Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to such an important piece of legislation, our national pharmacare bill, Bill C-64, which was introduced by the member for Ajax, the minister responsible for health care. In my opinion, this particular legislation is a long time coming. When health care, what Canadians have become accustomed to in Canada, was first introduced many decades ago, I think …
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Madam Speaker, with respect to the first part of her question, the member should know that there is already a program in place that specifically deals with rare diseases and the drugs associated with them. That angle of it is actually already covered. With respect to her question about shortages, this is exactly why a national program like this, where we could purchase in bulk, makes sense. Compan…
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Mr. Speaker, it was audible by everybody here that the member for Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston referred to the member for Timmins—James Bay as a “moron”. I would suggest that you, Mr. Speaker, ask that he withdraw that comment, because that was extremely unparliamentary. He should apologize as well directly to the member.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I ask that Motion No. 1 be carried on division.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I ask that the motion be carried on division.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am glad that when I said that, the message got across. I was not exactly sure how to phrase it, but it is exactly what the member is saying. That is what we are seeing. The member for Battle River—Crowfoot said, in his 20-minute speech, that the system would not be a good one because it would not be for these people or those people, and that therefore we need no system. Conservati…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I do agree with the member and what he said. In particular, I would bring to the attention of the Chair that there is still a member of Parliament on this side of the House who has not spoken in about a month and a half because he accused Conservatives of being pro-Russia. As a result, your deputy asked him to withdraw his comment. He did not want to withdraw …
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Madam Speaker, believe it or not, I have a thought on that. The exact same day the carbon tax increased by three cents in the country, Alberta increased its own gas tax by four cents. I did not hear one bit of outrage from Conservative MPs about what Danielle Smith was doing. They know that the information they are providing is false and that they are doing it only for political opportunity. If it…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that comment. I always feel as though it is a bit of a set up when Quebec MPs ask me about pricing mechanisms in Quebec, because I think they know how I feel about it. I believe it is among the best in the world. Ontario, my province, used to be involved in that pricing mechanism as well, but unfortunately our premier was short-sighted and got out of it. At the same tim…
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Madam Speaker, how is it possible for the hon. member to have listened to the first half of my sentence and not the second half of it? The second half of my sentence, after I said that I knew I was better off, I said that I had no problem believing the PBO when he said that that eight out of 10 Canadians were better off. To member's point, that is why we have a rural top-up. It is why the rural to…
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Madam Speaker, there is nothing quite like slapping around the misinformation in the questions and answers portion. I like that best, but we will save it; that time will come shortly. I have had the opportunity to sit here today and listen to three speeches from Conservatives. I have listened to the Leader of the Opposition; his deputy leader, the member for Thornhill; and now the member for Oxfor…
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Madam Speaker, I am always pushing my government, whether in the House or in our caucus meetings, to do as much as we possibly can as it relates to reducing GHG emissions. A model that incentivizes people to make different choices, such as pricing pollution, whether it be at the retail or industrial level, will benefit tangible results in the future. This is not just me saying this. A vast majorit…
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Madam Speaker, I am not going to avoid the member's question. I am not going to do what the Leader of the Opposition or the member for Oxford did earlier when they were asked a question. I am going to answer the question directly. I think the member has a really good point. When I think of his riding, I do not think of downtown Toronto. It genuinely makes me question why his riding does not have t…
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I am trying to agree with their colleague and the Conservatives are heckling me. It is unreal. I think there should be a good assessment of this to understand why the government came to this conclusion. I am very happy that the government doubled the rural top-up to continue to help more rural Canadians, who are experiencing the impacts even more. Why it is not impacting his riding, to be honest, …
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Madam Speaker, they are laughing at it. I guess, to them, it is not a fact; however, it is literally a fact. The motion says that the average Canadian would save $670 between now and Labour Day, basically three months. I extrapolate how many litres one would have to use in order to save that at 29¢ per litre, and by the member for Oxford's math, we get to 3,293 litres. The Conservatives are saying…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a very specific question for the Leader of the Opposition, and I would ask that he listen and try to provide a direct answer to this. I think it is really important, and it pertains to the substance of his motion. The member's motion says that the average Canadian will save $670 between now and Labour Day. Now, if we look at the carbon tax, it is 17.6¢; the federal gas tax is 1…
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Madam Speaker, my colleagues are asking me to skip the speech and go straight to questions. If the Speaker would allow me to take 30 minutes of straight questions, I would absolutely love the opportunity to do that, but I do not think she will. If there was unanimous consent from the House, I would even take them up on that offer—
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Madam Speaker, I hope that the member does not go anywhere, because I want to hear his question. He will have an opportunity to ask me, and I would love to hear his math. The truth is, at least he is attempting to answer it. I asked the question of the Leader of the Opposition after his speech today. I said, “I just want to understand the math; explain the math to me.” Of course, the Leader of the…
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Madam Speaker, this happens a lot. Whenever I talk about the Conservatives and compare them to the MAGA Republicans in the south, they get outraged like this. The Conservatives do not like it.
