Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, Colette Bourgonje will be inducted into the Canada Games Hall of Honour as a builder. From 1992 to 2014, Bourgonje attended every winter Paralympic Games and three summer Paralympic Games, winning six medals. She is a member of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame, and even has a Saskatoon public school named after her in my riding in Rosewood. Bourgonje has coached many successful …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, after one year with the Prime Minister, things have only gotten worse for Canadians. Canada is now the food inflation capital of the G7, with food prices skyrocketing 7.3% and food bank lineups of 2 million visitors per month. At the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre, we serve 23,000 to 24,000 people a month. That is up 6,000 to 7,000 per month since 2019. Unemployment in this cou…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, when Canadians thrive, they do not need to rely on government handouts. Our province is like that. It does not enjoy the fact that the government is handing out billions of dollars throughout the country just to help Canadians. I know what people in my province want. They want jobs, and unfortunately, this country lost 100,000 jobs in the first two months of 2026. Let us think about t…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Canada has the worst food inflation and the only shrinking economy in the G7, and rising unemployment rates now. Canadians are facing a serious cost of living crisis. Grocery prices are skyrocketing. Paycheques are spread so thin right now that they do not cover the cost of basic necessities. Canadians deserve an economy where hard work pays off. When will the Liberals take responsibi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague brought up a number of good points. Right now, in northwest Ontario, the mining companies desperately need people. Bill C-20 seems to be another bureaucracy by the Liberal Party and the government, and it is just going to hold that whole northwest part of Ontario back. How can we hire people when we do not have housing? I want to ask the hon. member about that. I hav…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the University of Saskatchewan's Huskies women's basketball team. Just last Sunday, at the U Sports championship, the Huskies captured their second straight title with a 77-68 win over the University of New Brunswick Reds. Coming off the bench was Logan Reider. She scored a team-high 19 points and was named the player of the game. Ella Murphy Wiebe, who is in he…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Parkland for mentioning Jordan's principle. Half of our school divisions in the province of Saskatchewan are well behind in funding from the federal government, and that has caused a lot of stress around the board tables. In fact, many school divisions have actually had to make cuts in educational assistants because they had planned ahead of time …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, my province of Saskatchewan has long held the distinction of feeding the world, yet Canada today has the distinction of leading the G7 in food inflation. Food prices in Canada are rising twice as fast as they were when the Prime Minister took office. In Saskatoon, there are over 24,000 visits a month to the food bank. That is a record high, and it is climbing. Rising food prices are a…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting comment by the Liberal member from Winnipeg. I had a conversation with the Saskatoon City Council. When we talk about the hundreds of millions of dollars in the City of Saskatoon budget, 25% is going to the Saskatoon police department. Members can let that sink in a little bit. We have about 300,000 or so people in Saskatoon, and 25% of the budget is for the Sas…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, if we look back into history, how we built this country, I am not sure we can build the country anymore. Billions of dollars have been lost because of Liberal policies, such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48. In my province, we have uranium mines ready to go, but because of these policies, they are years in the waiting. Will this pipeline ever get built with the current government in place…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister told Canadians he should be judged by prices at the grocery store. I have a better idea: He should come to my food bank. There are 23,000 visits a month at the Saskatoon Food Bank. Better yet, we have a resurgence of scurvy in northern Saskatchewan. “Canada's Food Price Report” confirms that an additional $1,000 will be needed next year to feed a family of four. Is …
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister recently told young Canadians that they would need to make more sacrifices while he and his associates at Brookfield shield themselves from paying Canadian taxes. We all know Brookfield is Canada's number one tax-dodger. As chair of Brookfield, the Prime Minister helped the company avoid $6.5 billion in taxes through offshore tax havens. The Prime Minister, we all k…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is not only that $150 million. How about the $150 million the government is giving to the public CBC network for no reason whatsoever? Private institutions in this country are struggling, yet $1.4 billion is going to the CBC. It is part of Google now and gets a portion of that, and the Prime Minister decided during the campaign that was not enough and that the government was going …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the recent Liberal budget, which actually came down late this year, on November 4, and about Bill C-15, the budget implementation act. The Liberals promised to keep the deficit at roughly $62 billion. They lost a finance minister last December over that number, and now it has escalated to $78 billion. They promised to lower the debt-to-GDP ratio; instead it …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is Giving Tuesday. Let us think about this from coast to coast. Those who have access to extra money give back to each and every community. That is what makes our communities. I know better what is happening in my community than the government does. Each of us, when we go back home, has a pretty good idea of what is happening because we go to events and listen to people. This is a …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member for Regina—Lewvan and I love the depot in Regina. The government has talked about moving that depot out of Saskatchewan to Quebec. There is enough nonsense about this. We have worked hard for the RCMP museum to get responsible funding so it can combine the indigenous story along with the story of the RCMP. In our province now, we have started a marshal program because the n…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I have been looking forward to this debate all day on Bill C-14, an act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the National Defence Act. For the last 10 years in this country, crime has been going one way, and that is straight up. In fact, even in my home province of Saskatchewan and my city