Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, at the end of the day, it is the Prime Minister who is responsible for visiting heads of state. President Zelenskyy came here expecting a warm welcome and a successful visit, but, due to the Prime Minister's haphazard management of this visit, he instead turned it into a diplomatic nightmare. This has played straight into Russia's disinformation campaign against Ukraine. The Prime Min…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a duty of care to protect President Zelenskyy when he is here in Canada. The Parliamentary Protective Service, the RCMP, the Privy Council Office and the protocol office all report to the Prime Minister. Because of his failure to fulfill his personal responsibilities, the Prime Minister has harmed Canada's reputation on the world stage. He broke trust with Jewis…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have embarrassed Canada, insulted the Jewish community, undermined our Ukrainian allies and disrespected our veterans, and the Prime Minister refuses to accept any responsibility. He has either willfully or ignorantly discarded his duty to protect President Zelenskyy from this international disaster. Because of his negligence, the Liberals have helped fuel Russia's propag…
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Mr. Speaker, Ukraine has survived multiple genocides at the hands of both the Soviets and the Nazis: the Holodomor, the Holocaust and the Sürgünlik of Crimean Tatars, so it is shocking that a self-professed Nazi was allowed into the chamber by the Liberals and officially recognized by the Speaker during the state visit of the president of Ukraine. The Liberals abdicated their duty-of-care responsi…
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Mr. Speaker, this is more than an embarrassment. It is disgusting. Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust. The Ukrainian defence minister Rustem Umerov is a Muslim Crimean Tatar who was born in the gulags. I am angry that this Liberal incompetence is playing right into the hands of Russian disinformation. Due to the Liberals' negligence, the government is eroding support for Ukraine …
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With regard to media reports that Canadian soldiers in Latvia have had to purchase their own modern ballistic helmets equipped with built-in hearing protection: (a) why was such equipment not provided by the government to all Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) soldiers serving in Latvia; (b) will the soldiers who had to purchase these helmets with their own funds be reimbursed; and (c) what is the timeli…
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Mr. Speaker, it is again a shame that we are moving to closure. We are undermining the parliamentary democracy we have, and the most shameful thing is that the government is being supported by the NDP, which is supposed to be an opposition party but is acting like it is a bunch of Liberals. Throughout history, normally a government that moves closure can count on only maybe once or twice during a …
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With regard to personnel employed by the Department of National Defence (DND) or the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF): (a) how many individuals are currently employed by (i) DND, (ii) CAF; (b) how many of the individuals in (a) are (i) civilians, (ii) regular forces, (iii) reserve forces; and (c) of the individuals in (a)(ii), what is the breakdown by (i) Canadian Army, (ii) Royal Canadian Navy, (iii) …
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With regard to the federal civil service, as of April 1, 2023, broken down by department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity: (a) how many employees or full time equivalents are currently employed; (b) what was the amount spent on salaries, benefits and other compensation in the last fiscal year; and (c) what is the breakdown of (a) and (b), for government entities with both civi…
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With regard to the Department of National Defence (DND) and the government’s announcement in August 2019 titled “Canada negotiates new armoured combat support vehicles”: (a) on what date will the 360 light armoured vehicles (LAV) from General Dynamic Land Systems Canada be put into service; (b) what are the names of each variant type of LAV purchased; (c) how many of each variant type was purchase…
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Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary knows full well that we are debating the budget bill. This has nothing to do with the budget. Second, because this has relevance, the Speaker, on Friday, committed to looking into all the problems we had during that vote.
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Mr. Speaker, today, on the 79th commemoration of Sürgünlik, the genocide of Crimean Tatars, we look back with horror and sadness as we remember how Joseph Stalin and his Communist thugs forcibly deported over 200,000 Tatar men, women and children by packing them into cattle cars and shipping them off to the gulag. Nearly 10,000 people died during this brutal journey, and many more died under inhum…
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Mr. Speaker, that member does not get it that we get to sit in here because of the sacrifice made by our veterans. The brave Canadians who served at Vimy Ridge are not the only ones who are getting caught up in the Liberals' cancel culture. From Terry Fox to Nellie McClung, famous Canadians are being erased from our passports. With our rich history and culture, one would think that the iconic beav…
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Mr. Speaker, instead of addressing their passport and immigration backlogs, these Liberals are disrespecting our veterans and Canadian Armed Forces who protect our sovereignty and freedom. The government's useless and unnecessary passport redesign will erase the image of Vimy Ridge, the place where Canada came of age and first fought as a unified force. How do these Liberals explain to our veteran…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his role as chair of the national defence committee. I appreciate his support for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and for the ruling that was made earlier today. This situation was originally brought to the attention of the government two years ago, and the government failed to act. We know that the national security adviser at the time in the Prime Minist…
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Madam Speaker, I can quote the parliamentary secretary to the House leader for the government—
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Madam Speaker, it is important to lay out what the national security adviser to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, said at committee back in December of 2022. She said, “The Prime Minister is briefed regularly. He's very interested in this subject and has directed work for agencies to do...We are briefing regularly, and those briefings are received and acted upon.” This is in relation to the Prime M…
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Madam Speaker, I am rising today in my role as the shadow minister for national defence for the official opposition. I agree with my colleague who just spoke that this is an issue that all members in this House should be engaged with. It is an issue that is definitely impacting each and everyone of us and our ability to represent our constituents without the fear of a foreign entity trying to inti…
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present a petition today on behalf of Canadians who are very concerned about the unprovoked and illegal war Russia is waging against Ukraine. They are concerned about those Ukrainian refugees who have come here seeking asylum and are being shut out of the Canada summer jobs program. A lot of the youth who are over here are not eligible to apply to the Canada summer jobs …
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Mr. Speaker, yes, it was the Prime Minister. The documents go on to say that the “defence shortfalls hinder Canadian capabilities, while straining partner relationships and alliance contributions.” That impacts our bilateral relationships, which not only affects defence and security but also impacts our trading relationships with those partners.
