Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I would say to the hon. member that I am very big on making sure that I stick to the facts, and I do not like to be accused of anything to do with misinformation or disinformation because that is never my intention. The climate action incentive is going to be increased in 2022-23. I do not have the exact number for Regina, but I know that in Manitoba a family of four will receive $8…
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg North. On behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport, it is absolute honour for me to speak on today's opposition day motion regarding inflation and taxation. Our federal government understands that Canadians are being hit hard by rising prices and, more importantly, we are taking effective action to meaningfully support …
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Mr. Speaker, Pedro da Silva was the first known Portuguese person to arrive in pre-Confederation Canada in 1673. He was also the first officially commissioned letter carrier. Hundreds of years later, in 1953, a group of Portuguese immigrants arrived on a boat named Saturnia, docking at Pier 21. These new immigrants started the first of many waves of Portuguese to start a new life in Canada. Now, a…
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Mr. Speaker, I am thrilled to rise in the House today to honour the winner of the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, which was presented at the 35th annual Politics and the Pen gala earlier this week. This year's winner, who was from a super talented lineup of finalists, was Joanna Chiu, a Canadian journalist who won for her debut novel, China Unbound: A New World Disorder. I want to t…
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Mr. Speaker, it meant so much to Davenport residents, and indeed to all Canadians, to see the Prime Minister in Kyiv on Sunday and to see him stand shoulder to shoulder with President Zelenskyy, as we have done since day one. Canada is an unwavering partner to Ukraine, and we have been providing comprehensive military support to our Ukrainian partners as they fight to defend their country. This we…
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Madam Speaker, Russia's illegal, unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine is not only a threat to European security, but also to world security. The NATO alliance has only become more important as we look to the future of transatlantic security. This week, Canada welcomes Sweden's foreign minister as that country faces a choice of whether to join the NATO alliance. Finland is also facing the same conside…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak about the important work that the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association is doing to support Ukraine. Earlier this month, I led a delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly's spring session in Athens to discuss the assembly’s response to Russia’s unprovoked and illegal war against Ukraine, and to discuss the steps it is taking to address the fund…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member's question gives me the opportunity to double down and say that in a world where our climate is changing so fast that we know it is going to have irreparable impacts on our economy, our lives, the air and water, to me it is unconscionable that there is a province, territory or municipality in this country that would not do its part to reduce its emissions and would n…
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Madam Speaker, health care is something that Canadians are very proud of. It does not matter which province or territory we live in. Whether we live in Quebec or Ontario, all Canadians are very committed to continuing to support health care across this country. This budget would also continue that support. We are actually increasing the top-up to the Canada health transfer to reduce the backlogs b…
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Madam Speaker, it is a true honour for me to speak in this House on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport on federal budget 2022. I am very pleased to be sharing my time with the hon. member for Winnipeg South. Budget 2022 invests in three main things: people, economic growth and a clean future for everyone. Since the budget is almost 400 pages, I cannot relay everything that is in it,…
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Madam Speaker, I do not agree with the hon. member. I believe that $100 billion over 100 actions is very serious. I do think we are taking action. I do not think we are just talking. I think we are serious about decarbonizing, and I think we are serious about meeting our net-zero by 2050 targets.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with the member that we need to do more to support those with disabilities and exceptionalities in our country. I do believe that our Minister of Employment has, in the past, introduced a disability tax credit. My understanding is that she is planning on introducing that once again. To me, it is critical that we support this as a House. The last thing I would say is, as some…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, it is my absolute pleasure to rise in the House today to recognize two residents in my downtown Toronto riding of Davenport who were listed in MacLean's power list of 50 Canadians. The first is Cameron Bailey, who served as the CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival where he leads a team that annually delivers an exceptional program of international and Canadian cinema. He is …
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Madam Speaker, the member is right in terms of what I had said in my speech. I will say that I am not sure if I have the full list available of what it is that we are planning to do. I will just remind everyone in this House that we have already started moving on purchasing some of that equipment. We have delivered the first Canadian ship built in 20 years. We have acquired six Arctic offshore pat…
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Madam Speaker, I am not quite sure I understand the mix-up the member is talking about, but I will say once again that we are living through unprecedented times with the pandemic the world has had to grapple with for almost three years now and with the unprovoked and illegal invasion of Russia into Ukraine. We are now facing the greatest threat to international peace and stability in decades. We h…
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Madam Speaker, what I would say is that we are facing the greatest threat to international peace and stability in decades. As such, NATO is again looking at its strategy. It is about deterrence and it is about defence; it is not about war. We also have to step up as a NATO country to also look at how we are going to continue to increase our investment in NATO, because in the end that will protect …
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Mr. Speaker, NATO allies' response to Russia's aggression has also accelerated NATO's transformation as it adjusts to a more dangerous strategic reality, including through the adoption of the next strategic concept at the NATO leaders summit in June. NATO will further develop the full range of ready forces and capabilities necessary to maintain credible deterrence and defence. These steps will be …