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Madam Speaker, I just talked about the average Canadian. However, Alberta MPs, presuming they are purchasing their gas in Alberta, would get 37,000 kilometres of driving out of the potential savings that their leader is talking about. All that is to say that it is absolutely ludicrous what the Conservatives are suggesting and trying to sell to Canadians. I am sure an email will go out later today …
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Madam Speaker, that is why he must have voted against Ukraine. He thinks we should only be talking about Canadian politics in this room. What an outrageous statement to make, on a point of order no less. The reality is that the Conservative Party is the equivalent of the Republican alt-right in the United States. It is a reality. It comes from the neoliberal concept of having absolutely no involve…
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Mr. Speaker, while I talk about a very serious issue about what a Conservative premier did under the common-sense banner in Ontario and what it led to, which is the deaths of seven people, the Conservatives are heckling me and laughing at it. That is what the public should know. As before, I will not ask the Speaker to limit the minister's time to the length of my question. Does the minister share…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to something that I heard the minister say earlier. I think it stems a bit from what he was saying toward the end of his first answer. He said something very interesting. He said that observing a problem is easy; it is easy to see a problem. Dealing with a problem and coming up with solutions that require work is something completely different. Can he expand on that?
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Mr. Speaker, on the topic of pharmacare specifically, one reason it is so critically important is that if we are going to have a health care program to support people and take care of people when they get to the hospital, which is part of the health care programs throughout the country, we may as well be taking care of them in the preventative stages. If we, as the minister alluded to, set up prog…
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Madam Chair, on a point of order, I completely appreciate that there is latitude to go beyond the scope of the estimates, but we are not even talking about the estimates now. We are talking about an individual private member's bill. The last three or four questions have been on it. This is a debate about the estimates with this particular department.
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Madam Chair, I will start by talking, and then I will have some questions for the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions. I will let you know at the outset that I do not expect you to limit the time for responses to the time of my questions, if you would allow that. I talked, in my first intervention this evening, about the common-sense revolution of Mike Harris and what that did for health care…
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Mr. Speaker, yes, I was going to point that out, and I do not require the response to be limited to the amount of time of the question. I want to go back to the minister's comments about dental care specifically. During debates in this House as recently as just a couple of weeks ago, I had an exchange with a Conservative member who tried to tell me that only 41 dentists in the entire province of O…
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Mr. Speaker, that is a great segue to my next question, because I was going to provide some comments on this and then ask for the minister's take on this. It is one thing to be against a dental program, speak against it and vote against it, but it is an entirely different thing to actively root for a program to fail, a program that is going to support so many Canadians. That is unfortunately what …
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Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to be participating in this particular debate. I believe that the government has made significant progress, of course with the support of the NDP, to provide more and more services to Canadians. Things like pharmacare and dental care, which I will speak about in a few moments, are long-overdue programs. In my opinion, they are things that I have always thought w…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member should be directing her questions through you. She said, “Will you”, asking a question directly of the minister. Perhaps you could remind the House.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, the idea that a Speaker who is represented by individuals in their community cannot be partisan is absolutely ludicrous. I come from the riding of the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Commons, Peter Milliken. I personally attended fundraisers that Peter Milliken put on as a Liberal in our riding while he was Speaker. There is an established practice for it. If one does not wa…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member a very specific question. I would really like the member to listen to my question and directly answer it without rhetoric. If he is saying we should avoid the rhetoric and everything, then he should answer my question very directly and not skate past it. My question for him is this: Why would it be okay for the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, when he was…