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Mr. Speaker, I will remind the member for Winnipeg North that they are going backward, not forward. They went from 1.34% down to under 1.29% of GDP this year. They have also gotten very creative with their accounting. They added in veterans' pensions, Global Affairs Canada costs and Coast Guard costs, which we never added in. If we added all of those things in when we were government, we would pro…
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Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, in this budget, there is some money for our Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba, Lake Simcoe and every other lake across Canada. It is only $650 million spread out over 10 years. That is not an investment in making sure that we protect our freshwater lakes, which are a precious resource. I was proud that over the time I was a member of Parliament in governmen…
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Mr. Speaker, I would say this: The one thing I detest about the student loans program is that it is very much prejudiced against kids who come from farms and small businesses, especially in rural areas. Because of the assets owned by their parents, they do not qualify for a student loan. That works against their ability to get an education, which often ends up costing a lot more because they have …
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join the debate on the budget implementation act. There are some interesting numbers in this budget. Total revenues coming in to the government are $456.8 billion and expenses are $446.6 billion. On the surface, when one looks at that, one would think that is not too bad. There is actually some money kicking around, but the problem is the government has run up our nationa…
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Mr. Speaker, that is called creative accounting. The Prime Minister's incompetence has caused the worst public service strike in decades, and it is disproportionately hurting national defence. Our troops are not being fed, do not have heat or hot water, and are not being reimbursed for out-of-pocket meal expenses in places such as Poland. It is said that an army marches on beans and bullets, and t…
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the top secret Discord leak in the United States showed that the Prime Minister has no intention of ever meeting our NATO commitment. It showed that many of our allies are frustrated and disappointed by Canada's response to recent global crises like those in Haiti and Ukraine. The Prime Minister has once again embarrassed Canada on the world stage, and his empty promises ha…
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Mr. Speaker, the member talked about Ukraine, but this budget has absolutely nothing in it for Ukraine. It has nothing in it for the Canadian Armed Forces, and it has nothing to ensure that Ukraine would be victorious over its Russian aggressors. I do not know how she could stand in this place to talk about all that the Liberals are doing for Ukraine. As someone of Ukrainian heritage, I found it w…
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Mr. Speaker, “Years of restraint, cost cutting, downsizing and deferred investments, have meant that Canada’s defence capabilities have atrophied.” That is a direct quote from a letter from over 50 of Canada's former cabinet ministers, defence experts and military leaders. They are calling on the government to live up to our responsibility of “protecting Canadians against all threats—foreign and d…
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Mr. Speaker, it is dodge, dither and delay. That is the Liberal way. This is a call for action from former Liberal and Conservative politicians, as well as non-partisan defence experts. They say, “Russia's brutal war...in Ukraine...as well as the continuing expansion of the military arsenals of authoritarian regimes...should have prompted a re-assessment of our defence posture.” Sadly, well-connec…
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Madam Speaker, I want to remind the member for Winnipeg North that to imply that members in this place, or Canadians for that matter, are idiots for believing there are not investments happening in mental health or seniors' health is disrespectful. He should withdraw that comment.
