Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I arrived here today ready to debate the matter at hand. The feedback I got from my constituents was about where the $100 million-plus went that the government has wasted on one consultancy over a handful of years. This is something Canadians are seeing right now. I hope the hon. member across the way will see that addressing the way the government is spending or wasting taxpayers' fu…
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Madam Speaker, I have to say to my colleague from Kingston and the Islands that, in all my time in the House of Commons, that is the best speech I have heard him give. Thank you for that. Thank you for supporting the motion we are putting forward here, in getting exposure on these contracts in particular, and thank you for not bending to opening this up so that we are boiling the ocean, as people …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I said the member was going to talk about the price on pollution and how everybody agrees that is the way to go forward here, except when we are addressing inflation. There are certain mechanisms that the government has tools to address. It is going to have to choose which path it is going to take, but inflation is a real concern for all Canadians. I will also point out to the membe…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised sunny ways. What do we have after eight years? We have the doubling of Canada's federal debt, the highest inflation rate in a generation, energy costs going through the roof and a government unable to deliver basic services to Canadians. Sunny ways, they say. Well, the sun is shining on the lucky ones at McKinsey being paid millions as Liberal consultants a…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Europe is facing an energy crisis this winter that will force people to choose between heating and eating. People are facing the trifecta of inflation, job losses and energy shortages. To address this, European governments have reversed carbon and excise taxes. What are the Liberals doing? They are increasing Canada's carbon tax by 30%. Even Scrooge would find this unacceptable. When …
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians know a shell game when they see one. The impact of actually taxing Canadians to say they are going to give it back in all kinds of programs means that we are all going to get better just by giving the government more money. According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, an independent officer of Parliament, a 30% tax increase means an extra $700 out of the budget of Albertan…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague across the way for his wonderful speech here tonight. Tonight I rise in the House in support of his motion. Its necessity became obvious over the past three years. The COVID pandemic divided Canadians in many ways, but one of the most despicable divisions that arose was the increase in anti-Asian racism. It shocked almost everyone I knew, but it clearly built. It …
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Because you're not growing our economy.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to remind the House that we are debating the fall economic statement. I always notice, and I mean this in the nicest way, that the Liberal speakers know very little about the economy when we are debating economic matters like the economic statement. I listened to the member across the way, with intent, because he did bring up some historical context here about inflation. I wond…
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Madam Speaker, one of the things I liked about my colleague's speech was her reference to the lack of an industrial strategy in the government's plan. Does my colleague know that the government wants to spend more and more money, money that apparently grows on trees? That is what we see when we look at the government's spending. Is that a good strategy for Canada's future?
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am rising in the House today to present a petition forwarded by my constituents in Calgary Centre concerning their support for Bill S-223, which is before Parliament at this point in time. It is all about banning the sale of organs from around the world. This petition is obviously a concern for people who feel there are regimes around the world that are harvesting organs from people…
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Mr. Speaker, carbon taxes are designed to be inflationary. They are meant to add taxes, and to make everything cost more. Inflation is now at 40-year highs. It is destroying the savings of hard-working Canadians and everything they need to take home. While the government is collecting more tax in this scheme, hard-working Canadians have less in their pockets. It is time the minister took a lesson …
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Mr. Speaker, Japan announced it is rescinding any increase to its carbon tax, because it is causing inflation. This leaves Canada as the only G7 country that has not repealed its inflationary carbon tax increases. Every major economy is repealing these taxes, because of the effect they are having on food, fuel, home heating and everything else. Canada is the outlier. What does this finance ministe…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be here in the House today to ask a question that I initially asked back in June about inflation. Members will notice that inflation has not abated as much as the government thought it would. In June we were at 7.7% and the latest number is 6.9%, so if people think we are moving down, we are still sticking around that 7%. One thing about inflation in Canada is thi…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the first thing I asked for in this debate was for my colleague across the way to pull his head out of his Liberal notes and actually do some thinking on this, but a bunch of what he said is malarky. In any event, let us go through the actual numbers. He talked about the G7. He talked about how Canada performs on a net debt basis. His numbers, his government's numbers and his speaki…
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague gave a well-researched and well-delivered speech. I would agree with him on one thing and that is that access to justice in Canada is getting harder and harder. In my opinion, and in my experience as well, access to justice depends more and more upon accessing a system through money. When he talks about people not being able to access that justice system and the re…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today and address the fall economic statement, as delivered by Canada's Minister of Finance over a week ago, but I want to go through some things in this speech. I have to limit my comments, because there is a lot to go through here, and I think the House will appreciate that I am going to focus on only a few things. Number one is that there is some good news here. …
