Government Orders
Mr. Chair, does the minister think that people who work for the public service should be able to work as external contractors at the same time as they are employed by the public service?
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Mr. Chair, it is just a really simple question about the minister's philosophy in terms of how he thinks things should work. Does the minister think a person who is employed by the public service should be able to simultaneously work as an external contractor? It is the third time I have asked the question. Could the minister answer it? Does he think that is appropriate, yes or no?
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Mr. Chair, very respectfully to the President of the Treasury Board, there is nothing virtuous or public service-minded about ignoring serious questions from members of the opposition and repeating lines that have absolutely nothing to do with those questions. This is not a “gotcha”; this is a basic question of government policy. Is—
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Mr. Chair, am I to infer from the answer that the minister thinks there are some instances where it is okay for a public servant to also be an external contractor?
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Mr. Chair, does the minister think that people who work for the public service should be able to work as external contractors at the same time as they are employed by the public service?
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Windsor West on an excellent speech today and on his advocacy. My heart goes out to his community, because I noted in Friday's release from Statistics Canada on labour market numbers that there is sadly a very high unemployment rate in Windsor. Numbers are high throughout southern Ontario. Unemployment is 7% nationally and 8.8% in Toronto but 10.8…
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Madam Speaker, this whole discussion around the carbon tax is interesting. I was in this place for 10 years listening to Liberals talk about how great the carbon tax was and about how it was either the carbon tax or the apocalypse. Well, if they really believed that, then they are now talking about bringing on the apocalypse, I suppose. However, they never believed that. It was always just somethi…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member spoke about slogans, and I reflect on the slogans used by the Prime Minister. One of the most absurd is his slogan to “spend less and invest more”. He is supposed to be the man with the plan, but he is the man with no budget who says that the Liberals are going to spend less but invest more, which means they are going to spend even more. We see in the Liberals' spend…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal Party, according to petitioners, has been attacking the charitable status of various Canadian charitable organizations. Recommendations 429 and 430 in a finance committee report regarding budget consultations recommended stripping charitable status from any organizations that are effectively from any houses of worship and also separately from any pro-life organizations. …
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member on his excellent work on this. One of the things I noticed while talking to people in my riding and in other places during the election was how frustrating it is for people who work in law enforcement when they see the failures on crime of the Liberal government. There are people who go out and work hard every day, risking their lives to try to keep t…
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Madam Speaker, this is an important public safety bill before the House. I do want to ask a question about money laundering and foreign interference. The fact is that a lot has been written about foreign interference in the member's riding in particular. Kenny Chiu, a Conservative member of Parliament in the 43rd Parliament, championed the adoption of a foreign influence registry. Much has been wr…
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition is with respect to the human rights situation in Eritrea. The petitioners note that Eritrea has been ruled by an authoritarian, brutal dictator, under a totalitarian system for the last 30 years, with no constitution, no elections, no parliament, no freedom of press or freedom of movement and association. There are many different points made in the petition about the…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to present petitions in the House today. The first petition comes from the last Parliament, but I think it is one that is still very much relevant. The petitioners point out that Canada made us all a promise, a promise that anyone from anywhere could do anything. They say that, after nine years, the promise of Canada has been broken, that we have seen a lo…
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Mr. Speaker, I must confess that it has been a difficult six months for me not being in this place. I missed everyone, but especially the member for Kingston and the Islands.
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Mr. Speaker, it was not difficult for me. I got two-thirds of the votes of my constituents, so I have a strong mandate to share—
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Mr. Speaker, having concluded the Venezuela petition, I have one more petition to table, and this is with respect to proposals to extend euthanasia to include minors. The petitioners raise concern about a proposal to allow babies from birth to one year of age who have come into the world with severe deformities and very serious syndromes to have euthanasia. The petitioners say that the proposal fo…
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It is a point of order. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the clock was continuing to run during those points of order, but the clock should have been stopped to have 15 minutes for petitions. I would be concerned if the government whip were able to stop members from presenting petitions by repeatedly running out the 15-minute petition clock with these spurious points of order. I wonder if we can review…
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Garnett Genuis Mr. Speaker, I am reading the names of political prisoners. I did not have them memorized. Can I read off the page?
