Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it has been eight months since fiscal year end. How are we supposed to vote on billions in spending and taxation without the deficit number? Speculation is that the government has blown through its fiscal anchor despite the finance minister promising that “This is our fiscal anchor—a line we shall not cross, and that will ensure that our finances remain sustainable so long as it remai…
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Madam Speaker, never has so much effort been put into renewing Parliament as has been over the past decade. Over $5 billion is being spent on renovating Parliament Hill. Centre Block, with its iconic Peace Tower, has been shuttered since December 2018 so that magnificent building can be restored. Tonnes of rock have been blasted out of the Canadian Shield. Some 40,000 truckloads of rock have been …
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Madam Speaker, quite simply, it is because the Treasury Board Secretariat's policy on government security would require the leader to sign a certificate or an undertaking to not reveal any information to anyone else under threat of criminal prosecution. This is a security clearance process that the Prime Minister himself has not gone through. That is why the leader of the official opposition has s…
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Madam Speaker, the government did not answer my earlier question on a very serious issue, so I will ask it again. U.S. border patrol released alarming data. CBS Boston reports that 155 suspects on the terror watch-list were encountered on the southern U.S. border this year, but 361 suspects on the watch-list were arrested on the northern border, more than double the number. Now Canada is threatene…
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Madam Speaker, that was a tax cut on consumption, not investment and income. The U.S. border patrol has released alarming data. CBS Boston reported on November 11 that a total of 155 suspects on the terror watch-list were encountered at the southern U.S. border in 2024, but double that number were encountered on the northern border and arrested, 361. Now Canada is threatened with 25% tariffs becau…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, the Constitution of Canada is the only constitution we have in Canada. It may not be perfect, but it is all we have. That is the reality. We are therefore going to respect the Canadian Constitution. In my opinion, the Constitution has a lot of issues. Maybe we will be able to improve it in the future, but we have to respect the Canadian Constitution, because the rule of law is a fun…
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Madam Speaker, I go back to the 1991 case during the government of then prime minister Brian Mulroney, where the government of the day said that it was not going to hand over the documents related to the Solicitor General because of privacy concerns. The House ordered the documents be handed over, and the government complied at the following meeting of the Standing Committee on Justice and the Sol…
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Madam Speaker, in answer to the first question, the word “appears” is used, because the only restrictions on Parliament's absolute right to order the production of documents are that those documents be present in Canada, not extraterritorially, and that they exist. That is why they use the word “appears” in the previous sentence. With respect to the question about the U.K. case, it was a legal opi…
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Madam Speaker, last month, National Bank said, “GDP per capita has fallen by around 4.0% cumulatively since 2022, which is unprecedented outside a recession.” Now the economy is threatened with 25% tariffs, which the Canadian Chamber of Commerce says could shrink Canada's GDP by another 2.6%. The bigger decline in GDP would come from the government's policies, not from potential tariffs. That is b…
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Madam Speaker, the answer is simple. We do not believe that this information should be kept secret. It has to be made public so that, when the next election comes around, Canadians have the information they need to make an informed choice based on the contents of this report. We do not believe that this information should be secret. We believe that it should be made public. We believe that Canadia…
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Madam Speaker, Statistics Canada just released data showing a sharp decline in per capita GDP last quarter. This is the sixth consecutive quarterly decline. This is a made-in-Canada, per capita recession caused by a government that stubbornly refuses to listen to everyone, from the Bank of Canada to private sector economists. When will the government start listening to the experts, heed common sen…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question and I note that he represents the former riding of the Right Hon. Paul Martin. I would like to respond by saying that it is clear that we need to attract domestic and international investment in the Canadian economy. We have to start by lowering taxes on investments. The government is doing exactly the opposite by taxing capital gains, which red…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, it is really important for Canada to ensure that our approach to climate change is integrated with that of the United States. Our economies are integrated, from autos to food manufacturing and from energy to services. We cannot have a regulatory environment here that is substantially different from that of the United States. It is really important that we ensure that there is a redo…
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Madam Speaker, on a quick point of order, I misquoted an Economist article title. I would like Hansard corrected so that the correct title of the article is in Hansard. The title of the article, dated September 30, 2024, was, “Why is Canada’s economy falling behind America’s? The country was slightly richer than Montana in 2019. Now it is just poorer than Alabama.”