of Saskatoon, in the last decade under the Liberals, there have been p…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, no, of course we are not confident. I mean, over the last 10 years, this has been a disaster. The Liberals have finally woken up and realized that Bill C-5 and Bill C-75 were a joke. We on this side of the House have been talking about it for years. We need tougher action on bail and release. We need to get criminals behind bars. In downtown Calgary, 75 people were charged for most of…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the problem right now is being soft on crime. It is just wicked in this country. I give credit to my leader, who went coast to coast hearing from individuals across the country about extortion, which is why we wanted the emergency debate. The incidents are happening in Calgary, in Edmonton, in Vernon, in Surrey and in Ontario. There is a 330% increase in extortion, and nobody in the H…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is ironic that the member is from the city of Victoria, as there have been many encampments and lots of crime over the last number of years in Victoria. As we have noticed, many people from Saskatchewan are not travelling to the United States of America these days, for one reason or another. We would like to be hosted in B.C., but the crime in his city of Victoria is as bad as anyw…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the budget is a major disappointment for my home province of Saskatchewan. There is nothing for canola, nothing for pulse, nothing for beef and nothing for the cities. I am very disappointed in yesterday's announcement. There is $260 million for the entire province. There is a bit for the RCMP museum. We do not know how much, but it was mentioned. There is a line in the budget. Then…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the cost of groceries has become a daily burden on Canadians, and the Liberal government's policies are the main culprit. Years of heavy Liberal spending have fuelled inflation, making it more expensive for families just trying to get by. Farmers and shippers face higher costs, which then get passed to the consumer. The result is that food insecurity is rising, grocery bills are soari…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, every single dollar that the Prime Minister spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians in the form of higher Liberal taxes and inflation. The Prime Minister said he would be judged by prices Canadians pay at the grocery store. A visit to the supermarket confirms that sugar is up 19%, strawberries are up 18% and even salad dressing is up 13%. This week, the Liberals voted against our…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I seconded the motion here today. All we are saying is that when the Prime Minister came in, he said to judge him by food costs. That is why the motion is what it is. I had the opportunity all summer to go to various food outlets in my city, Saskatoon. All one has to do is sit around the meat freezer. People come, and they have sticker shock. Families cannot afford to eat, and they ar…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Mission—Matsqui—Abbotsford. I was pleased to second this Conservative opposition day motion, because six months ago, the Prime Minister told Canadians to judge him by the costs at the grocery store. In the last six months, Canadians have looked at the price of grocery store items. We will go through that in just a moment. I rise to …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, is that not disgusting? The gentleman comes from Hamilton, the home of steel in this country. Unemployment is running rampant in his community. I mentioned in the first line of my speech that I was rising today to talk about the extreme hardship in this country. The member bowled ahead and asked a question about my leader's running in Alberta. That does not matter. He has been elect…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, that is interesting. I was a school board trustee for 10 years in Saskatchewan, as well as a member of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association. In our city we have a program called CHEP, which feeds inner-city kids. It has been going for decades. Then the federal government came along and said it wanted to start a national food program. Can members guess what has happened? Bureau…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the hon. member from the Bloc brought up a very good point. On this side of the House, we have already talked about temporary foreign workers. We have excluded them from agriculture. We know that food is valuable in this country. We need workers. We have only 68% of the harvest in the bin in my province. Let me say one thing, though. An MP from Ontario came to Saskatchewan this summ…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we have all gone on ride-alongs. When someone goes on a police ride-along, the police officer might say, “There's Jerry. I picked him up on Monday. This is Wednesday and we're going to pick him up again.” The Liberal government has caused this through obstruction, with Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. We have had two horrific incidents in Saskatchewan. A fatal shooting of a 44-year-old woman o…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there are issues in every city in this country. I will give a few statistics from the police in my city of Saskatoon: Violent crime this year is up 12.5%, assaults are up 20% and criminal harassment is up 150%. This is why we feel, on this side of the House, that the Liberals have been obstructing every police force in the country with Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. I do not have to tell mem…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a dissenting report, in both official languages, on behalf of the Conservative members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, on the House-ordered study undertaken by the committee on the recent job cuts announced at the CBC. The CBC cut hundreds of jobs while awarding lavish bonuses. This disgraceful abuse of taxpayer dollars when Canadians are struggling f…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I am going to get back to the green slush fund. It is interesting, because SDTC was started in 2001. It was actually a pretty good government agency for a long time until the Liberals filled the board with appointments in 2018, and then we had this $400-million slush fund. Canadians want to know where the money is coming from. I would ask for the member's thoughts on this. With gree…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a dissenting report, in both official languages, on harms caused to children, women and men by the ease of access to, and online viewing of, illegal sexually explicit material. It was a Conservative motion that led to this important study to bring understanding to the real harm experienced by many Canadians within virtual spaces. Conservative members of this co…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I think Canadians are astonished. We had a new board chair of SDTC, and the answers the public want to know deal with governance. The hon. member