Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Algoma Steel is laying off 1,000 workers today, who will join the 108,000 full-time workers who lost their jobs in February. The Liberal government cannot blame outside factors. The rest of the world exists in the same global economy, but only Canada has a shrinking economy among G7 countries. When will the Liberals get out of the way and get rid of their taxes, antidevelopment laws a…
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Mr. Speaker, the government has spent the last 10 years setting the stage for today's rising unemployment. The industrial carbon tax, antidevelopment laws, bloated bureaucracy, staggering debt and deficits, failure to approve a single pipeline, failure to build any major projects, which it promised to do, and its failure to secure a trade deal, which it also promised to do, are all killing Canadia…
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Mr. Speaker, this morning's job numbers are a scathing indictment of the Liberal government's economic performance. There were 108,000 full-time jobs lost, the largest one-month drop since the beginning of COVID, and youth unemployment is now over 14%. We have the only shrinking economy in the G7, and we have the second-highest unemployment. Will the Liberals accept our Conservative proposals, inc…
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Mr. Speaker, talking about before the crisis, for 10 years, the Liberal government has passed antidevelopment laws, run up the national debt, driven down productivity, driven up the cost of living, bloated the bureaucracy, enriched Liberal insiders and made Canada the only G7 country with a shrinking economy. Today's job numbers are the result of a decade of failure and lost opportunity, and the c…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but new Statistics Canada data shows that Canada saw its economy shrink last quarter, the only country in the G7 to do so. After 10 years of deficits, inflation, higher taxes, anti-development laws and bloating bureaucracy, growth has stalled and Canadians are paying the price. While other countries build, the …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, on the budget implementation act, I really have three things I want to talk about. I want to talk a bit about the process and the committee process that took us to what may be the last day that we debate this bill. I want to talk about some of the things that Conservatives agree with that are contained in the BIA, and I want to talk about those with which we disagree. I want to begi…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague, the member for Airdrie—Cochrane, commented on this in debate yesterday. For those watching who do not know, this structure they are cutting is one that was created to help veterans cope with the sheer complexity of systems that seem almost designed, in cases, to deny benefits. That is what fiscal discipline, if that is what they want to call it, looks like with the cur…
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Madam Speaker, before I begin, I ask for unanimous consent to share my time with the member for Calgary Centre.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am just being heckled left, right and centre. I do not know what is with the Liberals today, but I will maybe leave it at that on the process and talk about things that Conservatives agree with in this BIA. This BIA contains policy reversals from the government that we support, like repealing the digital services tax, something that we fought tooth and nail in the last Parliament.…
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Madam Speaker, his question takes us right into everything wrong with the government's approach to nearly any public policy problem out there. The Liberals build bureaucracies. That is what they build. They set up fiscal structures and financial structures that, at best, are oblique and, at worst, just send money into black holes. I fundamentally disagree with the approach of the government. I am …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it is always fun watching the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader try to hold the opposition to account. That intervention says everything about these guys. First of all, he is ignoring all of the promises he has run on in four elections. He is now taking credit for a AAA credit rating that his government inherited from the previous government, which is under thre…
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Mr. Speaker, this is a 605-clause bill. The member did not even have time to get into all the detail of the veterans components. I want to give him time to unpack what the Liberals have done with respect to the reimbursement of veterans. There is a 1998 law that the department has not followed for 28 years. The Liberals are losing in court to veterans who are suing them to get the proper compensat…
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Mr. Speaker, I wonder if my hon. friend, who is on the finance committee with me, wanted to comment on some of the other pieces of the bill that had to be amended at the finance committee. We have seen over and over again the government's penchant for consolidating power into the executive and removing the powers of parliamentarians. We had to amend this bill at committee to give more accountabili…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have a petition that I would like to table on behalf of Canadians who are concerned about Bill C-15 and the powers contained in that bill that would give the government the power to override any of its laws, other than the Criminal Code, at the discretion of a minister. The petitioners think that this is an unreasonable overreach of government power that could exempt an individual o…
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I agree completely with the member about it being important to return to voice voting. The system that was adopted disenfranchises members of Parliament and prevents them from participating in the vote determination process, where they would have their voice heard in a voice vote. However, it was her House leader at the time, Peter Julian, who was instrumental in giving us what we h…
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Madam Speaker, yesterday I talked to a mortgage broker in Calgary who said her clients are increasingly worried about their jobs and that layoffs are killing home deals. She said that construction and energy workers are among the most affected. The Prime Minister said that we are going to be an energy superpower and claimed that the Liberals are going to build over half a million homes per year. I…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Standing Orders require the member to address the business at hand, which is the Standing Orders. This is a once-in-a-Parliament opportunity for parliamentarians to weigh in on how we govern ourselves, and I have not heard any recommendations about the Standing Orders, so I would ask you, Speaker, to direct him to—
