Parliamentary Speeches
611 speeches by Michelle Rempel Garner — Page 4 of 13
Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, one of the amendments that needs to be made to the bill to prevent endless chain migration, which the bill currently provides for without any sort of consecutive residency requirement, is to ensure that those who the bill applies to spend some sort of substantive length of time in Canada in a consecutive manner. The bill does not apply to that. Right now, ad infinitum, descendants cou…
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Mr. Speaker, as has been expressed in debate today, Conservatives have deep concerns with two omissions in the bill. First, there is no consecutive residency requirement in the bill, which means somebody way down the generational chain could claim Canadian citizenship with no significant ties to Canada and no obligations to the country. The second thing is that there is no security vetting prior t…
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Mr. Speaker, we are here debating a bill today that the Liberals have proposed, which would give endless chain migration, the ability to pass down citizenship ad infinitum, to anybody. We just heard a speech, for those who are tuning in, that shows why this bill is so poorly designed. A member from the Liberal Party stood up and, over and over again in questions and answers, which will be interest…
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Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled. Members are saying, “Well, the NDP is not in government.” I do not know why the Liberals would just support their bill. It is completely strange. Here is the thing: We do not know how many people the bill would affect. The government could not say, over a 10-, 20- or 30-year period, how many people would be able to draw health care benefits in Canada, draw on the s…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister spoke about the responsibilities of Canadian citizens, but those responsibilities include paying taxes to pay for services such as health care. The bill goes well beyond closing a loophole for a small group of people, which previous Conservative legislation and Conservatives supported. By contrast, the PBO estimated that the bill would grant citizenship to over 100,000 pe…
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to do that. In fact, I would speak to her boss, the Prime Minister, who appointed her as the House leader when the House was not sitting and then demoted her.
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Mr. Speaker, what we have heard the member say in responding to questions is that she did not have a number, but then did have a number, but did not, and that it might be 100,000, which is small, but that it might also be 20,000 or maybe a dozen. The point here is that the Liberals are essentially, with this bill, enabling endless chain migration with no consecutive residency requirement, which ac…
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Mr. Speaker, I refuse to accept that in order to litigate and hold the government to account for its endless failures in the immigration system, the House should have to accept a bill that is so deeply flawed as this and that extremely denigrates the value of Canadian citizenship. I agree with my Bloc colleague. I cannot wait to work with his colleague, who is the spokesperson for the immigration …
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Mr. Speaker, it is not fair. If the government was serious about addressing that point, it would have tabled a bill that had some sort of consecutive residency requirement. I do not think that is asking for much, particularly since that is international best practice. I do think that if the government was willing to accept an amendment to that point, it would solve all the problems. It would solve…
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-216, An Act to enact the Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act and to amend two Acts. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to introduce a bill that would protect Canadians online while safeguarding their civil liberties. The bill proposes a tightly scoped legislative duty of care for online operators as it pertains to children's online safety, would strengthe…
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Mr. Speaker, the recent Auditor General's report revealed that GC Strategies, a Liberal insider company, was paid a whopping 64.5 million tax dollars by the Liberal government to do literally nothing. Think about how Canadians struggling to make ends meet feel about having to pay massive taxes just to enrich Liberal insiders. It is like reverse Robin Hood. Will the Liberals support our motion to g…
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Mr. Speaker, not only are the Liberals tolerating this behaviour; they are promoting the people who oversaw it. In the normal world, somebody who would have overseen $65 million going to scammers would have been fired. Instead, these ministers have been promoted. Today, we found out these ministers want to give even more money to consultants to manage web pages. Why is it that with the Liberals, i…
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Mr. Chair, however, the minister's purview is to set the levels plan. If she is setting levels with hundreds of thousands of foreign students and low-skilled labourers but does not know how many low-skilled labourers and foreign students who are not supposed to be in the country have left, how can she set levels if she does not know that number?
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Mr. Chair, during COVID, the federal government asked everybody to give up their civil liberties, and it shut down the economy to bend the curve to lower the impact, supposedly, on emergency rooms. Then the government added a hockey stick curve of immigrants to the strain on the emergency rooms. Why did it?