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Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague is very much focused on demonizing the oil and gas industry. She focused her initial comments on the reversal of flow-through funds, so-called Canadian development expenses and Canadian exploration expenses, which I think she should acknowledge in her response here were disposed of by the government several years ago. All it is doing is fast-tracking the un-de…
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Madam Speaker, I am glad my colleague asked me that question because one thing I did not get to in my speech is the trillions of dollars the minister speaks about that is available for investment in Canada and these clean jobs that are just going to come because she is designing the Canada growth fund. Is this on top of the Canada Infrastructure Bank at $31 billion, the strategic investment fund a…
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Madam Speaker, I would challenge my colleague on that assertion because this year Alberta did have a surplus largely because of excess resource revenue. That one-year budget surplus combats a six-year budget deficit, and those were large budget deficits. The deficits that Alberta incurred over the last number of years significantly eclipsed the surplus. The wise decision any government should make…
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Madam Speaker, that is a very good question. The minister presented the case that Canada's investments from private sector investment is still 10% below the amount it was when her government came into power, and it has consistently been there. It went down to 20% below during COVID, of course it fell worldwide. However, we are still 10% below, where every other country in the G7 and the G20 has re…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, on June 3, I asked the Minister of Natural Resources a question about Canada's role in providing the world with energy solutions. I pointed out the government's failures in having Canadian resources delivered to world markets. My question was one about long-term impact, the result of the government's constrictive policies on Canadian resource development and delivery to world market…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's saying those words, but those are just words. I would say again that he is making some of that stuff up, as so many of the members on the other side of the House do. As to the actual facts around LNG development in Canada, we had 18 projects on the west coast and seven on the east coast to develop LNG in this country. Now we have one being developed, with…
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Madam Speaker, there were a few things in my colleague's speech that I would question him on. He talked about war profiteering in Canada, resources and the taxes that our natural resources industries paid. They have paid $30 billion more in taxes over the last six months than in the previous year. There has been a rise in commodities across the board. However, in Canada, let us acknowledge our pri…
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to my colleague in the House and I sit in committee with the member as well. I often think he is reading off a page because so much of what he says is dissonant with reality. He is now talking about a Canada growth fund on top of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. The financial incentive systems, which are built throughout the government to foster investment in Canada, throw m…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Rental Construction Financing Initiative announced as part of budget 2016, as of September 16, 2022: (a) how much has been spent, by fiscal year, on (i) administering the program, (ii) promoting the program, (iii) investments in individual projects, broken down by federal electoral district; (b) what are the specific locations, by street…
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With regard to the discussion document entitled "Options to cap and cut oil and gas sector greenhouse gas emissions to achieve 2030 goals and net-zero by 2050", released in July 2022, as of September 26, 2022: (a) what recommendations have been received from the House of Commons Standing Committee on Natural Resources, as referred to under section 8 (Guiding principles) of the document; and (b) wh…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it has been interesting to hear the debate here so far today. Part of that is addressing an important new bill before Parliament, Bill S-5, an act to amend the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, to make related amendments to the Food and Drugs Act and to repeal the Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act. These are important environmental considerations for Parli…
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Madam Speaker, I do not recall criticizing the government for moving this agenda through the Senate. First, I said that this time we in the House of Commons are the body of sober second thought. I know that, for my colleague on that side, it might be second thought. We are trying to be sober here and to make sure we actually put some analysis into this, and not just ram it through like my colleagu…
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Madam Speaker, I really appreciate the question from my colleague with whom I sat on committee in the last Parliament. He always has some excellent input into the manner in which we need to move legislation forward. Let me say that this whole issue around a clean and healthy environment is a great concept, and I fully subscribe to it. At the same time, I look at this nonsense that I hear in the Ho…
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Madam Speaker, I share my colleague's concerns about how we get things done in the House and about making sure we address legislation quickly. One of the issues in this bill of course is that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is a criminal act, so we are moving a lot of redresses here toward a criminal approach to things, with a lower bar, a more civil law bar, for how those are approached…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, in August, Germany's leaders came to Canada, begging us to help offset their dependence on Russian gas. Our Prime Minister replied that there is no business case for Canadian LNG. “Au contraire,” refuted Canada's actual business leaders. The opportunity for tens of thousands of Canadian jobs is quite clear. With the world demanding Canadian energy, why is the Prime Minister berating C…
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Mr. Speaker, that is not quite true. Coal exports from Russia have reached peak levels. China has also reached peak levels and gone up 300 million tonnes of coal production this year. Europe is cranking up coal plants. Why is this? It is because the LNG that Canada could have supplied has been held up by the government's policies. Canadian LNG has a carbon footprint that is half that of the coal t…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank all my colleagues for coming here today to listen to my speech, my colleagues on this side of the House in particular. It is an honour to stand in front of the House and talk about a bill that is going to affect Canadians for a long time going forward, another trinket. Let me start, because it is a big bill, by focusing my comments on the dental care benefit that is part of th…