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, the member is utterly wrong. Here is an analysis from National Bank Financial by Matthieu Arseneau and Alexandra Ducharme, from several weeks ago. They say, “Consequently, GDP per capita has fallen by around 4.0% cumulatively since 2022, which is unprecedented outside a recession.” Speaking of investments, I will quote the Governor of the Bank of Canada, Tiff Macklem, who was in fro…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. Let us go back 10 years ago, to 2014. On April 30, 2014, The New York Times published an article entitled “Life in Canada, Home of the World’s Most Affluent Middle Class.” The article stated that “median income in Canada appears to have surpassed median income in the United States, based on more than t…
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Mr. Speaker, we have more bad news from experts. New StatsCan data shows that per-person GDP is shrinking again. For the eighth time in the last nine quarters, Canadians are getting poorer. This is a made-in-Canada per capita recession that has lasted two years, caused by a government that has driven out investment by hiking taxes on everything: income, financial institutions, housing, fuel and in…
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Mr. Speaker, here is another expert from the Bank of Canada: senior deputy governor Carolyn Rogers. On March 24, she issued a stark warning. She said that Canada is falling behind other countries because of weak business investment, a lack of competition and a failure to integrate immigrants into the workforce, all responsibilities of the government. She said, “I’m saying that it’s an emergency—it…
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Mr. Speaker, I will tell members the briefing the Leader of the Opposition would take. He would take the same kind of briefing the Washington Post got on classified information given by the national security and intelligence adviser and the deputy minister of foreign affairs. He would take the same briefing that I got under section 12.1 of the CSIS Act, “Measures to reduce threats to the security …
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Mr. Speaker, fact one: PFLP is a listed terrorist entity. Fact two: Khaled Barakat was a member of PFLP when he founded Samidoun in 2012, and his wife, Charlotte Kates, incorporated Samidoun under Canadian law in 2021. Fact three: Under section 83.05 of the Criminal Code, any entity that “has knowingly acted on behalf of, at the direction of or in association with” a listed entity can be listed. T…
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Mr. Speaker, the government has all sorts of excuses for why it will not provide documents to the House or to the RCMP about the $400-million spending scandal. The Liberals falsely claim it would violate privacy, that it would negatively impact the RCMP's investigation and that it would violate charter rights. The Constitution is clear: Parliament is supreme and Parliament has the lawful authority…
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Mr. Speaker, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms also includes sections 3, 4 and 5, which are about the democratic rights of Canadians. Canadians have the right to be democratically represented on the floor of this House. The majority of this House has demanded the production of documents related to the $400-million spending scandal. We did the same thing with the Winnipeg lab documents. Why does t…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the evidence is clear. Samidoun, also known as the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, is knowingly acting on behalf of, at the direction of or in association with at least one terrorist entity listed under the Criminal Code: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Samidoun is based in Canada and incorporated as a not-for-profit under the Canada Not-for-profit Corporat…
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Mr. Speaker, the data, these statistics, are not coming from Conservatives. They are coming from credible financial experts at the Financial Times of London and The Economist, two organizations for which the finance minister once worked. Surely, the government is not suggesting these organizations are biased. Again, to fix a problem, one has to admit that it exists. Will the government admit that,…
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Mr. Speaker, the bad news keeps rolling in from credible financial experts. This week's Economist says, “Were Canada's ten provinces and three territories an American state, they would have gone from being slightly richer than Montana, America's ninth-poorest state, to being a bit worse off than Alabama, the fourth poorest.” To fix a problem, one has to admit that it exists. Will the government ad…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Richard Blair Morrow, beloved husband of Sandy and devoted father to Tanya and Alana, passed away at the age of 84. He was elected to Halton Regional and Town of Halton Hills councils in 1974, the year they were formed. In fact, the name “Halton Hills”, which the municipality still has today, was Ric's suggestion. The name won in a resident vote for the newly merged municipality. Ric …
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Mr. Speaker, the Bank of Canada has become the first central bank to cut rates because Canada has become the first leading economy to go through an economic contraction. Again, the Financial Times, for which the finance minister once worked, said, “Canada’s GDP per capita has been [shrinking] 0.4 per cent a year since 2020, the worst rate” for any developed economy in the top 50. Does the governme…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, since the Peace of Westphalia was concluded in 1648, the international system has developed into modern nation states and international law. In the almost 400 years since those treaties were established, the world has created nation states that conduct relations based on international law. That international system further developed after 1945, a period during which Canada was instrum…
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to quote one of the world's most credible news organizations on financial and economic matters. A headline from the Financial Times of London on May 10, 2024, reads: “'Breakdown nations' like Canada have a lesson for the world: Canada leads nations which have suffered a sharp decline in per-capita GDP”. I have a simple question: Does the government agree that Canada leads n…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, of course Canada is a democracy but, at the same time, we are not perfect. We have plenty of problems. The same can be said of other democracies around the world, like Israel; it is not a perfect democracy. There are internal problems there, but it is not for us to speak to the issues that exist in other democracies. There are problems in the great democracy of southern North America,…
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government should show leadership in tackling the heinous rise in anti-Semitism in our country, in tackling the disorder in our public spaces and our streets that is targeting Jews, synagogues and Jewish institutions such as schools. I believe the public safety minister should convene a federal-provincial Solicitors General meeting in order to come to agreement among the 1…
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Mr. Speaker, we have to do this because this is a major war between democracies and authoritarian states.