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Mr. Speaker, if the member for Kingston and the Islands had run for Speaker, he certainly would have been somewhere on my ballot. I will not say where, but he would have been somewhere on my ballot. I believe that it is important to summarize petitions and that we can read individual words, but we cannot read the petition into the record in its entirety, and that is precisely the rule that I have …
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The government House leader does not want to hear this, but it is an important petition. I hope he will take note of it and support this important bill. The petitioners call upon the House of Commons to adopt Bill S-210, which is now Bill S-209, the protecting young persons from exposure to pornography act.
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling deals with euthanasia, or medical assistance in dying. The petitioners are concerned that allowing medical assistance in dying for those with disabilities or chronic illness who are not dying devalues their lives and tacitly endorses the notion that life with disability is optional and, by extension, dispensable. They note in this petition that many disa…
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling deals with a bill that was previously named Bill S-210 and has been reintroduced in this Parliament as Bill S-209. The petitioners are calling for meaningful age verification for those accessing sexual material online. They note that the consumption of sexually explicit materials by young persons is associated with a range of serious harms, including the…
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling deals with the human rights situation in Venezuela, a situation that many members of Parliament have spoken about over the years. The petitioners say that the current government is aware of crimes against humanity by the Venezuelan government and has created a family-based humanitarian program for Colombians, Haitians and Venezuelans suffering under curr…
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Mr. Speaker, the petitioners have observed, and I share their views without comment, that Canada has fewer homes per capita than any other G7 country, and that there is too much red tape. Just to generally summarize, they are suggesting that we incentivize municipalities to allow the construction of more homes. They also express concern about the need to cap population growth and about the out-of-…
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Mr. Speaker, I am doing my best to summarize. People have put a lot of work into a fairly lengthy petition on a very serious international human rights issue, and they were waiting throughout the government's—
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, the rules are, as I think the member knows but misstated, that members cannot read an entire petition. Members are to summarize the petition, and in the course of that, reading from prepared notes that one has that relate to the petition is perfectly allowed. Historically, there was a time when members could not read anything in the House of Commons—
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Respectfully, I was having a look at the clock during the repeated interruptions and points of order from the government.
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Mr. Speaker, I will finish summarizing this one, and I am almost done. I know that we do have limited time here, and there are a number of other members who will table petitions. The petitioners note that at least three of 257 political prisoners have close family members here in Canada. The petitioners call on the government to advocate for the release of political prisoners in Venezuela with clo…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition on behalf of Canadians who are outraged by the government's attack on natural health products. They call on the House to pass the excellent private member's bill from my colleague the member for Red Deer—Lacombe.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today, and always, to address the House. I want to start by drilling down on the concept of common sense. Members in the House, and those who follow the debates elsewhere, will know that Conservatives speak a lot about the concept of common sense. We have been highlighting the importance of restoring common sense in government decision-making. I have observed …
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member from the NDP wishes to hold me accountable for decisions of the Mulroney government. I was born in 1987. Respectfully, I know he is a bit older than me and he has been in this place for a long time, but I do not know that I am necessarily well positioned to defend all the decisions of the Mulroney government at that time. I will say that, over the course of almost 150 …
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Mr. Speaker, it is a great question from my colleague. I do not think there is enough time in most of our lives, actually, to lay out all the waste that has happened. However, I have the honour of serving on the government operations committee, and I will just highlight a few things that we have been able to identify there in terms of government waste. While the size of the public service has grow…
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Madam Speaker, it is sad to see the government now taking this posture. In fact, it was earlier this week that the Minister of Indigenous Services seemed to be making some progress in admitting that there was a serious problem. Even more information came out that, frankly, I suspect the Minister of Indigenous Services was aware of months ago. She has said that there is now going to be an investiga…
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Mr. Speaker, by popular demand, I will limit myself to just one petition today. This petition is from people in the Canadian Lebanese community who are very concerned about the impact of Hezbollah's actions on the people of Lebanon. They note how the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which was started by Hezbollah, has had terrible consequences for the Lebanese people. They note that Hezbolla…
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether you could just clarify the rules around members of Parliament, in particular members of the Liberal caucus, signing their own petitions.
