Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member can indicate the following very clearly, because the numbers and the facts clearly demonstrate it. Just over a year ago, Canadians elected a new Prime Minister with incredible credentials on the economy and how it works. There have been positive results on the housing file. Houses have become more affordable; they have dropped in price. Rents overall have dropped in price. …
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Mr. Speaker, when I think of the residents of London—Fanshawe, much as I do for many different constituencies, I think about how Bill C-20 would make a positive difference. It is not an issue of just blindly following the Conservative leadership, even because they are so wrong on this issue. Build Canada Homes is about looking at different ways we can build, such as modular homes. There are ways w…
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Mr. Speaker, the reality of the situation is that just over a year ago, Canadians elected a new Prime Minister and a new government. We came forward with a substantive piece of legislation to have more homes built here in Canada. The member tries to give a false impression, but I can tell him that Build Canada Homes will, in fact, build thousands and thousands of affordable homes. The Conservative…
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Mr. Speaker, I recognize that there are very serious concerns and issues surrounding our forest industry in Canada. The government, through its buy Canada policy and other initiatives, is doing what it can to support it. The question I have for the member is in regard to the legislation itself. The Build Canada Homes act would allow the Government of Canada, at an arm's-length distance, to work co…
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Mr. Speaker, what we have seen today is the Conservative Party take the position of continuing to deny Canadians the opportunity to have a national housing strategy or a program that incorporates Build Canada Homes, which is there to support Canadians in a very real and tangible way. Does the member, in principle, support a national government addressing a national issue by providing mechanisms to…
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Waterloo posed a question to one of the member's colleagues from Alberta. I would like to echo the same sentiment from that question. That is, we have agreements today for housing projects in collaboration in Alberta and Saskatchewan. We continue to work collaboratively with different jurisdictions. Can the member be very clear? If he does not support the legislation an…
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Mr. Speaker, even with the member's background in the housing sector, I tend to disagree with her. At the end of the day, she tries to give the impression that the national government does not have a role, when in fact many of the things that the government is doing support the private sector. When we take a look at the Build Canada Homes corporation, after this legislation passes, hopefully, what…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives really need to open their eyes and see what is actually taking place. If I were to use the province that my colleague from Fleetwood—Port Kells comes from, in British Columbia alone, over 1,100 homes are going to be built under this government, working in collaboration with the British Columbia government. What is wrong with that? Hundreds of homes will be for suppor…
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my colleague can pick up on the fact that Build Canada Homes and the government have actually negotiated with and have an agreement with the Province of Quebec. We are seeing affordable homes that are going to be built in Quebec City, Montreal and other, rural communities. It is only a question of time. Those homes will, in fact, be delivered, and it shows the collaboratio…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate many of the words my colleague put on the record. I want her to expand upon the idea of how important it is to work in collaboration, particularly with the provinces, indigenous people and other stakeholders, in order to ensure that we have more affordable housing. I was actually very pleased when she made reference to her home province having somewhere in the neighbourho…
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Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote.
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate how the member for Mount Royal set out the bill in such a manner that one would think it is very straightforward. We often hear members in the official opposition say that they want the government to deal with crime in a stronger way, and they talk about the importance of victims. Based on what we heard from the member for Mount Royal, one can easily come to the co…
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Mr. Speaker, it is not the defence lawyer who ultimately makes the decision. It is the judge. What is very apparent is that the Conservative Party has absolutely no confidence in judicial independence or the ability of judges to make good decisions. It is a comment.
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Mr. Speaker, the reality is that through Bill C-16, we would see the reinstatement of a number of mandatory minimums that were actually ruled out of order with respect to Canada's Charter of Rights. As a result, Bill C-16 would reinstate many of those mandatory minimums. It puts in the exceptional circumstances clause in order to protect the integrity of the laws so that they would not continue to…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to rise and address the House of Commons this evening. It is interesting, because I was actually looking forward to asking my friend, the member for Oxford, a question.
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Mr. Speaker, he says “any time”, which is not really true. We were having this healthy debate on Bill C-20. Remember, that is the debate the Conservatives were crying about because they wanted more time to speak to it. Do members remember that? The member for Oxford, as he was concluding and I was all ready to ask a question, moved a motion to adjourn debate. It was truly amazing. I do not think t…
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Mr. Speaker, there are more Liberals than there are Conservatives.
