Routine Proceedings
With regard to the CRA and the Disability Tax Credit (DTC) for the most recent fiscal year for which data is available: (a) how many initial assessments were completed and reviewed; (b) how many reassessments were completed and reviewed; (c) what is the number of initial DTC applications filed for both (a) and (b) that were approved; (d) what is the number of unsuccessful initial DTC applications …
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Madam Speaker, that is one of the first comments I think I have ever heard the hon. member make that I might agree with. We agree that it seems as though the minister in question sees every government program as a personal opportunity. That is what we are talking about today. It sounds like the hon. member was making the same point I am. I was going back to the conversations I have had in year-end…
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Madam Speaker, actually, the quote-unquote comment was “fake news” from the hon. member, so that point of order seems to be fake news in and of itself. I serve in an Edmonton riding. I have served for 19 years in the House. I have had the opportunity to—
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Madam Speaker, I always appreciate the member for Timmins—James Bay and his dedication to a high level of debate in the House. I will come back to the member for Edmonton Centre, an on-again, off-again member of the House. Of course, he was a member for four years and then was put on a time out and then came back for the last few years, taking a cabinet position as one of two Alberta members of Pa…
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Madam Speaker, I am having a hard time.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, before I start my comments today, I have an opportunity, because I am standing up, to recognize Sabrina Larson, who has worked in my constituency office for 16 years. She is here in Ottawa today to get a long service award. I cannot say whether she is in the House but I am very thankful for the work she has done for many, many years, helping my constituents handle their casework. I …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost. The government's own analysis admits that its cap on production will cost Canadians thousands of jobs and billions of dollars. Meanwhile, a Canadian company that cannot get a pipeline approved in Canada is investing $700 million in a U.S. project, and in 2023, the Liberals increased oil and gas imports to Canada, with…
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With regard to the Federal Lands Initiative, since the program launched in February 2019: how many homes (i) have been built, (ii) are currently under development?
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With regard to funding provided through the Housing Accelerator Fund: (a) how much funding has been provided to date, broken down by city or municipality and by province or territory; and (b) what are the key milestones that must be achieved before the federal government provides the next Housing Accelerator Fund payment, broken down by city or municipality?
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, again, the hon. member stands up and asserts that I am incorrect in what I said, but he does not actually reference what I said. Yes, our leader would be restricted. It is very clear. We could say he would be “gagged” or whatever other word we use, but he would be restricted in his ability to say things that he learns in the briefing. People might have different opinions on everything…
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It is interesting, Mr. Speaker, to listen carefully to that question. The assertion the member makes at the start of the question is that I have said something that is incorrect, but nowhere in her question does she actually itemize anything I said that was incorrect. She talks about evidence, but she does not give one piece of evidence that anything I said was incorrect. The fact of the matter is…
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Mr. Speaker, the member has asked me a lot of questions, but this might be the first relevant question he has asked in many years. The reality is that, when asked about this, the Conservative leader, the future prime minister, said in the House of Commons the other day that he is not going to be gagged by the Liberal government. He has the support of the person who was in charge of holding us to a…
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Mr. Speaker, I referenced that the election in January 2006 was precipitated by the sponsorship scandal. It was a minority Liberal government at the time that had been supported by the NDP. We saw that it eventually got to a point for the NDP that the scandal and information coming out was bad enough that no one with a conscience serving in opposition could possibly prop up a government in that ci…
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree with that. Anything that stops the Liberal-NDP partnership from continuing to destroy the economics of our country is important. I also want to point out the reason we are having this debate, which is that the Liberals continue to do exactly what the hon. member said. They relitigate a debate they already lost a vote on, which was the opposition day motion. That vot…
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Mr. Speaker, what a privilege it is to stand here, as I am preparing to do a speech in a completely different direction, and have the opportunity to reflect on a colleague with whom I had a chance to serve for many years in the House of Commons, Bob Sopuck. It was such a privilege to listen to my hon. colleague's fantastic speech and reflections. My thoughts are, as everybody else's are, with the …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, today is World Polio Day, a day to highlight global efforts to end polio. In 1996, Nelson Mandela said, “our aim is not merely to reduce the numbers afflicted—it is to eliminate the disease completely. No country can be safe from this disease until the whole world is rid of it.” Today, we are so close to that goal, with Canada consistently playing a leading role. Three Canadian prime …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, today is World Mental Health Day, and it is my absolute pleasure to highlight the critical work of the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health, or CAMIMH, a coalition of 18 national mental health organizations representing Canadians with lived experience with mental illness and their care providers. Each year, CAMIMH celebrates the champions of mental health, individuals…