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Mr. Speaker, on that same point of order, may I ask for consent to extend the time available by five minutes so more members could table their petitions?
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Madam Speaker, I am speaking tonight about the Liberals' indigenous procurement scandal. We need to be very clear about what indigenous leaders have repeatedly told us at the various committees that have been studying this: that abuses of indigenous procurement under the Liberal government have become systemic. The Assembly of First Nations said “the majority” of those who benefit from these procu…
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With regard to Canada’s relationship with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): (a) what are the complete details of all development assistance spending intended to have an impact in the DRC over the last two years, including, for each spending item, the (i) amount spent, (ii) recipient and any additional delivery partners, (iii) allocation timeline, (iv) amount spent on each item; (b) what …
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Mr. Speaker, we have seen the radical experiments of the government on crime, and that is why Conservatives are championing common-sense proposals to stop the crime. We will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. These common-sense principles respond to the radical experimentation of the government. I hope that is helpful for members of the government in understanding the…
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Mr. Speaker, let us all have a bit of a chuckle about what just happened. The member said, ”I want an answer to this question, but spare me the answer that I expect you to give.” I might as well just sit down, but maybe I will just give him that answer again so that he understands. Maybe after a few times he will actually learn something. This is common sense, so it is good for the member to hear …
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Mr. Speaker, it is very clear the difference between an across-the-board, permanent tax cut and the temporary tax trick proposed by the NDP-Liberal government. We permanently reduced the GST from 7% to 6% to 5%. We did so while balancing the budget. Of course, there were timely temporary deficits during the global financial crisis and we brought the country back to a balanced budget. It was a prud…
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With regard to the Framework for Cooperation on Countering Terrorism and Violent Extremism between Canada and India, signed by the current government: (a) is the framework still in effect; (b) has any information been shared between the law enforcement or security agencies of Canada and India since June 18, 2023; and (c) was any information shared at any time between the law enforcement or securit…
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Madam Speaker, that reminds me that I want to recognize the very good work being done by Mr. Guglielmin, who I know is a strong advocate for responsible housing policy in the area of Vaughan—Woodbridge. The focus of Conservatives is on delivering results for Canadians, and our housing policy would hold us to that standard of delivering results. It would also hold our municipal partners to the expe…
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Madam Speaker, quite obviously, anyone listening will note the way the member created a question by creating a premise and then asking why that premise was true, rather than asking whether the premise was true. Let us go back to what we are actually talking about today, which is the proposals we have put forward for strong action by the government around the construction of new homes. I talked abo…
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Madam Speaker, why is it important to look at the results? The last nine years provide us with some good evidence of what happens when there is a government that is focused on trying to signal concern about certain issues but is not actually concerned about the results. As I mentioned, I have been doing a lot of work on the issue of abuses in the area of indigenous procurement. It is a situation w…
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Madam Speaker, I think we should be committed to the idea of actually working with and listening to indigenous leaders. It has been clear in some of the work we have been doing at the government operations committee and elsewhere that too often the Liberal government claims to be concerned about reconciliation but is not actually listening to what indigenous leaders and indigenous people are sayin…
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Mr. Speaker, while Conservatives are focused on axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime, Liberals are trying to distract with their temporary tax trick. The member has a background of immense experience in supporting small business owners and understanding legal technicalities that impact businesses. One thing we have been hearing about is the administrative and…
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Madam Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs, presented on Monday, June 13, 2022, be concurred in. I will be sharing my time. Christmas is approaching, and I want to wish colleagues a merry Christmas as they begin their preparations. As I have been reflecting on the Christmas story, it seems closer to home than ever. We have a distant, un…
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With regard to the government's Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business, since November 4, 2015, and broken down by department or agency which participates in the strategy: (a) what individuals are responsible for reviewing adherence to Indigenous procurement requirements, specifically broken down by who is responsible for enforcing adherence to the (i) rules regarding proper identification o…
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With regard to Canada’s relationship with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC): (a) what are the complete details of all development assistance spending intended to have an impact in the DRC over the last two years, including, for each spending item, the (i) amount spent, (ii) recipient and any additional delivery partners, (iii) allocation timeline, (iv) amount spent on each item; (b) what …
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