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Mr. Speaker, if my friend opposite does not like what he is hearing, he has a choice. He can leave the chamber. At the end of the day, it is important that Canadians see the games the Conservative Party members play day in and day out, whether they are filibustering or trying to prevent debate on important legislation that we, as a government, put forward in the House of Commons in the hope that t…
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Mr. Speaker, it is really somewhat sad and pathetic that the members opposite have stood up on a point of order twice now. They do not want Canadians to see the silliness that we witness on the floor of the House of Commons coming from the Conservatives. Shame on them. At the end of the day, let us realize that all they did by moving that motion to adjourn was make a couple of statements to Canadi…
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Mr. Speaker, again, it is truly amazing. The Conservatives need to calm down a little. They had the opportunity to have more debate on Bill C-20, but they intentionally chose not to because it was night-night time for them. I do not say that lightly. We had to have a vote. We voted on the Conservatives' motion to call it quits for the night because it was getting late, and 13% of their caucus did …
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Mr. Speaker, even though the Conservatives might want to make a joke of this evening and not necessarily fully participate on the issue of crime, let me assure those who are actually following the debate at home that we have a Prime Minister and a Liberal caucus that just last year went through an election, and we made a commitment to Canadians that we would take the crime file seriously. In fact,…
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Mr. Speaker, the point is that the Conservatives like to talk tough on crime, but the reality is that their actions speak louder than words, because when it came to those mandatory minimums, we witnessed that the Conservative Party did absolutely nothing under the leadership of today's Conservative leader, even when he sat in the Conservative caucus in a majority government. The Conservatives had …
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Mr. Speaker, I have a few examples, so the member should calm down and listen to them. The member will learn something here and hopefully change his attitude and vote in favour of the legislation. Second, the bill would reinstate mandatory jail time for sexual exploitation of a child, including abuse by people in a position of trust. This is the type of legislation that I would expect the Conserva…
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Mr. Speaker, I think the member opposite is relatively new to the House of Commons, but he is not alone. There were over 70 Liberals who were also elected in the last election. Canadians made the decision, and I would suggest it was a good decision, when they compared the leadership of all the political entities and elected a new prime minister. The new Prime Minister and the new government have b…
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Mr. Speaker, I can tell the member opposite from the Bloc that the motivating factor for the Government of Canada, and I would suggest all members of the Liberal caucus, is in fact the issue of victims and how we can deal with and support victims. That is within Bill C-16, and I can give some examples of that. There is also providing the communities we represent a sense of security. Those are the …
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Mr. Speaker, I made reference to the excessive abuse by the official opposition when it comes to the issue of misinformation, whether it is inside the House of Commons, here on the floor, or through social media and emails. It is literally non-stop. For example, on the mandatory minimums that we would reinstate under exceptional circumstances, the Conservatives are trying to mislead Canadians on w…
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Mr. Speaker, what often happens with the Conservatives is that they do a great deal of research to try to justify a behaviour, which does nothing but downgrade and be disrespectful in terms of Canada and the way Canada is moving. I can tell the member that he needs to get ahead and start looking at what has taken place over the last 13 to 14 months since Canadians made the wise decision, I would a…
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Mr. Speaker, I believe Bill C-16 is a wonderful piece of legislation that we could have very easily had a coming together to recognize, for example, coercive control as a new offence and to recognize femicide being elevated to first-degree murder in certain situations. These are very tangible things. Ultimately, I would liked to have seen members on all sides of the House recognize the value. We d…
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Madam Speaker, if you were to canvass the House, you would find unanimous consent to call it 12 o'clock at this time so that we could begin the opposition day motion.
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Madam Speaker, part of the concern I have about the Conservatives' opposition day is that, consistent with what they usually do, they are misleading Canadians. With the first two speakers, we had one member stand up and say there has been a net loss in jobs since this Prime Minister became the Prime Minister, which is just not true, and then another member stood up and said export numbers are goin…
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Madam Speaker, the member talked a great deal about the lack of a strategy on the issue of trade. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The member would know that. For example, the Prime Minister and this government made a commitment to look at export opportunities that go beyond the Canada-U.S.A. border. We have some 20 agreements related to trade and defence. We have passed legisl…
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Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to 10 petitions. These returns will be tabled in an electronic format.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all remaining questions be allowed to stand, please.