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I am not sure we have quorum. And the count having been taken:
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, we need to have some clarity on the language that is allowed or not allowed in the House. The hon. Liberal member—
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
On that point, Madam Speaker, can you please clarify the language that you are deeming unparliamentary? I think it is critical right now that we get some clarity. The members on the other end who brought this up caused disruption—
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, when we introduced an amendment to deal with clawbacks, they voted against it. On the other topic, what I said was that we want the same thing. We want to help people. However, I also talked about outcomes; I hope he did not miss that part. The reality is that the outcomes we are achieving are not what our country wants right now. In fact, we are achieving the worst outcomes for vul…
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Madam Speaker, the NDP has brought up the Harper record multiple times today. The Harper government increased health transfers by 6% every single year we were in government. With Jim Flaherty as finance minister, we introduced the registered disability savings plan; Ready, Willing and Able; and Employment Works. We launched a Canadian autism partnership and funded Special Olympics. We got the Abil…
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Madam Speaker, it has been very interesting to listen to the debate today. Obviously, folks are passionate about this issue on all sides. As I reflect on this, I think about the university presentations I get a chance to do. I do a lot of presentations talking about, basically, how we define normal. I share stories of my son's life with autism and video clips that we have had a chance to make over…
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Mr. Speaker, we heard both NDP members of Parliament reference Conservative approaches to disability. I would point out that during our time in government, our finance minister, Jim Flaherty, known as a champion for the disability community, introduced measures to help Canadians with disabilities in every single budget, including ready, willing and able; the RDSP; the employment works program; and…
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Madam Speaker, I have mentioned this a couple of times. The number one thing we can do for vulnerable Canadians, whatever the vulnerability might be, is to fix the budget and to fix our spending problem in this country. Ultimately, the most vulnerable always pay the price. They pay the price in the present because their incomes do not go up with inflation. They pay the price in the future because …
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Mr. Speaker, the subject of Jim Flaherty will probably come up over the next three hours. I want to make sure we are clear on a couple of things because the hon. NDP member did not know who he was, and the Liberal member mocked him and his legacy a little in the House. Of course, Minister Flaherty passed away in 2014. He had a son with a developmental disability and was very public about it. The C…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I believe misleading the House is against the rules of the House. The hon. member can look at every single budget from the Conservative years—
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, tonight, I have a chance to revisit an exchange I had in question period at the end of May. Sadly, it was an exchange about the economy. Things have not gotten any better since May here in Canada, and we find ourselves dealing with a continuing economic crisis brought on by the policies of the Liberal government following, of course, the failed Trudeau economic plan of the seventies…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the hon. parliamentary secretary talked about the enviable position we have in Canada. She touted good news for property owners renewing their mortgages. However, because of the policies of the Liberal government, a Canadian renewing, say, a five-year fixed-term mortgage in September today versus someone who had a mortgage in September 2019 could be paying between $500 and $1,000 mo…
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Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the hon. member. When we look at the current situation, and we have heard this from members from all parties, we have to acknowledge that the status quo is not working. Certainly the answer cannot be to throw more money at the problem. The amount of record spending that the government has done over the last decade has led us to the fiscal crisis we are in…
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Madam Speaker, again, the situation we are in right now is infinitely worse than the situation a decade ago. We are sitting in a situation where, in the member's province, run by an NDP government, housing starts in the middle of a housing crisis are down 31% over the last year. We can go back a decade in history, but what is probably more relevant to this conversation is the last three or four ye…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in the debate today. I will be splitting my time with the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. I find this to be a fascinating debate. We are debating concurrence in a committee report that says that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities recognizes Canada is in a h…
