Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am presenting highlights the concerns of Canadians about the government's attack on vocational institutions. Budget 2025 proposed restricting eligibility for the Canada student grant for full-time students to those attending public or not-for-profit institutions, excluding many students at regulated career colleges. These are reputable institutions that provide imp…
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Mr. Speaker, next I would like to present a petition in support of my private member's bill, Bill C-260, the care not coercion act. Incidentally, more information about that is available at our custom website, carenotcoercion.ca. Canadians are concerned about the many reports, including those laid out on our website, indicating a series of problems of veterans, people with disabilities, seniors an…
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Mr. Speaker, finally, before we recessed, there was a very large group of young people from Newmarket—Aurora. My colleague from Newmarket—Aurora has convened a very large and active youth council that has been organizing its own petitions, responding to concerns that exist in that community. I want to commend my colleague from Newmarket—Aurora for her incredible work with young people in her commu…
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Mr. Speaker, today's unemployment numbers bring more troubling news. It is more job losses, more pain and more of the same, with 112,000 job losses so far this year. Unemployment is up. Youth unemployment is surging. Student unemployment is at a whopping 16%. Conservatives are putting forward constructive solutions. Liberals are ignoring them. Are these job numbers finally enough to wake up the Pr…
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives have been putting forward very specific, constructive solutions from the very beginning. The Liberal plan is not working. The member spoke about skilled trades. The reality is that, in the last month, we lost 15,700 jobs in construction alone and thousands of jobs in natural resources, utilities and manufacturing. We need skilled trades workers, and we need jobs for thos…
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Mr. Speaker, objectively, the Liberals' so-called plan is simply not working. Conditions are extremely difficult in this country for youth and for young families. The Liberals' trillion dollars of debt means less growth and fewer jobs, especially for people just starting out. Credit card budgeting, high taxes and poor immigration policy have all contributed. We see more costs, more taxes, more deb…
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Mr. Speaker, the government has $1 trillion dollars in credit card debt, and the Liberals keep telling us that everything is fine. Everything is not fine. In the midst of this environment, Conservatives are offering constructive proposals to support youth and young families that are struggling. In the fall, we announced the Conservative youth jobs plan. Just today, we announced big, new ideas to r…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, tonight I am following up on a question that I asked about the crisis in youth unemployment. Life is very challenging right now in this country, especially for youth and for young families. People who are struggling to get their start in life struggle to access employment. They struggle with housing affordability. This makes it difficult and leads to delays in family formation. We kno…
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Mr. Speaker, that was not really an answer to what I asked. Here are the facts. We have a metastasizing youth unemployment crisis in this country. There are various factors and many factors of government policy that are contributing to it. We have put forward constructive solutions in the area of supporting families that I talked about today, reforming parental leave, and also in the area of addre…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to begin my speech today by sharing with members that before coming to the House a few minutes ago, I was at a screening on the Hill of the documentary film Traces, which is about the issue of conflict-related sexual violence in Ukraine. It is a great honour to have with us, on the Hill, the director of that film, who shared directly with us about her own experience of being a …
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Mr. Speaker, the member opposite from, I believe, Ajax is heckling me to say, “Majority prevails.”
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Whitby. Mr. Speaker, I am sorry. I do want to make sure that he is held accountable for heckling during a speech about protecting victims of sexual violence. The member for Whitby says the majority rules. Well, this is a majority that Canadians did not vote for and that, in the first instance, the Liberals are using to undo collaborative committee work on protecting victims of sexual violence. The…
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Mr. Speaker, that was a question that went madly off in all directions. This is a bill about protecting victims of sexual violence. We can have a conversation about military spending, capabilities and all of these other issues, but, fundamentally, here is the point. The committee heard directly during its deliberations from victims and from experts. For those who know this process best, a majority…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my Bloc Québécois colleague. I also thank him for the work that was done by the opposition parties. He mentioned the Liberal Party's hypocrisy. The Liberals talk a lot about co-operation, yet they tried to eliminate the need for it. Right after that, they decided to change this bill completely. This truly is an example of Liberal hypocrisy.