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Madam Speaker, I want to draw to the hon. member's attention that there is again no commitment to increasing funding for the Canadian Armed Forces in this budget. We saw in the last report from NATO that Canadian investment in our armed forces and our collective defence with our allies has fallen to 1.29% of the GDP rather than 2%, where it is supposed to be. That is down from 1.34%, where it was …
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby continues to interrupt proceedings. He is not allowing debate to take place. He is not allowing anything to be talked about. I know he is a Liberal lapdog—
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Madam Speaker, I want to take exception to the member for Winnipeg North's comments minimizing the deaths of 176 people who were killed on PS752, 55 Canadians who were on that flight, plus 30 permanent residents who called Canada home, never mind all the students coming from Iran who were returning to their universities here in Canada. He does not want to debate this; instead, he is trying to say …
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise and have this debate in our House, the House of Canadians, where we are allowed to bring forward issues that are important to Canadians, including those people in the diaspora community from Iran. I want to remind everyone that this motion from the immigration and citizenship committee was based upon two facts. First, the IRGC attacked Ukraine International Air…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the work the member has done on this file over her career. It is one we often walked in lockstep on. I recently met with one of my constituents who is an Iranian, who had mandatory service in the military in Iran and who now would find himself under the current listing, as he has been in the United States. He no longer can travel to the U.S. because of the listing of th…
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Madam Speaker, first, we did list the Quds Force, which is a special operations military unit of the IRGC, as a terrorist organization. Second, the morality police responsible for cracking down on women's rights and for the murder of Mahsa Amini needs to also be held responsible and potentially listed as a terrorist organization. It definitely is committing human rights abuses and should, at the v…
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Madam Speaker, I hope the member, as part of the Liberal-NDP coalition, would be able to put pressure on the Liberals to finally do the risk analysis and provide the exemptions required to ensure Canadians who are of Iranian descent are not caught up in these sanctions being brought forward. More important, they need to have a better explanation why one of the most murderous regimes in the world, …
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise in the House and speak to Bill C-41. I am going to be supporting this bill to get it to committee so it can undergo the vigorous review it needs to ease the concerns Canadians have. There are organizations that want to provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan in particular, but also to other areas of the world where terrorist organizations are…
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Madam Speaker, we definitely are responding to the situation in Afghanistan, but I also look at Mali, and I also look at what is happening down in Haiti right now. There are a number of other failed states where we see gangs and terrorist organizations in control. I worry about Lebanon and the increasing influence that Hezbollah has there as the country continues to try to recover after the massiv…
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Madam Speaker, I must agree it is disappointing that it has been 18 months since the fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban. It has been nine months since the Special Committee on Afghanistan brought forward its recommendations to the House, recommending these amendments. For whatever reason, the government has dragged its feet. “Dither and delay” is the trademark of the Liberal Party o…
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Madam Speaker, to my understanding, Haiti, right now, is not listed as a terrorist organization, so right now we can raise funds. I know that one of the things talked about when President Biden was here with the Prime Minister was Canada's participating in a special mission to Haiti to bring and restore peace and security to the region. We need to do that for our aid workers who are there. Haiti i…
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be standing up to reiterate what all my colleagues have been saying tonight: It is time to kill Bill C-11. The legislation is about giving the government more power and making sure that we have extra regulation. If we give the CRTC more regulations, that means more red tape and more gatekeepers telling us what we can and cannot watch; it also equals less opportunity for…
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Madam Speaker, there is no question that Canadians have done very well on the Internet as it is today. They have been able to access the international market and share their culture and artistic abilities with other Canadians. The fear we have was reflected by Justin Tomchuk, a filmmaker, who said, “If Bill C-11 disrupts the discoverability of Canadian creators globally”, as there is concern out t…
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Madam Speaker, we listened to testimony, including from Peter Menzies, the former CRTC commissioner, who said that we cannot take a square peg and put it in a round hole. The bill still reads very much like the old Broadcasting Act. It is talking about applying broadcasting licences, which are meant, of course, to go to the big TV stations, to people who are trying to set up a YouTube channel. Tha…
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Madam Speaker, when we have a government agency like the CRTC deciding what the algorithms are and what Canadian content is without having it defined and without Canadians having the ability to individually choose what is Canadian enough for them, it is disturbing to many people. That is why our offices have been overrun with emails and phone calls. More and more people are concerned about the gov…
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Mr. Speaker, in a secret courtroom in Russia, an unjust trial of a courageous freedom fighter is taking place. Our friend, Vladimir Kara-Murza, is facing a sentence of 25 years in prison, which would beat the longest verdict ever sentenced and handed out to a Russian political prisoner. His crime is high treason, but what did he actually do? Vladimir Kara-Murza spoke out against Putin's illegal in…
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Jobs. What about the agriculture sector?
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With regard to the Canadian Army’s fleet of Leopard II tanks: (a) how many are currently (i) combat capable, (ii) not combat capable, broken down by class of vehicle and by variant; (b) for the tanks in (a)(ii) which are not currently combat capable, when does the government expect them to return to service or to become combat capable; (c) how many are required for training operations, broken down…
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-324, An Act to amend the Special Economic Measures Act. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge for seconding this bill. The bill that I am bringing forward is about changing the name of the Special Economic Measures Act to the Sergei Magnitsky global sanctions act. As many in the House know, in 2015, Senator Raynell Andreychukand I introduced…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the leader of the official opposition for his careful articulation and his commitment to killing Bill C-11. He mentioned the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and how freedom of expression would be eroded by Bill C-11. On the Government of Canada's own website, it says, “The Supreme Court of Canada has maintained that the connection between freedom of expression and the politic…
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