has a successful farm. He was successful in education too, and with education, of course, comes governance. We saw a lack of responsibility and accountability, with 186 conflicts of interest from the board since 2017. That is the issue. SD…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, it is obvious why we are having this debate. We brought this forward in June and, five months later, the government has still not brought the documents out. I will tell members why the government does not want to have the unredacted documents. It does not have an agenda. Its members are happy to sit, day after day, talking about this. They have no political agenda and have simply ru…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I was thinking of doing the play-by-play of the Riders and Bombers here today because it is their big playoff game on Saturday. I know those back home in Saskatchewan are looking forward to Saturday afternoon. I see members on the other side who are Argos fans. We will see if the Argos can make it to the Grey Cup this year. I thank the member for mentioning Reg “Crash” Harrison. He …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, first I want to acknowledge all the veterans across this great country. As members of Parliament, we will all be heading back to our constituencies and will take part in Remembrance Day ceremonies. I was happy to attend the Poppy Campaign launch in Saskatoon just a couple of weeks ago, and this Saturday I will be selling poppies in support of all our veterans and legions in my commu…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, Murray Sinclair passed away earlier this week and there is a lot of work in this country with respect to reconciliation. I remember going to Prairieland Park and listening to Murray. He did a wonderful job. I was so happy that former prime minister Harper appointed him to look after the reconciliation. Murray went to several communities in this country. It was absolutely jammed at P…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, whistle-blowers revealed everything in all of this. They came to committee and they felt free to talk about what they had seen. Whistle-blower legislation is very important. We stand with the whistle-blowers in this country because they should have the freedom to come to committees and talk about what they are seeing with the current government and the money that is not going where …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, we have been trying to move on for weeks. It is simple: Produce the papers and we will move on. Canadians want that. The government has run out of ideas. That is why the members of the government do not want to show the unredacted papers. It is pretty obvious, standing over here, when we go home and listen to Canadians, that the Liberals are out of ideas. Of course the Liberals are …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Yes, Madam Speaker, the member for Windsor West and I have worked on a number of things together and I have the utmost respect for him. In nine short years, there has been SNC-Lavalin, the Winnipeg labs, the WE Charity, the arrive scam and the green slush fund. I have missed about five or six others. The concern I have right now is that Canadians, not only in Windsor but everywhere, are hurting. E…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to stand in the House today on behalf of the Conservative members on the Standing Committee of Canadian Heritage. We submit this dissenting report on the tech giants' use of intimidation tactics to evade regulation in Canada and across the world. The main report failed to adequately explore the state of censorship in Canada, as well as the roles played by te…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I know the member for Winnipeg North likes to quote The Hill Times. I am going to quote Canada's national newspaper, The Globe and Mail. Two weeks ago today, The Globe and Mail said the Conservatives are right and the Liberals are wrong; the redacted documents should be presented in Parliament; and the Liberals have held everything up. This is Canada's national newspaper, not The Hill…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, we are talking about $400 million here, which is a big number. We all know the cost of living is up. We all know food banks in this country have seen lineups out the door. The carbon tax is a big issue and so is housing. I mean, the member comes from B.C., and B.C. has one of the highest housing costs in the entire world, not the country, the world. However, this $8-billion budget o…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I move that the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, presented on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, be concurred in. It will be interesting to talk today about the concurrence motion coming out of the heritage committee. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot. I have been on the heritage committee for years now, but last month I ask…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, this is what really worries me. As Ms. Tait has less than three months left as CEO of CBC and has not taken any bonuses in the last two years, here is my prediction: She will bolt from the position in January and take two and a half years of bonuses. We will never hear from her again. The public needs a response. Do members know what? Conservatives are right on this. As common-sense…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the member for Windsor West and I have worked together on several private members' bills in the House of Commons, but the topic here is the bonuses; there was $18 million handed out last year when the corporation cut over 800 jobs. How arrogant that was. I watched an interview that CEO Catherine Tait did with Arsenault on CBC, and it was astonishing that CBC's CEO had little remorse…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is interesting that when CBC made its cuts last year, it started in Quebec. CBC/Radio-Canada had 25% listenership in the province of Quebec, and yet CBC executives decided to hit CBC/Radio-Canada first, with 800 employees losing their jobs. Some $18 million was presented in bonuses, with $3.3 million going to executives. I know my friend from Drummond has been on the heritage com…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the Bloc member is absolutely correct. CBC/Radio-Canada is a very good institution. It has done very good work in this country, especially in the province of Quebec, yet when it started cutting the 800 employees with CBC, the first place it looked was the province of Quebec and CBC/Radio-Canada. The most successful of the operations of CBC is CBC/Radio-Canada. Where did it start the…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, we cannot justify the bonuses. There is no way. The Liberal member is even questioning his own party, the Prime Minister and the Privy Council. The bonus structure came to cabinet and the Minister of Canadian Heritage rubber-stamped it for $18 million, $3.3 million of which went to CBC executives, averaging over $70,000 for each executive member. The member from Manitoba has always …
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