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Mr. Chair, Canadians literally pay the minister's $100,000 top-up and give her a car to know the numbers. How many of the 500,000 people who were supposed to leave in December actually left? This is pretty simple: How many is it? Does she know?
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Mr. Chair, if the government does not remove people from Canada, why do we have an immigration minister to begin with?
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Mr. Chair, what is the minister's plan to get those people to leave?
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Mr. Chair, tonight we have heard the minister not know how many people have left the country. She has claimed that the processing time for asylum claims, while people with potentially fraudulent asylum claims claim social benefits, is 18 months. Her department said it was 44 months in committee just a few short months ago. She will not answer basic questions about the file. She does not take respo…
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Mr. Chair, does the minister at least agree that the 500,000 people who are here but should not be here, as of December, should leave immediately? Can she say, yes, she agrees?
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Mr. Chair, how many of the 500,000 people who are not supposed to be in Canada have been removed? I would like just the number.
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Mr. Chair, the minister said earlier that they brought immigrants in because of COVID. All right, there is a lot to unpack here. There are 500,000 people, as of December 2024, who should have been removed from Canada. How many were removed?
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Mr. Chair, they are not being followed. Does the minister not understand that if we do not remove people who do not have a legal right to be here, the system is meaningless? Will the minister admit that the Liberals broke the system and that it is out of control?
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Mr. Chair, here is the thing: The minister cannot set levels if she does not know how many people have left, so it is her job. I need to know how many people of that 500,000 have left. How about this: Does the minister even know? Does she have any clue?
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Mr. Chair, the minister claims she has been on the job for only a couple of weeks, but she was the minister of immigration in Nova Scotia for many years, close to a decade, I think. During that time, the Auditor General, in 2022, found that there was no process to determine labour market needs. The minister also asked for no cap on the number of people coming into her province. Is this what we can…
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Mr. Chair, I would ask the minister to say that to somebody who cannot find housing in Toronto right now. There are 500,000 people, at least, in Canada who have no legal reason to be here. How many have been removed since the report came out in December?
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Mr. Chair, let us talk about challenges. Our ERs are overflowing, people cannot find a home or a job and the levels report says immigration is going up. How many people have been removed of the 500,000 who are on deportation orders announced in December 2024?
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Mr. Chair, the minister has not. The government is letting in hundreds of thousands of foreign students and temporary foreign workers. Why is the minister persisting in letting in hundreds of thousands of people when Canada is in the middle of a health care crisis?
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Mr. Chair, they are not leaving the country, which is the problem. They are not leaving, and the minister will not tell us how many have been removed. What is the plan to get them to leave?
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Mr. Chair, again, I have the CBC article right here. The minister asked for a full removal of caps on immigrants. Would she agree that the number of people coming into Canada must be immediately and massively reduced?
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Mr. Chair, that is baloney. All the statistics show that the government has actually increased those numbers. Meanwhile, Canadians cannot get into an emergency room. Why is the government persisting in bringing in hundreds of thousands of students and temporary foreign workers on temporary visas when people cannot find a job?
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Let me contextualize it for you, Mr. Chair. The reality is that there were way fewer than 290,000 housing starts last year, and there are a lot more than 290,000 people waiting for a family doctor right now. Why is the minister persisting in raising immigration levels when people cannot find a doctor or a job?
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Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time three ways. I have an article here from the CBC wherein the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship asked the federal government to fully eliminate the cap on new immigrants, with no limit. Does she still believe that there should be no limits on how many people enter Canada?
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Mr. Chair, what is not sustainable is that there are roughly 500,000 people, as of December 2024, who need to be removed from the country. How many have been removed?
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Mr. Chair, how many more people is the minister going to let into the country while those people stay here?
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Mr. Chair, we were living in different times. It was a Conservative federal government and we had a balanced budget. I am thankful to the minister for acknowledging that. That is wonderful; it warms my heart. Earlier, the minister said that the economy would have collapsed if it had not been for immigration during COVID. Does she want to stand by that statement?