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Mr. Speaker, I watched my colleague listen to my speech intently, but he seems to have missed much of what I said. There is definitely dental coverage in every province. However, there is a better way of delivering increased dental coverage if the federal government wants to contribute to the provinces that are actually delivering health care services across this country. These are different modes…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. I am not aware of the 35% that he mentioned in his question. I do know premiers across the country have been asking the federal government to give the provinces $26 billion a year for Canada's health care system. I am not sure if that $26 billion is equivalent to 35%. I am sorry I am not aware of these figures, but I support the provinces' reques…
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Mr. Speaker, I called it a trinket in my speech, because it is a little thing for the Liberals to put in the window to show NDP members that they are relevant and should continue to be supported by those members over the short term, until it is actually done. Giving dental care to Canadians is easy. As I said in my speech, and I hope the member was listening, there is a far more effective way to i…
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Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague's speech just now in the House and heard her speak earlier today. I think it was much the same speech, but we are at third reading now so I appreciate that we had to hear the speech twice. I heard the member paraphrase what my colleagues and I, as I spoke to the bill today too, had to say about the bill, and it was a stretched paraphrase of what we put on the page…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed my friend's speech on this side of the House. I do have some questions for him on the applicability of an actual dental care system. This is a dental payout system. Dental care systems exist in all 10 provinces right now, including in my province of Alberta, where we did some extensive research. All poor people below a certain threshold are covered 100% for dental expenses i…
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Madam Speaker, I am concerned because the member seems to be really out of touch with reality. It is estimated that the oil and gas industry in Canada has invested $48 billion in public services in Canada. The members seems to not want to talk about one fact related to inflation. The two main causes of inflation are labour and energy. In my opinion, the member seems to agree that the cost of livin…
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the member across the way. It was a bit of a vitriol on my colleagues here and our stance on climate and the environment, which I think is much more progressive than what I have seen on that side of the House, because we are actually trying to come to solutions. However, solutions are one thing and talking about pretending to be serious is something else. I am going to…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, some months ago, back in the spring, I asked the government about carbon capture, utilization and storage and its position on this. Sixteen months ago I introduced a bill into the House of Commons that was proposing a carbon capture, utilization and storage system for Canada that matched what happens in the U.S. Our trade partner in CUSMA actually has a 45Q regime that incents carbo…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am not sure that addressed anything I talked about in my points here today. We are talking about moving forward with a regime that matters to the world and that actually matters to our economy and environment more than anything else, yet the government stalled on it. It has been stalled, for as long as I have been in Parliament, on moving forward with decarbonization mechanisms. T…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, economists agree that payroll taxes like the increase that the government is pushing on Canadians are the most regressive form of taxation, because they lead to lower productivity and jobs leaving Canada. That is not stopping the government from jamming these taxes onto Canadian workers. Inflation is eroding Canadians' ability to buy the basics, and the government is gouging more of t…
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Mr. Speaker, in the last decade, payroll contributions under the government have risen by 13% for employment insurance and over 60% for CPP. The last year has seen the effects of massive government overspending, showing up in inflation numbers Canadians have not seen in 40 years. Workers' paycheques are not going as far, and now there will be even less in those paycheques. Given the harsh rise in …
Read full speech →Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to rise in the Canadian House of Commons today to pay tribute to our departed and long-serving sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II. It is not unusual to hear of the passing of someone who has reached the age of 96 years. We should all be so fortunate to have such a long life, without the ailments of age that slow so many down. This Queen, one for the ages, seemed active and …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the government is failing on so many basic matters. It is failing to provide passports to Canadians. It is failing Afghan refugees, who assisted our brave men and women in a war zone. It is failing to process immigration applications. There are now millions of files that are behind. Frontline government employees are now simply resorting to telling their frustrated clients to call the…
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Mr. Speaker, inflation has risen almost a full point month over month to 7.7%, which is near record levels. Europe has reduced fuel taxes, and the U.S. president is now calling for a gas tax holiday. What is the Canadian government doing? It is increasing fuel taxes. The last time world oil prices were this high was 2014, when the price of gas in Canada was $1.40, which is 70¢ less than today. The…
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege concerning last night's crash of the hybrid Parliament system. I was working in my Confederation Building office here in the precinct for the House of Commons, but could not log into the Zoom portion of the House's proceedings last night. We were discussing Bill C-21, the government's cynical approach to gun control, which was to be followed by B…
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