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Mr. Speaker, NATO allies' response to Russia's aggression has also accelerated NATO's transformation as it adjusts to a more dangerous strategic reality, including through the adoption of the next strategic concept at the NATO leaders summit in June. Canada is unwavering in its commitment to the NATO alliance, to the defence of Euro-Atlantic security and to the rules-based international order. I w…
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kingston and the Islands. I rise in the House today, on behalf of the residents in my riding of Davenport, as a proud Ukrainian Canadian and as the chair of the Canada NATO Parliamentary Association. At the outset, let me condemn in the strongest possible terms Russia's unjustifiable and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and the enormous hu…
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Mr. Speaker, costs and inflation are definitely top of mind for Canadians today. The federal government, since it was elected late in 2015, has taken a number of measures to try to make sure that we reduce income inequality and make life affordable for Canadians. The latest thing we have done is to introduce the national child care plan. That is a historic plan. When I was first elected, I never t…
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Mr. Speaker, we had a very important discussion and debate around the increasing price of oil and gas in this country. We had an important debate around implementing a tax holiday. Our government will continue to be very concerned about gas prices and prices overall in this country and we will continue to support Canadians—
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Kings—Hants. It is a great pleasure, as always, to rise in the House on behalf of my riding of Davenport to speak to the opposition day motion put forward by the Conservatives, which calls on our government to present a “federal budget rooted in fiscal responsibility with no new taxes, a path to balance and a meaningful fiscal anchor”…
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Mr. Speaker, housing is, indeed, top of mind for all Canadians, irrespective of what's happening with COVID and what's happening in the world today. Everybody's hearts and minds are with Ukrainians today and every day as long as this unprovoked illegal aggression is under way. Housing is top of mind, both from a housing affordability perspective and an affordable housing perspective. I do agree th…
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Mr. Speaker, the challenges Canada has faced over these past years have been numerous, and we have seen that Canadians and Canadian businesses have met them head-on and succeeded. The upcoming federal budget will showcase our government's plan to support Canadians and to grow our economy. Can the Minister of Finance inform Canadians and the House when they can expect federal budget 2022 to be pres…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question, and it is a really good one. I want to remind everyone that since we were first elected in late 2015, we have been very focused on trying to support Canadians in terms of costs. To support seniors, we have increased the guaranteed income supplement. To support families, we have introduced the Canada child benefit and now the national child c…
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Madam Speaker, I support any type of effort that is going to ensure that our oil and gas sector decarbonizes and works with all other Canadian sectors to move to a low-carbon economy, any effort that works to transition their workers into decarbonized areas and anything that will support Canada in achieving our net-zero targets by 2050.
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Madam Speaker, it is a true pleasure for me to rise in the House on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport to speak on the opposition day motion put forward by the Conservatives that calls on our government to introduce a temporary 5% reduction on gasoline and diesel, whether collected under GST, HST or QST, which would reduce the average price by approximately eight cents per litre. Th…
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Madam Speaker, I mentioned the old age security, the Canada pension plan and the child benefit in my speech because I wanted to remind everyone that all of these supports are actually indexed to inflation, which will help the most vulnerable in our society. This is not the case in many other countries. In terms of what additional supports we will be providing to Canadians, we have and continue to …
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Madam Speaker, through you, I would like to thank the hon. member for his question. It is an important one. I would like to respectfully disagree with the member. I think we have done a lot. We have implemented many things to do everything we can to try to reduce income inequality in our country. Whether it was the introduction of the Canada child benefit, the increase in the GIS, taxing the top 1…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her excellent question and for bringing this back to the fore. I agree 100% that we need to do everything we can to bring this beneficial ownership registry into effect. We have to do everything we can to make sure it is transparent with respect to who owns the public assets. This should be a key priority for our government moving forward.
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Madam Speaker, I would say I am very proud of our government and the promises that we have kept. Many of them I mentioned in my speech, including increasing taxes on the wealthiest 1%, reducing them on the middle class, supporting our families both with respect to introducing the Canada child benefit and now a national child care plan, which all provinces and territories, except for Ontario, have …
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of the residents of Davenport, whom I am so proud to represent, I appreciate the opportunity to take part in today's debate on the opposition day motion put forward by the leader of the NDP on tax cuts and fairness. It is indeed a rare pleasure to debate a motion that is supportive of our federal government's platform commitment to reduce taxes for middle-class Canadians w…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present petition e-3629 on behalf of Single Seniors for Tax Fairness. Their petition advocates for equal treatment in Canada's tax system for single seniors who are not able to access the same tax benefits as those who are married, but who face same reality of the rising costs of living on a limited income. I want to thank the group's founder, Jane Robertson, who has b…
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Madam Chair, I think many people come to this country because they are fleeing conflict, injustice and autocratic governments. In Canada, we very much value and appreciate our democracy, our freedom and our Parliament. These are things we all value and we have seen that in rallies, whether they are in small towns and cities, in big cities across this nation or around the world.