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Madam Speaker, I regret to have to inform my colleagues that he is our Speaker. He is the House's Speaker and this is our House. Unless I have something wrong here, he is a Speaker who was elected by all of us, regardless of how members cast their votes. This further proves my point. The irony of this is that the Conservatives are going after the Speaker of the House of Commons for an image that w…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I voted in favour of the Speaker, and I think he is doing a great job.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I do not think the Speaker ever had the confidence of the member, the Conservatives or the Bloc Québécois, but that is not the issue at hand. The member spoke at great length about different activities the Speaker does in his riding. I would really appreciate it if the member answered my question directly. He has an ability to listen clearly to what I am saying. I would like him to …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question specifically about the Conservative tactics here. I find it incredibly rich that Conservatives are attacking our Speaker of the House of Commons for—
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I seek the unanimous consent of the House to table this post, because the member is incorrect in what he is saying, and it will clarify things for him if he accepts it.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, if I understand the answer to the last question, the member is saying that because of his definition of what an investment is, things like $10-a-day child care, investing—
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Mr. Speaker, the difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives is that when the court makes a decision, we respect that decision. Even if we do not like it or even if we do not agree with it, we respect it. We do not then turn around and say maybe we will use the notwithstanding clause in order to supersede the decision, which is exactly what the Leader of the Opposition does. The member t…
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Mr. Speaker, I have asked the member this question a number of times, and he neglects to ever really answer it. It is about the fact that he was an MLA in British Columbia when the carbon tax was introduced, and he voted in favour of it. He is on the record having voted for it. Now, he will not answer the question. I have asked it of him many times before. What I really want to know is, is it awkw…
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Mr. Speaker, I should not use the word, but this is what I mean. The Conservatives will be critical of my even saying that. This is the irony of where I am going with this: Any kind of expense, as it relates to a national school food program, for example, is not an investment; it is just an expenditure. That was the member's word. He said that there is an investment and there is an expenditure, an…
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Mr. Speaker, I will retract “hypocrite” and replace it with “the hypocrisy of it”.
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Mr. Speaker, if you deem the name “hypocrite” to be offensive, I appreciate that, and I withdraw it, but I just want to know this: Does the hypocrisy really bother him?
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Madam Speaker, I always get a kick out of listening to Conservatives say, “But Canada's emissions are just a tiny drop in the bucket globally.” The unfortunate reality for the member is that despite the fact that maybe the claim helps him sleep at night, Canada has some of the worst GHG emissions per capita. As a matter of fact, if we look at the average GHG emissions per capita in Europe, we see …
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Mr. Speaker, correct me if I am wrong, but the questions that are posed tonight are supposed to be with respect to the estimates. Is that correct? If so, the last line of questioning has significantly deviated from that.
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Madam Chair, on this side of the House we are being very quiet and letting the questions be answered, yet the minister is continually being heckled when he is trying to provide answers. Perhaps you could encourage the members on the other side, including the former Speaker of the House of Commons, to use better judgment and instead of lashing out, listen to what the minister has to say.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, that was at least the fourth time that the member directed his questions directly to the minister while asking a question and saying “minister”, “you” or “your”. Perhaps the Chair could remind the member of the rules and remind him that all questions need to be asked through the Chair.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, held annually on May 25, Africa Day celebrates the continent's diversity, rich heritage and culture. At the same time, Africa Day provides an opportunity to reflect on the challenges that many regions in Africa face and how we can help. Harnessing the humanizing power of art to be a catalyst for change, Heather Haynes founded The Art of Courage, creating a platform for storytelling th…
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