, I will state that this is not an easy job to do. I will be the first to acknowledge that. I love what I do, and I think every member in this place loves what they do. They have a passion, energy and desire to build a better country. I have been here three and a half years, and like many members, a few who have spoken tonight, I am from the class of 20…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, Canadians learned yesterday of the devastating news to their household budgets. The Bank of Canada has hiked interest rates once again, which are now 19 times higher than they were just one year ago. Plain and simple, Canadians are at the most risk of any advanced economy for mortgage defaults, according to the IMF. Let us make no mistake about it. These rate hikes are caused by Liber…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I would be happy to. I want to add, in the name of personalization, one of my best friends, Emily Strader, a childhood friend is actually an ECE, working in Ottawa, in child care, and enjoys what she does. I had many conversations with her and her colleagues at work about the day to day, trying to do what they can to address the massive wait-lists that they have and the frustration …

Adjournment Proceedings

Madam Speaker, we are in a housing crisis in this country, plain and simple, and the key figures demonstrate exactly that. Housing prices in this country have doubled to over $700,000; mortgages have doubled to over $3,000 a month; rent has doubled to over $2,000 a month; and the amount needed for a down payment has doubled to over $40,000. The problem is that, because rent has gone up so much, pe…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, it is 11:30 at night, and it has been a long week here so far, but I am proud to join the discussion and debate tonight on child care affordability in our country. One of the most difficult things we do at times is humanize ourselves and, more importantly, humanize the debates we are having here about improvements, and helping Canadians and families. I do not have any children. Toni…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, Teddy is an example of where somebody is tapping into the program. If they have access to it, if they already have a space, they are able and they are eligible for it, but for every one Teddy, there are probably two or three more, right in Milton, who are not able to go into that program, who are not realizing those savings, who are not seeing those spaces, who are not seeing that i…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the choice is to do the right thing and provide the flexibility for parents to do what it is best in their family situation. That would mean expanding the opportunity and the eligibility for assistance beyond not-for-profit and public centres, offering home care as an option that is in people's homes, a couple of blocks away, in their neighbourhood. It means providing the choice and…

Adjournment Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I have a great solution to start: Let us tie performance bonusing to actual performance results. Call me crazy, but at the federal, provincial or municipal level, whatever the level is, far too often we have groups and organizations, like the CMHC, and the federal housing minister making a great big announcement promising more money and more results and the opposite happens. It is l…

Oral Questions

Madam Speaker, if I could, I am looking for unanimous consent, following question period today, to table in the House the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report detailing the impacts of the second carbon tax coming by province. One will find in the—

Madam Speaker, I would request a quorum call again, please.

Oral Questions

Madam Speaker, if the Liberals' first carbon tax was not driving up gas and grocery bills enough, they have now decided that Canadians need a second carbon tax on the price of fuel. The independent Parliamentary Budget Officer laid out these new tax hikes clearly. The first carbon tax added 41¢ a litre. Now, the second carbon tax is going to add 17¢ a litre. Then, of course, the Liberals are going…

Oral Questions

Madam Speaker, the Liberals do not have an environmental plan, they have a tax plan, because the fact is they have never met a target on climate change they have ever set. All it is doing is skyrocketing food prices in this country. They are taxing farmers who grow food, they are taxing truckers who ship it and they are taxing the businesses and restaurants that sell it. Ontario families are going…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, as we begin to celebrate Pride Month, I want to say I am thankful. I am proud to live my life as an openly gay member of Parliament. As a then-29-year-old mayor in small town rural Ontario, my public coming-out story could not have gone any better. My family, friends and colleagues to this date have been absolutely wonderful and I am truly blessed. I know that was often not the case f…

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, what is the criteria for good performance at the CMHC under this minister?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, the minister is responsible for the performance of his or her department. The average bonus for performance at the CMHC was over $12,000 last year; 2,100 employees received over $12,000, not in salary but as a performance bonus. That is 100% of executives and 96% of employees. Canadians are looking at our housing crisis, and seeing how things are getting worse not better, and wondering …

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, the minister is responsible for results in his portfolio. Last year, the CMHC, under his watch, gave $27 million in performance bonuses. One hundred per cent, which is every single executive who has overseen the doubling of housing prices, the doubling of mortgage payments and, frankly, did the debate prep for the minister tonight, got a good performance bonus. After tonight, I am start…

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, I know that the minister is responsible for the CMHC budget. The CEO is sitting right in front of him. I am going to ask him again: How much last year in performance bonuses was paid out by the CMHC?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, I ought to know that the minister is responsible for the performance in his department; he is failing miserably at it. What percentage of CMHC executives got a bonus last year?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, under this minister's watch, the CMHC's use of performance bonuses is out of control, and this in the midst of a housing crisis. How much in performance bonuses did the CMHC pay out last year?

Government Orders

Mr. Chair, he signs off on the estimates, and the CEO is right in front of him here tonight. However, with $27 million in performance bonuses at a time when our housing is in a crisis, is that $27 million in bonuses for good performance good money spent, yes or no?

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberals, this is where housing is at in Canada: Housing prices, rent and mortgage payments have all doubled. At a time when we need more housing built, the Liberals' own statistics show they are down 32% in housing starts. The Liberal response has been that they are spending record amounts of money, and now we know where that money is going. The housing minis…

Routine Proceedings

With regard to surplus government buildings being converted to affordable housing: (a) what are the details of all buildings which have been sold by the government since November 4, 2015, including, for each, the (i) location, (ii) address, (iii) description of the building, including the square footage, (iv) buyer, (v) price, (vi) number of affordable housing units expected; (b) what are the deta…

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are out of money and the Prime Minister is out of touch. After eight years, the cost of living is at an all-time high. Paycheques are wearing thin. Housing, rent and mortgages have all doubled. The carbon tax will add 41¢ a litre to the price of gas. After eight years of the government's soft-on-crime policies and a broken bail system, violent crime has gone up a staggering …