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Madam Chair, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Surrey Centre. It is a true honour for me to stand in the House this evening to take part in the important discussion and debate we are having on Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine. I want to start by thanking my colleague for Etobicoke Centre and all members of the House for making sure that we had the space and time to have this …
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Madam Chair, I thank the hon. member for allowing me to do that. I want to end by quoting Taras Shevchenko. For those who do not know him, he is a Ukrainian kobzar, or the Bard of Ukraine, and he talked a lot about Ukrainian independence. He said: Love your dear Ukraine, adore her, Love her...in fierce times of evil, In the last dread hour of struggle, Fervently beseech God for her. Fight on—and y…
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Madam Chair, I thank the member for her support, kind comments and pushing for visas. The Minister of Immigration was very clear today, as all ministers on the government side have been, that all options continue to be on the table. We are looking at visas. I also hope that in the coming days it is something we will consider, and I have great hope that we will have some good news in the days to co…
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Madam Chair, I am reluctant to provide advice on our pension fund about what to divest or not divest. However, I will say that I am very proud not only of how the government has taken action, but also of Canadians across this country and businesses, small, medium and large. Everybody has stepped up to ask what they can do, and I would encourage everybody to continue to do so. What more can we do? …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, there are two parts to the question. The first is if I am satisfied with how it is being used. The truth is that I probably do not know all the ways it is being used right now, but I have a lot of confidence there is going to be an inquiry into the measures used during the emergency. That inquiry has to be initiated once the state of emergency is over. With respect to setting a preced…
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Don Valley West. It is an absolute honour for me to stand in the House of Commons today on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport to speak to the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Before I continue, I would like to acknowledge that I am speaking from the traditional territory of the Algonquin nation. Earlier this week, on …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his question. It is an important one for me to respond to. Our government, on numerous occasions, offered additional resources, every step of the way, not once, not twice, not three times. We also helped to enable a table of all three levels of policing and found as we moved forward that there were a number of gaps in the ability of the police to be able to…
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Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the hon. member. We realized, and the police forces across the country made us realize, that there were some gaps in their ability to be able to act. Tracking and stopping the money was one of the key elements that was missing, as was designating spaces to be able to enforce protection and enabling tow trucks to take action. To address the use of trucks as instrumen…
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Madam Speaker, that is a very important question. In terms of this legislation, I want to point out, because it is important to raise this, this legislation would update CRTC guidelines that will increase the proportion of French-language content to be supported through the Canadian media fund and other streams. In terms of support, we did introduce this relatively quickly. The last election happe…
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Lac-Saint-Louis. It is an absolute privilege for me to stand in the House today, on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport, to speak in support of Bill C-11, an act to amend the Broadcasting Act and to make related and consequential amendments to other acts. I am truly grateful for the leadership of the Minister of Canadi…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his advocacy for everything to do with arts and culture in this country. As I mentioned, in my riding, we have so many artists that anything to do with this sector is very important. The objective of this bill is to bring online streaming services under the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Act. It is to modernize a very outdated piece of legislati…
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Madam Speaker, I will say that in my riding of Davenport we have the House of Anansi, which is a wonderful publishing house. It is also looking for urgent changes and an update to our Copyright Act. I agree with the member that we should make that a priority as well.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, since the Government of Canada announced its ambitious plan for a $10-a-day early learning and child care system across the country, we have signed agreements with nine provinces and three territories. Already in some provinces, families are seeing a reduction in their child care fees that is making life more affordable, while those in my riding of Davenport in downtown Toronto are le…
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Mr. Speaker, we know the Ottawa blockade is not about truckers. Ninety per cent of truckers are vaccinated, and they continue to play a vital role in keeping our economy running. Despite that, for the second week in a row, the residents of Ottawa have been forced to put up with an unacceptable occupation, which is keeping local businesses closed and residents from being able to live their normal l…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a true honour for me to stand in the House on behalf of the residents of my riding of Davenport to speak to Bill C-8, an act to implement certain provisions of the economic and fiscal update, which was tabled in the House by our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance on December 14, 2021. This is an important piece of legislation. It is a bill that includes a wide number …
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Mr. Speaker, we want to make sure rapid tests arrive in our provinces and territories in a timely manner. I know most provinces and territories have stockpiled many of our rapid tests and have been distributing them as they receive them. I heard an announcement this morning that Ontario has received a lot of rapid tests from the federal government. It is starting to hand out those rapid tests in p…
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