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Madam Speaker, today we found out that unemployment has climbed to 7%. Canada's youth face a 14.2% unemployment rate, and Canadian students returning to school this fall face a whopping 20.1% rate. The future outlook is even more grim. TD Bank expects 100,000 job losses this fall, and the Bank of Canada just stated that businesses are planning to significantly reduce hiring, yet the Liberals issue…
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Mr. Speaker, millions of people in Canada are here on expired visas or visas that are about to expire. In order to fix the immigration system, the Canadian public should have publicly disclosed information on how many people exit. Why did the minister not include a departure-tracking mechanism in this bill? Is it because she does not want one?
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Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone in Oakville West would think that going from absolutely crazy, insane levels of car theft to mucho, extra crazy levels of car theft is acceptable. The problem is that the Liberals are saying there was a drop, but it is still out of control. There are people in Oakville who have to buy bollards to put in front of their cars because their cars get stolen. The membe…
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Mr. Speaker, if 2025 me travelled back in time to 2015 and said, “The government is going to use the Emergencies Act to freeze Canadians' bank accounts and then introduce a bill to criminalize thought crimes and cause news bans,” in 2015, I would have said, “What?” However, that is exactly what happened. Call me skeptical, but I am saying no to any bill that has provisions that give the government…
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Mr. Speaker, I think we are getting somewhere. I am sure my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois have concerns about some of the deep incursions into provincial jurisdiction as well. Again, we are getting some consensus in debate, and as with Bill C-63, which had provisions about increased reporting requirements for child pornography, there might be a few things in this bill we can agree to agree on…
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, there are elements of this bill that are worthy of study that could make things safer. The problem is that the Liberals have, once again, forced all of us, including my colleague, into a situation where we are supposed to choose between civil liberties and protecting our constituents. I am hoping there can be some sort of resolution here that does not involve that choice. I…
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Mr. Speaker, I doubt the hon. member my colleague is referring to who made the comment actually read the bill, because he has not. This is what the bill says. As my colleague across the way mentioned, there are some provisions, although not that one, that could ostensibly, maybe, help fix the mess that the Liberals created themselves. However, there are some things in there so egregious that I thi…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals promised to cap foreign study permits, which also allow people to work in Canada, but new data shows that the Liberals blew their cap out of the water by handing out a whopping 500,000 foreign study permits last year, roughly the same population as all of Halifax. Why did the Liberals bring half a million foreign students to Canada during a massive housing shortage and wh…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Earlier in question period, the Minister of Immigration accused me of misleading the House. I would like permission to table the date I referred to, which was from her website. It might help her out. I can deliver it by the page if that is what she would like. It is—
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Mr. Speaker, as I rise in debate for the first time in this 45th Parliament, I would like to present colleagues with some statistics about what a rare and unique privilege it is to serve in this place, if they will give me the floor. Of the millions upon millions of people who have lived in Canada throughout its entire history, fewer than 5,000 individual Canadians have served as members of Parlia…
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Mr. Speaker, if Bill C-2 passes, it would allow CSIS, police and peace officers to demand personal info from online service providers without a warrant based only on vague suspicions of potential crime or legal breaches of any act of Parliament. Whether or not a Canadian uses an online service, where they use it and when they use it are personal information, and the government has not provided a c…
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Mr. Speaker, I got the numbers from the minister's website; I went onto the website and read them. In the middle of a housing crisis, she brought 500,000 people to Canada. These people compete with Canadians for jobs, and they require housing and health care. If the minister's department's numbers are not the real numbers, what are the real numbers?
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Mr. Speaker, the government put this bill out and did not explain to Canadians specific instances or why Canadians should be giving up these liberties. I do not think we should be giving them up. It is completely unreasonable for the government to say “just trust us” when there is an entire burden of proof that we should not ignore. I remember the former finance minister, during her description of…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals invited millions of migrants into Canada, knowing full well they did not have the economic and social infrastructure to support them. Canada now has a massive housing crisis, endless health care wait times and countless Canadian youth without jobs. Newcomers themselves are not to blame. It is the Liberals who misled everybody about Canada's capacity to absorb millions, es…
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Mr. Speaker, just to reiterate, by the end of this year, nearly five million people will be in Canada with expired or expiring visas, and the government has no plan for how it is going to get them to leave. We have a housing crisis, a youth jobs crisis and a health care wait-time crisis. Knowing this, the Liberals have already issued nearly 177,000 new temporary foreign work permits this year, a 1…
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