Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, out of respect for the health minister, I informed her office that I would be asking this question. I hope she respects the House enough to stand and answer it. The Liberals blew $250 million on PrescribeIT. That is the same amount they spent on the sponsorship scandal. Taxpayers got nothing for this money. The Liberals are outright cancelling the program, acknowledging that it was a …
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Mr. Speaker, I think it is the case that, fundamentally, failure has been rewarded in the Liberal government, year after year, for 10 years straight. That is why the passport office broke. That is why the post office has broken, and that is why the immigration system is broken. Eventually, those who govern need to exercise some judgment. They need to be able to say, “This isn't working well. We're…
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Mr. Speaker, I apologize for seeking to allay my colleague's misapprehension or misunderstanding of my comments. I said there are two million outstanding files in the immigration department, overall, awaiting processing. That is not the number of illegal refugee claims.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish we were here today to talk about health care. Instead, we have to talk about health care fraud. The fraud is undeniable. It is unfair, and the Liberals could stop it by voting for our motion today. For the Canadians watching at home, let me please explain. Currently, if someone declares themselves a refugee to Canada, they get Cadillac health benefits that tax-paying, law-abidi…
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Mr. Speaker, it is important to put these numbers into perspective. Eventually, million, billion and trillion all becomes a haze. The cost of this program has gone up 10 times over the years that it has existed. It used to be $86 million. Now it is $1 billion, and that is about to exceed the entire federal health transfer to the province of Saskatchewan. It is bananas. It is out of control. It is …
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Mr. Speaker, I would just ask my colleague opposite not to shout. I do not think that sort of aggression is warranted here. The Parliamentary Budget Officer made his report. He said this is the projection. It could change if Bill C-12 does not see court challenges. It likely is going to receive court challenges. Many groups have already said they are going to challenge Bill C-12 in court. The PBO …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, 21 years ago, residents of Kitchener, Ontario, were shocked to hear of a mass murder in our community. Self-described Satanist Michael Sirois rang the doorbell of 87-year-old Verna, whom he once knew from church. He stabbed her and 47-year-old Randy 27 times, including through both eyes. Danny Penner is the brother of Randy. He shared with me the incredible trauma these murders contin…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, that minister knows very well that he has lost 32,000 people who have been ordered deported. As a physician, as the son of a refugee to Canada, this issue is very close to my heart. I wish we were speaking about health care today, but instead we must speak about health care fraud. We are talking about people who claim refugee status only after they are investigated or arrested for cri…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am glad that got a laugh. What the bill would do is restore some of the fairness and some of the transparency. If it passes, which I dearly hope it will, and the CRA forgives more than a million dollars in loans or taxes, it would at least have to say who it gave it to and why. I think the vast majority of Canadians would never see a million dollars, let alone have a tax bill of o…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, it is such a pleasure to rise in support of this very excellent bill, presented by my very excellent colleague from Simcoe North. The bill is important. It speaks to principles that are fundamental to a just government, to fairness and to transparency. I am sorry to say that these principles have been sorely lacking in the actions of the Liberal government over the last 10 years. Fo…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is my understanding that the definition of disinformation includes purpose or intent, that it would be equivalent to intentionally misleading or lying. I just wonder if you would rule that it is unparliamentary to accuse the opposition of doing that.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I found most of that member's speech totally unnecessary. I will explain it very succinctly. Conservatives are here to oppose bad laws. Bill C-9 has become a bad law because of this bad amendment that the Liberals have agreed to, clandestinely with the Bloc, as reported by the National Post. When the former chair of the justice committee said that he thinks some religious texts are ha…
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Mr. Chair, Canadians do not want handouts when they lose their jobs; they want their jobs back. The Liberal solution to every single problem is to take tax money and then throw it at the wall. We want our jobs back. We want to work. We do not want EI. It is the opposite of what the Liberals ran on. It is the opposite of what the Prime Minister promised. After 10 years, it is still not going to wor…
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Mr. Chair, that is a big question for one minute. The major problem is 10 years of failed Liberal policies that have put us in such a weak position where somebody might want to have a trade war with us. We have more resources per capita than any other country. We have the space. We have the people. We have to let them get to work and get bureaucracy out of the way. The Prime Minister and his budge…
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Mr. Chair, it is such an honour to rise on behalf of the people of Kitchener South—Hespeler, thousands of whom work at the largest car plant in Canada, the Toyota factory in Hespeler. We, on this side of the House, have explained time and again how this electric vehicle mandate directly hurts workers right now and how it ends up being a cash transfer to Tesla, which does not make cars in Canada. I…
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Mr. Chair, in 2023, I was a simple Canadian citizen, a physician from Kitchener, Ontario, and I was really concerned that the government signed a $15-billion contract on my behalf, and on behalf of all Canadians, with Stellantis, without showing us that contract. I know that my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge is a successful businessman in the steel industry. We now see, as it was disclosed at t…
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Mr. Chair, the debate tonight should not be necessary. The Prime Minister of Canada called an election saying that he needed a mandate to take action to stand up against Trump and to build Canada strong. It has now been nine months, and he has not taken those actions. Many people took the Prime Minister at his word, but we all saw him nodding meekly in the Oval Office while President Trump threate…