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Standing Orders and the practices of the House demand that when members have said something that is false or untrue, they be given the opportunity to correct the record. The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader accused the Conservatives of filibustering the BIA. This is patently false. All parties agreed to a work plan, including the…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, before question period, I was talking about reverting to the practice of voice votes. Right now, the Chair simply asks whether a member of a recognized party wishes for a motion to carry or carry on division, or wishes to request a recorded vote. Then, the Chair looks to the officers of the governing party, the whip, or if the whip is not there, perhaps the parliamentary secretary t…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join this debate. I am passionate about the Standing Orders. Before I get too deep into it, I am going to say that in Parliament, the Standing Orders are only as good as the chair occupants who preside over them and make rulings on them. Madam Speaker, you were the best of the four occupants in the previous Parliament, so I am glad to have you back in the chair. I am…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, honestly, he perhaps misunderstood what I had said. I do not care for the voting app, so we do disagree, perhaps, on that, but I was not proposing its abolition. What I was proposing is the abolition of virtual participation. Arguments on the maintenance of virtual participation are often tied to the voting app, such as asking what happens if the voting app fails and someone needs to …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the comments and the direction of that question. To answer the specific one, I am not aware of any other legislature that has maintained this type of system. Debates are for the chamber. Work that members of Parliament do in their constituencies and across Canada is for those areas. Combining the two is doing neither effectively. As far as convenience goes, the primary re…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I had not considered that model, but that would accomplish roughly the same objective. I think the late show proceedings are a much better forum for debate than speeches because we get more back and forth and a response from the other side. I think the member raises an excellent point. Maybe another change, concurrent with what I recommended, is an expansion to an hour of Adjournment …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, in January the Canadian economy lost 25,000 jobs, while even more unemployed Canadians have given up looking for one. Job loss at a time of food and housing unaffordability is catastrophic. The Prime Minister promised the best economy in the G7, but under his watch, Canadians have the highest food inflation, the most expensive housing, the lowest per-capita GDP growth and $58 billio…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, last night at the finance committee, the member put some very good questions to the finance minister, and his responses were shameful. The minister did not answer, really, any opposition MPs' questions during his entire hour-long appearance. It was a shameful display from a minister unwilling to answer questions and explain his bill to Canadians. I want the member to have a chance aga…
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Mr. Speaker, 0.0% was Canada's GDP growth number in November. The fourth-quarter growth number is expected to be negative. Following 10 years of near-zero per capita growth, 2025 was another lost year for the Canadian economy. The Prime Minister promised the fastest-growing economy in the G7, but he has not repealed any of the government's anti-development laws and taxes. Conservatives have a plan…
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Mr. Speaker, it is funny how the member wants me to commit to a series of things that his own House leader has most of the control over, which is when a bill is going to pass in this place. I do not know when the Liberals are going to call the bill. We have already seen what they have done at the justice committee with Bill C-14, which was expeditiously referred to the committee only to languish t…
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Mr. Speaker, that was an excellent, succinct summary of exactly what has happened in this place over the last 10 years. That is exactly it. The Liberals create a problem, we propose a solution, they turn down our solution, they copy our solution, and then they blame us for it not passing fast enough. That is exactly what is going on in this place.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the intervention from the member for Winnipeg North requires a little more unpacking. I will put it to the member for Peace River—Westlock that it is in fact the government. The member for Winnipeg North is the parliamentary secretary to the House Leader. The government House leader has tremendous control over the agenda of this place, and the fact that the government cannot g…
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Mr. Speaker, we are debating Bill C-16, and in doing so, we need to first set out some of the context for why we are having this debate, how we got here and where we are right now as a society in Canada. One of the unfortunate outcomes of this past 10 years of Liberal government has been a measurable, significant rise in the incidence of crime in Canada. This is not an opinion. This is measured by…