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I think the Government of Canada should immediately suspend all funding to UNRWA. It is clear that UNRWA has a problem with a certain number of employees who are supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah, and UNRWA has a problem with some of its facilities being used as staging grounds for terrorist activities, and that is why the Government of Canada should immediately suspend funding.
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I would like to quote article 51 of the United Nations charter, which states, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations”. I am wondering whether the member would comment on the state of Israel's right to defend itself under article 51 of the UN Charter.
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, the International Court of Justice did not find that Israel had committed genocide; it just asked the State of Israel to comply with the 1948 Genocide Convention, which Israel is in the process of and has been doing. With respect to Amnesty International's interpretation of international humanitarian law, I disagree with its interpretation of the facts on the ground. At the end of the…
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Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the premise of my hon. colleague's question. I have seen no credible reports that indicate the State of Israel has contravened international humanitarian law. I have also seen no credible reports that the State of Israel has violated customary international law—
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I have seen no credible reports of the State of Israel's violating either international humanitarian law or customary international law. The number of civilians who have been, unfortunately, killed in this conflict is not an arbitrary determinant as to whether a state is complying with international law. I remind this House that the Allies during the Second World War killed 400,000 Ge…
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Mr. Speaker, nine years ago, we warned the government about joining the Beijing-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and so did the Obama-Biden administration. Last year, news about the Chinese Communist Party's infiltration of the bank forced the government to initiate a boycott and to begin a review. The boycott has now been 15 months. Canada still has its shares and Beijing still has the n…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, according to the report of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, the budget of the United Front Work Department, which engages in foreign interference, is $2.6 billion U.S. per year. Furthermore, 23% of that budget is allocated to foreign interference targeting every country of the world, including Canada. What does my colleague think about the fact t…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, now that Bill C-70 is back in the House for third reading, I would like to take this opportunity to outline the long journey it took to get to this point. In 2018, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, David Vigneault, advised the government about threats presented by the People's Republic of China. That year, he warned the Prime Minister that PRC activities re…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the hon. member points out amendments that were made to the bill that would see the commissioner appointed not only after consultations with the leaders in the House of Commons and Senate, but also after resolutions are adopted by the House and the Senate. I think that would strengthen the independence of the commissioner while also ensuring that the commissioner is situated within …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it would require people who are conducting legitimate influence activities on behalf of a foreign government or an entity associated with that foreign government to register. It provides a deterrent for those who would not register and who would conduct illegitimate, coercive, clandestine and corrupt foreign interference activities in Canada, and so I think it strikes a balance. It …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, first of all, we disagree with the amendments regarding a three-year ban. This bill applies to every country in the world. There could be consequences for elected representatives who leave the House and go to work for organizations among our allies that were created to promote democracy or to protect Canada. Second, according to the report, PRC officials engaged in foreign interfere…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, one week ago, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians released a report containing its findings. The report came after more than a year of work by the committee. The committee reviewed some 33,000 pages from 4,000 classified documents. The committee members were briefed, and they interviewed dozens of top intelligence and government officials, including …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I remember well the foreign interference threat activities that were revealed by Dick Fadden in the public realm in 2013. They were directed at provincial governments and municipal politicians. I would note that the then Liberal government at Queen's Park in Toronto discounted that intelligence advice, dismissed it and said that it was not sufficient to take action. Here we are, som…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member has done a lot of very good work on the issue and at the public inquiry, and she rightfully points out something, which is that it has been reported that up to 10% or so of the documents the government has submitted for the second phase of the inquiry have been redacted and that other documents have been withheld from the public inquiry. After reading the NSICOP report of…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the report reveals that parliamentarians, including members of the House, knowingly and wittingly assisted a hostile foreign state in Parliament and in our elections to the detriment of the people of Canada. This is shocking. I cannot believe the following needs to be said. Parliamentarians' duty is not to a foreign state, but to the people of Canada. My question is simple. Will the P…
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Mr. Speaker, the NSICOP report makes it clear that the Prime Minister was advised, back in 2018, of the national security threats against Parliament from hostile foreign states. He was advised that measures in place at the time were not sufficient. He was advised to take further action. Three times, the senior civil service asked for his approval for action to protect Parliament: in December 2019,…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect their institutions to protect them from the malign threat activities of authoritarian states. Canadians expect the whole of the Government of Canada, including its intelligence agencies and law enforcement, to protect our elections and democratic institutions from the coercive, clandestine and corrupt foreign interference threat activities of authoritarian states. Tha…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I note that part 4 of the bill provides for the creation of a commissioner. That commissioner would be situated within the machinery of government, within the Department of Public Safety Canada, and would be appointed at the advice of the Prime Minister. An amendment that would perhaps strengthen the independence of that office would be to appoint the commissioner after the Prime Mini…
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