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Mr. Chair, I respect the honourable gentleman very much. I am very concerned that he did not listen to a word of my speech. We are in a trade war. I am asking the government to fight the trade war, to take actions on the trade war. We do not win a war by lying down and going to sleep. We do not win a trade war by going to the Oval Office and promising the President $1 trillion of Canadian investme…
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Mr. Chair, I am a simple physician from Kitchener, Ontario. I grew up in Hespeler. I represent the people of Kitchener and Hespeler, and I care about the jobs in Kitchener South—Hespeler and the Toyota plant there. All of my effort is on that plant. There are many members on this side who have met with all of those groups. Those lobby groups know not to bite the hand that feeds them. They are stil…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, that member did not answer the question, so I am going to ask it again. The Prime Minister caved on countertariffs, on digital services taxes and on legal disputes about softwood lumber. We thought he was getting nothing for Canadians, but it turns out he was getting lots for his company, Brookfield. Days after he was in the White House, the Americans signed an $80-billion nuclear rea…
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Madam Speaker, this is a real doozy of a budget. It is such a doozy that perhaps this will be my last speech in this Parliament, so let us make it count. I want to start with some confessions. I believe we need to spend less and invest more. I believe we need to build Canada strong. I believe we need to make generational investments in Canada's future. Unfortunately, this budget does none of those…
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The day-to-day operating balance was minus $4.1 billion under the Liberals' definition for 2024, and it will be $33 billion under their definition for 2025. Is this what spending less on operating expenses looks like to the Prime Minister, increasing the operating deficit by 700%? Have the Liberals gone mad? Do their promises mean nothing? How are we supposed to have a democracy when someone can r…
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Madam Speaker, there are not many, and this does not surprise me. In general, politicians do not know how to build anything, because they do not build things. Builders build things, and home builders build houses. In Canada, home builders have always built homes. The reason they are not building homes now is that they are not allowed to. My friend Cal is a small-time renovator who lives in Kitchen…
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Madam Speaker, as for the second point, it is easy to tell mistruths with statistics. Canada's federal debt is low compared to pure countries as a percentage of GDP, but in terms of Canada's total public debt, because the federal government off-loads so many services to the provinces, such as education, housing in some important respects and health care, the provinces have taken on terrible debts.…
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Madam Speaker, I think we have decades-old standards for how budgets are disclosed to the Canadian public. To suddenly change those standards is shifty or sneaky. Then, it causes me a crisis of faith to find out that, even based on the Liberals' own terms, they are not increasing investment by as much as they are increasing spending. I was looking at Brookfield Asset Management's stock price incre…
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Madam Speaker, Japan has a lot of problems. It had a lost decade. Now we have had a lost decade because the Liberals have copied its playbook.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it is adjusted for the inflation that they caused. The Liberals' new budget is generationally expensive. It is historically expensive. Every dollar the Prime Minister spends will come out of Canadians' pockets. The more Liberals spend, the more things will cost. Through either taxes or inflation in the future, the costs will come. Eighty billion dollars is $2,000 for each man, woman a…
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Madam Speaker, I have admired the hon. member's oratory skills for many years, so it is a real delight to get to ask him this question now. One part of his speech that I admired most was his defence of provincial jurisdiction. I think it is important that the people who would be most affected by a policy be the ones who design it, so then I was surprised when he said that he thinks the national ca…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, I visited the Kitchener food bank. Its CEO told me that visits to the centre have quintupled in the last 10 years. What happened 10 years ago to start all of this? The Liberals came into power, promising to grow the middle class, but after 10 years of their massive spending on nonsense like gender-neutral rice in Vietnam, the middle class in Canada can no longer afford to eat. Some …
Read full speech →Statements by members
Mr. Speaker, I represent Kitchener South—Hespeler, home to Toyota Canada, the largest car plant in our great nation. I remember when its expansion was announced in 1994. Then, as now, the plant was a source of great community pride. Year after year, it wins awards for the quality of its product and its investments in its people. In 30 years, it has never laid off a full-time employee. It employs m…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for continuing to engage so co-operatively. However, I did not catch a question, so I will take it as a comment. There are Liberals, Bloc members and Conservatives on the committee. The member suggested that we take the bill to committee and all work together. Two parties did, but one did not, and one party seeks to undo the work of the committee now. I am not sure …
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Mr. Speaker, I too am perplexed, like the hon. member who made the comment. Probably the best thing for me to do is to sit down, because I am still dying to hear from Liberal members. I have not yet heard which of these amendments they are planning to vote against and why. Is it the case that they are planning to vote against? All I heard in the questions so far from the Liberal member was denigra…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question. It allows me to reprise the core theme of my first speech on the bill, which is that Canadian citizenship has value insofar as Canadian citizens contribute value. We put money into the pot, and then when we need our health care system, it is there for us. However, to say that 100,000 individuals who have never been to Canada, but whose grandparents…
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House, but I must say I rise today in utter sorrow to speak about Bill C-3 and what could have been. I had the honour of speaking about this bill at second reading, and I poured my heart into that speech. I spoke in French for the first time in the House during my last speech to highlight that Canada is not a postnational state. On the contrary,…
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Mr. Speaker, I am having trouble hearing myself speak over the very co-operative member.