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Madam Speaker, that hon. member lives in a fantasy world that I can only imagine visiting one day. If we look at the facts around that time, our Conservative government took on a global economic disaster and we set out a plan to get back to a balanced budget by 2015. In 2014, Canada had the richest middle class in the world. Fast forward 10 years and we are running unthinkable record deficits. The…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I want to talk about hypocrisy a bit. The member of Parliament for Winnipeg North stands up over and over again and talks about the amount of time the debate is taking, yet he burns up more minutes in the House talking than any other member here. He complains about the Conservative members who stand up to raise concerns from their constituents on important legislation, yet he speaks…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, I am not sure what words we are still allowed to use here, but I think it is okay and fair to say that this is the most incompetent, reckless government in Canada's history, consistently undertaking radical experiments with objectively terrible results. An RBC report from today says, “a slow bleed over the last 2 years has left per-capita output back at 2016 levels”. Canada's per pe…
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Madam Speaker, let us take a look at some Liberal history, if we can. Let us take a look at the Trudeau legacy. The Trudeau legacy is 14 deficits in 15 years in the seventies and eighties and a Liberal government that has not run a single balanced budget yet. That is 24 deficits in 25 years. That is the Trudeau legacy. It led to economic devastation back then. It is leading to economic devastation…
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Mr. Speaker, earlier today in question period, one of my Alberta colleagues, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn, in asking a question, used the phrase “anti-Alberta minister” in reference to the environment minister. You asked him to rephrase his question. A simple Google search shows that, over the years, members of all four recognized parties in the House have used the phrase “anti-Alberta” or “…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member has been here long enough, though he may not be here for much longer, and he knows that he cannot mention the presence of another member in the House, which he just did.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a question about incompetent Trudeau government overspending. Of course, it raises the ire of members on the other side sometimes when I talk about the Trudeau government of the 1970s and 1980s and the devastating cuts that resulted in the mid-1990s of 32% over two years from 1995 to 1997 for spending on health care, social services and education. I am wondering if the h…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, as I am listening to this, today in question period we heard Liberal members repeatedly refer to Conservative members of Parliament as “mean” and “cruel”. If we are going to go down this road, I am sure we could scour the record of the member for Kingston and the Islands for all sorts of language that he has used that we might not agree with. I would just urge the Chair, as the offi…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, April is World Autism Month, and it is now 26 years since my son Jaden was diagnosed. Since then, I have embarked on an unanticipated lifetime of learning experiences. For example, I have learned at home to always check for finger lines in the butter, cupcakes or just food generally. I have learned that an urgent “bababababa” in the car often means an iPhone left behind or a missed Go…
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Madam Speaker, Liberals are engaging in an orchestrated disinformation campaign to defend their destructive carbon tax. The report of the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer says plainly, on page 4, “Taking into consideration both fiscal and economic impacts, we estimate that most households will see a net loss”. In response, Liberals have deliberately excluded the PBO's economic impacts to a…
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Madam Speaker, you will notice that the member did not even try to answer my question. On page 3, the independent PBO states, “We incorporate estimates of the economic impact from the federal fuel charge into our calculation of net cost to provide a more complete picture of the overall impact on households”. Taking into account that economic impact, the carbon tax clearly makes families in every p…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, Helen Keller once said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” In that spirit, today I am going to pay tribute to two organizations making a fantastic impact across Canada. First, March is Easter Seals Month and a great time to recognize the wonderful work that Easter Seals Canada has done for over 100 years in Canada. Easter Seals' vision is to “fully [enhance] the …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the government’s response to the Emergency Alert issued at 6:44 p.m. on January 13, 2024, by the Alberta Emergency Management Agency asking Albertans to immediately limit their electricity use to essential needs only: what specific actions, if any, were taken by the government to limit the amount of electricity it was using at federal buildings and facilities in Alberta during this …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the Conservative Party position has consistently been to vehemently oppose a carbon tax, so it is not surprising that we would oppose a carbon tax in a trade deal. What is surprising is the consistent and deliberate pro-Russian energy policy of the Liberal Party. Because we cannot build a pipeline in this country, we imported $400 million of Russian natural gas into Canada in 2021 b…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, axe the tax. Build the homes. Fix the budget. Stop the crime. These are twelve words and four straightforward Conservative promises that have Liberal MPs in panic mode. “It is sloganeering”, they protest, as though their own Prime Minister does not spew meaningless catchphrases like a pull-string doll: “We've got Canadians' backs”, the laughable “We took on debt so Canadians wouldn't …
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Madam Speaker, I vote nay.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, again, it is against the rules of the House to mislead the House. The hon. member just said that any Canadian making $250,000 or less is not paying the carbon tax. That is patently false—
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