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Mr. Speaker, this certainly is the sort of issue where we would hope for cross-party collaboration and hope to not have a spirit of partisanship. From what I understand, that spirit of collaboration was what prevailed at committee. It prevailed in a context where co-operation was required, because of the minority conditions that Canadians voted for. If a party win a majority at the polls, fair eno…
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Mr. Speaker, those apprentices desperately need projects to go forward that they can work on. Canada faces an unemployment crisis, most severe among youth, yet this Liberal costly credit card budget plans further increases to EI premiums. Increasing the tax on jobs now would make it harder for businesses to create jobs and would make the jobs crisis even worse. Why are the Liberals paying for thei…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not at all surprised to hear that the minister spends a lot of time talking to CEOs. However, on page 122 of the Liberals' fiscal update, it is clear that they would increase the tax on jobs, at a time when we already have a massive youth unemployment crisis. This credit card budget proposes to squeeze small businesses and workers even more, at the same time as these Liberals are…
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moved that Bill C-260, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (medical assistance in dying—protection against coercion), be read the second time and referred to a committee. Mr. Speaker, we are familiar with the problem of people facing stereotypes based on immutable characteristics like race and gender, people being told that they are better suited to a particular kind of career path or that they are …
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Mr. Speaker, I am very surprised to hear the parliamentary secretary for veterans affairs speak in this way given the preponderance of testimony we have heard on this subject. He should know that the veterans affairs committee has heard from many veterans who have raised this concern. They have highlighted friends of theirs who have had the same issues who are afraid to speak out, for understandab…
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Mr. Speaker, I will explain again what the bill does. Those in positions of authority who are not doctors and nurses, that is, who are not supposed to be involved in the provision of MAID at all, are not to bring up MAID to a person who has not asked for information about it. If one is calling Veterans Affairs Canada, visiting their parole officer, consulting with a professor or meeting with a soc…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to be transparent with the member that a lot of the feedback I have received from Canadians living with disabilities and organizations that represent them is that they want us to go much further. They would rather the bill did not have the exemptions it does and would like it to go much further. I am very sympathetic to that. I would like it to go much further as well, but I th…
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Mr. Speaker, tomorrow the House will begin debate on Bill C-260, the care not coercion act. Reports, including many media stories, as well as evidence heard by parliamentary committees, have indicated the serious problem of seniors, veterans, people living with disabilities and those living in poverty being offered MAID, facilitated death, by bureaucrats when they are trying to access unrelated pu…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate and will reflect upon your advice. What we have happening today is that the Liberals have taken unprecedented steps in a pattern of trying to undermine democracy in this country. Canadians voted for a minority government, and the Liberals used all kinds of devices and connivance to draw in members with whatever conviction, with no consideration whatsoever of the beliefs o…
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Mr. Speaker, in the Liberals' pursuit of an undemocratic majority, which they were not given at the ballot box, it has become clear that the Prime Minister and the Liberal government stand for absolutely nothing except the pursuit of power. They flattered and recruited a member who endorsed Avi Lewis and a member who endorsed the convoy, all in the pursuit of power. I have a specific question for …
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are known for their cynical pursuit of power at any cost. Today, they are plumbing new depths.
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Mr. Speaker, I am hearing some noise from the other side, so I will say that the only convictions Liberals have are the criminal kind. Today, what the Liberals are doing is ignoring the will of the voters. They are undermining—
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Mr. Speaker, it is unsurprising to hear this member in particular complain about Conservative use of social media accounts. During the debate on Bill C-9, my colleague from London and I were doing a livestream, explaining to the public what was going on, and this member came by, trying to offer some comment. We invited him to join the livestream, but he quickly ran away. If he objects to how we us…
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Mr. Speaker, my heart goes out to those families in his community. When it comes to the work of the House and its committees, I would say that, in minority parliaments, such as what Canadians chose in the last election, we are forced to work together in a different way, because anything that moves forward at committees requires two parties, at minimum, to be able to have a meeting of the minds. Th…
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Mr. Speaker, this question of trust in institutions is a very important one. We would all like to see a situation in which institutions are both trusted and worthy of that trust. Our democratic institutions, though, have been weakened over the last 10 years under the Liberal government. We see continuing efforts to undermine those institutions, including the failure to hand over documents when ord…
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Mr. Speaker, I am also pleased to table a petition in support of Bill C-260, the care not coercion act. Petitioners highlight many reports of veterans, as well as people with disabilities, seniors and others, who have been seeking unrelated health services or other kinds of services from the government and have, instead of being offered the assistance they are looking for, had those officials, out…
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Mr. Speaker, it grieves me to observe that we are seeing an unprecedented attack on democracy in the country by the Liberal government. Canadians in the last election chose to elect a Liberal minority government, which means that, yes, the Liberals continue in power. At the same time, power is dispersed. Opposition parties have a role in holding the government accountable and in being able to driv…