Read full speech →Government Orders
I think he is just trying to co-operate very hard, as promised. Mr. Speaker, I also know that Liberal voters, the ones who did not vote for me, the ones who were enamoured by the new Prime Minister's promise of change, would find these to be eminently sensible amendments that are necessary. Therefore, I am shocked. I cannot understand why the Liberal House leadership has signalled that the Liberal…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-12. This is the fourth time I am speaking to a piece of government legislation in this Parliament. For the first time, I think it is the story of the bill rather than its content that I find most interesting. I apologize to those following at home if it seems a little bit like inside baseball, but in every Parliament, the …
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Mr. Speaker, I am heartened, I suppose, that the member opposite heard and understood the question. I am terribly disheartened that she decided not to answer the question. I take it as a tacit admission that she does not support this legislation. As for my leader's comments, it is my job here to criticize the appointments the government makes. Criticizing their appointments is well within what we …
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Mr. Speaker, I am so surprised to receive that question. I think I explained it to the member during my last two speeches on government legislation. The Liberals violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they imposed the Emergencies Act, sections 2 and 8. That is not me, but Justice Mosley of the Federal Court who found that. I would love to hear the member apologize for that violation. Bil…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, what Canadians care about is the cost of living, and the more the Liberals deficit spend, the more it costs Canadians at the grocery store. New inflation data today confirms this. All three core inflation measures are above target. Rent is up 5% over the year, and groceries are up 4% over the year. After 10 years of the Liberals' deficits, the cost of living in this country cannot tak…
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Mr. Speaker, none of those words provide material support to the 8,000 of my neighbours in my hometown who work at the largest car plant in Canada. They depend on those jobs to put food on the table this Thanksgiving. They depend on those jobs to pay their rent at the end of the month. Let me be clear: This plant cannot survive the current tariff regime, and Trump officials said that the regime is…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are breaking their campaign promise to stand up for auto workers and to stand up against tariffs. This week, we all saw the Prime Minister sit down in the Oval Office, meekly nodding while President Trump threatened to steal more of our auto workers' jobs. I did not see any elbows go up. I saw a promise to send another $1 trillion of Canadian investment over to the U.S.A.…
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think you would agree with me that it is terribly unparliamentary to accuse the party opposite of lying to Canadians. That is not the case.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear the member opposite, who is a very gifted speaker. I always hear the Liberals say they are working hard and that they understand there is an affordability crisis, but I never hear any analysis of why this affordability crisis developed during their time in power. Over the last 10 years, in Kitchener and Waterloo, food bank usage has quintupled. The Libe…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals continually say they are going to build Canada strong and build a great economy. They have had 10 years to do it, and it has not happened. Canada's GDP per capita growth over the last 10 years was the lowest in the G7. I am begging the hon. member opposite merely to acknowledge that economic fact and, upon acknowledging it, reflect on what about the Liberals' plan did not…
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Mr. Speaker, I am totally confused. The member opposite said the Conservative government did not strengthen the economy. Would the member acknowledge that GDP per capita in Canada has not gone up but has flatlined over the last 10 years that the Liberals have been in government?
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to create jobs in Canada, but since he became Prime Minister, we have lost 86,000 jobs, which is a promise broken. He promised to increase investment in Canada, but since he became Prime Minister, we lost $54 billion of investment to the United States, which is another promise broken. Yesterday, we all watched in shock as he promised another $1 trillion of …
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Mr. Speaker, yes, Conservatives will work day and night to fix the bill to improve our cybersecurity, in the committee, in every committee and in the chamber. We are committed to improving cybersecurity. We are committed to not violating charter rights.
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Mr. Speaker, it has unfortunately been a theme with the current government. It is not just Bill C-8; it is also Bill C-9. It is also Bill C-5 in certain respects. With every problem the Liberals come across, they think the solution is to give themselves more power. They think that if they were to run the telecommunications system, it would be safer. They have been running the Post Office for the l…
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