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Mr. Speaker, in terms of the opposition day motion, I thought it was really important for us to try to paint a different picture from what the Conservatives have been trying to tell Canadians, day in and day out. Canada as an economy, as a community, is actually doing quite well in comparison to other G20 countries. We continue to work every day on building a stronger and healthier economy. We oft…
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Mr. Speaker, if the government's responses to Questions Nos. 1091, 1092, 1093, 1094, 1095, 1096, 1097, 1098, 1099, 1100, 1101, 1102, 1103, 1104 and 1105 could be made orders for return, these returns would be tabled in an electronic format immediately.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate, but I guess the member is being consistent with the leader of the Conservative Party, who likes to go around Canada and tell Canadians that Canada is broken, that the sky is falling and that it is a massive darkness. A Conservative MP stands up, and we get the opinion that a black cloud is going over Canada. I would contrast Canada, its economy and overall performan…
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Mr. Speaker, the member is right that sometimes people, and politicians on both sides of the House, will be selective in the stats that they will throw out. Let me give a stat that I believe is important. Since the last federal election, there has been an increase in employment of over 150,000. Members can cherry-pick all they want in between, but at the end of the day, there are 150,000 more jobs…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question very much. If we look at what has been achieved over the last 13 or 14 months since Canadians elected our current Prime Minister, it has been a great deal. Someone brought up the analogy of a marathon runner in terms of how the government, and the Prime Minister in particular, is responding to the Canadian economy and society as a whole, bringing in good legi…
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member opposite would recognize that the average wage has actually increased more than the inflation rate every month since we had that last federal election. At the end of the day, there are individuals who are having some financial difficulties, and that has always been the case. Obviously, we all want to try to assist where we can, and that is where I would challeng…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question because there is so much truth in what the member said. If we go around and tell the world that Canada's economy is bad, we cannot trust it, everything is broken and so forth, which is what we hear from Conservative member after Conservative member talking negatively about Canada, that ultimately assists the U.S. over Canada. I would cite the member for Bowma…
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Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member that different regions of the country have different impacts in the community. The government continues to look at all the regions of the country, and we do what we can, such as the national school food program for children, which the member opposite voted against. We also financially support food banks. We are, as a government, a whole lot more compassionate t…
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I have two quick points, Mr. Speaker. The member gives the impression that it is an issue of foreign investment. Foreign investment today is at a 20-year high. I do not quite understand how he sees that as a decrease. On exports, we are at least 17% higher internationally, outside of the United States, but also exports to the United States are up from last year. Where is the member really drawing …
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Mr. Speaker, I do not exactly know whether the Conservatives have something against Atlantic Canada or how they justify their positioning on Canada having an opportunity to launch things into space.
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Mr. Speaker, the member says “shameful” from across the way, but let us keep in mind that the Conservatives tend to oppose anything that the government wants to do. We have made a clear commitment to our Canadian Forces and to what will be taking place in the industrial development sector, whether it is in space or for our Canadian Forces, that whole 2%. The Conservatives, no matter what we seem t…
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that through the whole estimates process, the government has given a great deal of attention to the issues of agriculture and, in particular, taxation. The member made reference to how we could support making things more affordable. Just last Friday, we dealt with the issue of providing the groceries and essentials benefit program, supporting 11 million Canadians. There is m…
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Mr. Speaker, the member is wrong when he makes the assessment that the government does not understand. Of course the government understands. That is why we are providing financial support, whether it is for our forestry industry, our aluminum industry or our steel industry. We can appreciate the tension and anxiety within those ndustries. My question is more in regard to the issue of reserves and …
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Mr. Speaker, the member raises an issue that I know affects so many people. All members of Parliament are genuinely concerned about these unethical individuals, many living outside of Canada. With the modernization of technology of the Internet, phone scams, robocalls being made and vast numbers of emails, scams take many different forms. Unfortunately, it is quite often the vulnerable in society …
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Mr. Speaker, if we listen to the Conservatives, we would think that it is all about raw land, which is not the case. I do not know what it is they have against the Maritimes having a launch pad. It is in a naturally good position because of the ocean, which is a very important aspect to it. It is not just the raw land. We have to build the launch pad and the infrastructure, 90% of which will be bu…
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Mr. Speaker, Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg makes satellites and buses for satellites. Having the ability to have sovereignty in space, where Canada is able to use it not only for national use but also potentially for international use, and to expand our aerospace and space industries as a direct result, I think, is something the members opposite are really overlooking. One of the biggest advocate…
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Mr. Speaker, given that no one else wants to stand up, I am more than happy to share some thoughts in regard to the estimates. Let me start off by providing comments, because we have heard them from Conservative after Conservative. Quite frankly, I am very disappointed that the Conservatives want to play the political corruption game when, in fact, they cannot substantiate it. Rather, they put on …
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