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is really outdoing himself today by making the claim that giving government members all of the power on committees will somehow lead to more co-operation. The nature of a committee structure in which no single party holds a majority is that parties have to negotiate, work out their differences and figure out how to collaborate in order to get things moving forward. The…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the issue of collaboration. “Collaboration” is a word we have heard bandied back and forth. It seems to me a basic truth that the way power works is that when power is dispersed, co-operation and collaboration become necessary, because if power is dispersed, people have to work together in order to achieve some result. The committee I am on, the human resources co…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I wish we saw more respect for trades workers from the government. Sadly, in the last budget, the government chose to cut trades workers off from access to student grants. It is on page 217 of the budget that people who go to private institutions, which generally includes trades workers, as trades programs are not offered at universities, are cut off from student grants as a result of…
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Mr. Speaker, the bill that the Liberal member has brought to us is an interesting one, because in many respects it feels like an admission of failure on the part of the government. The Liberals have been in power for more than 10 years. They have repeatedly ignored the needs of trades workers and treated trades workers, as well as the work they do, with utter disdain, and now a member of the Liber…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, Canada is losing jobs at rates not seen in a generation, and it is the next generation that is bearing the brunt of these job losses. The Conservatives have been sharply and pointedly highlighting this problem, and we have been offering constructive solutions to the government that would make a difference. Sadly, the government has chosen to ignore these constructive solutions. In man…
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary wrongly described my outlook as “pessimistic”. I want to say that I am incredibly optimistic about the potential of young people, about what is possible in this country if policy changes are made, and about our potential to shape our own reality if we make different choices as leaders. I am also capable of reading Statistics Canada reports about unemploymen…
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Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague has been advocating on behalf of institutions in her riding, and I suspect we will be hearing a little more about the points she made in the speech coming up. A key thing to realize is that there is no antagonism. There does not need to be any antagonism between different kinds of institutions. For some young people, university is the right path. For some young peo…
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Mr. Speaker, when I speak to young people, I always encourage them to look at the labour market and to look at where that overlapping space is between the thing they are interested in and the needs of the labour market. In the case of these vocational institutions, in many cases, there is a very tight alignment with the needs of the labour market. That is why this debate is so important.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the seventh report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, presented on Wednesday, March 11, be concurred in. I will be sharing my time. We in the opposition have been persistently fighting for the government and for Parliament to confront the metastasizing youth unemployment crisis. Youth une…
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Mr. Speaker, the government fired the last Parliamentary Budget Officer. It was a Conservative government that created the position of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in the first place. Further, this motion of mine was put on notice long before the Liberals' motion was put on notice. Procedurally, the motions that are put on notice earlier are the ones that take precedence. The government had ve…
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Mr. Speaker, the real issue we are zeroing in on here is the discrimination. If we say there are grants available at these kinds of institutions but not at these other kinds of institutions, what message does that send to a young person who wants to work in the trades or in certain medical professions where the training is provided at private institutions? If we say they are going to get a grant i…
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I am always very patient with this member. However, in 13 minutes, he has had nothing to say about the motion we are discussing. He is not on topic. Could you bring him to order?
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Mr. Speaker, I did not have a chance to respond directly after the Liberals spoke on this. I am quite struck by the fact that the Liberals have yet to articulate a position or provide an explanation for their own policy. We are debating this today because we had a unanimous recommendation from a committee to overturn a policy that was part of the government's budget. That policy was to discriminat…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to draw the attention of the House to an article from a few months back in NewmarketToday, entitled “Traditional Chinese medicine students raise alarm over federal budget cuts to grants”. This highlights the particular impacts on Chinese medicine. Various leaders in the Chinese medicine community have spoken out about how this Liberal policy really attacks the Chinese community…
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Mr. Speaker, it is evident in this discussion, in listening to the questions Liberals are asking and the comments they are making, that they really have no idea about their own policy and no will to justify it. We had the Minister of Jobs and Families before the human resources committee, and I asked her multiple times to affirm whether this was still the policy of the government after it was not …
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague made excellent points while sharing his own experience. It seems to me, given that we need skilled workers to work on critical nation-building projects, the options are that we train the people who already live in those communities, we train other Canadians and encourage them to move to those communities, or we have workers come here from abroad. I think our priority shou…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions I would like to present to the House today. The first petition is from citizens who are deeply concerned about the Liberal attack on religious freedom contained in Bill C-9. They are concerned that Bill C-9 could be used to criminalize passages from the Bible, the Quran, the Torah and other sacred texts. They observe that the state has no place in the reli…
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition is from members of the Eritrean community who have been following efforts by this government to strengthen and deepen diplomatic relationships with Eritrea. The petitioners want to bring the attention of the House to human rights concerns with respect to Eritrea. It has been ruled by an authoritarian, brutal dictator under an authoritarian system for the last 30 year…
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