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Mr. Speaker, I did not really have time to go through all of the bill, as it is a pretty big bill, so I am glad the member brought that portion of it to my attention in this debate and is allowing me a moment to comment on it. Yes, we agree and stand with victims. Yes, we know there are many signs, and we never want to see scenarios where someone is murdered and everybody who knows the scenario or…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, 10 years ago the government campaigned on a promise to “run modest...deficits of less than $10 billion...to fund historic investments in infrastructure” and then let the budget balance itself. For 10 years the Liberals ran increasing deficits, failed to build the infrastructure, ignored their promise and claimed that all that really mattered was declining debt to GDP. In 2024, the the…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly what has happened. The member was there for the filibuster that the parliamentary secretary undertook. The Liberals do not want to study anything else. They were fixated on pre-studying the BIA. Can they go 18 or 20 months without tabling a budget, and then all of a sudden the budget implementation act has to be pre-studied, even when they are still amending it in the …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have been in the House for the Liberal government's 10 years, and it is terrible at managing the legislative agenda. When it comes to committees, I am very disappointed with what I have learned during this debate about the dysfunction at a number of committees, not just at the finance committee. The member is absolutely right; if a government is competent, it should have a legislati…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have been here for 10 years, and I have no idea about that book. I do know a couple of things though. First, if the member had listened to my speech, he would have noted that it is entirely his caucus that is obstructing the work of the finance committee. Second, with respect to the opposition leader, with whom I have the privilege of serving on the finance committee, I noted that t…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the member for moving this motion. If he had not done so, we would not have had this opportunity to debate the deplorable conduct of the Liberals in committee. In his first intervention here, it was as though the member for Winnipeg North was unaware that his own colleagues are filibustering their own bills at committee. At the finance committee, not once…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join this debate. This is an opportunity for parliamentarians to hear about some of the dysfunction that exists at committees, which is at the hands, largely, of the chairs and probably, in some cases, the parliamentary secretaries that carry the government's water on committee. It is due to the chairs' inability to manage their committees. I am going to talk about the fi…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled by the member for Winnipeg North. Maybe he does not know that it is his own caucus colleagues who have filibustered Bill C-4 at the finance committee, but I will get to that. I want to take this in order. This committee formed and began in the spring. It had a chair who has demonstrated a disregard for the rules of committee, does not follow the practice and procedu…
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I am afraid the member has run out of time. Questions and comments, the member for Winnipeg North.
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Questions and comments, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
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The member for Parkland.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am glad to be able to speak to this bill. I feel quite strongly about the issues within it. This came to my attention a few years ago as a problem when, in an Order Paper question, which, unlike a question during question period, is something the government is required to answer. The government is not allowed to just tap dance around and refuse to answer an Order Paper question. T…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am so pleased that this bill is coming to the floor of the House of Commons, and I thank the member for Simcoe North for bringing it forward. He talked a bit in his speech about the urgent need for this bill because this addresses a problem that is getting worse. As recently as 2020, the CRA would at least, in an Order Paper question, give the dollar figure for the top writeoffs. …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, when it comes to trade with the Americans, the Prime Minister went from “elbows up” to “Who cares?” He backed down on countertariffs and on legal challenges to softwood lumber, but he got nothing in return when he went to Washington in October; well, he got nothing for Canadians. Days later, the Americans signed an $80-billion nuclear deal with the Prime Minister's company, Brookfield…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, back in the spring, I asked the housing minister an important question. I pointed out to him that what has happened under the government over the last 10 years is that Canada has become a country where there are just two kinds of families: families that already own real estate and families that have given up hope of ever owning real estate. That is because for young people today, th…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the member, in his speech, suggested that perhaps I have been around long enough to know a bit about the history of housing affordability in Canada. He is right. I spent 22 years in the mortgage business before I became a member of Parliament. I am quite aware of affordability and how it impacts families. What I know is that before the government took office, wages and per capita GD…
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Mr. Speaker, this credit card budget loads today's spending on to tomorrow's taxpayers. Fitch credit ratings, which rates the government's credit, says the Liberal government frequently blows through its fiscal anchors and has “a high risk of further deterioration”. The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the government abandoned its previous fiscal anchor, which was there to preserve its AAA rating…
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Mr. Speaker, I think everyone here is old enough to remember the year 2015. That was the year the Harper government brought the budget back into balance after successfully steering Canada through the great recession and when the New York Times congratulated Canada for having the world's most prosperous middle class. This was a few years after the Liberals tried to topple the government because Har…
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Mr. Speaker, of course I support that objective. The problem is that the government has no credibility on executing any of the things it promises. The government has been in charge for 10 years, and we have no significant upgrades on military equipment. The Prime Minister travels all over the world, and every time he goes somewhere, a week or two later the country he has been to imposes a new tari…
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