Mr. Speaker, my point of order is different. Yesterday, you made a ruling and informed the House that you would come back. I am just confused because, this morning, you have allowed debate about that on which you had already made a ruling. Mr. Speaker, I wonder which rulings you are allowed to revisit and keep talking about and which are actually firm and have to be complied with.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, this is amazing. I am being heckled by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, who is chirping from the sidelines and telling me they do not have to follow the votes of the House of Commons and that the votes in the House of Commons do not need to mean anything. That might have been what the Prime Minister was getting at when he admired the dictatorship of the PR…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my friend, and indeed the member for Saint John—Rothesay is my friend. The member asked me to comment on the commissioner's views. I disagree with the commissioner, but that is not the point. The time to have made that argument was back in June when we voted on the motion. This is no longer a debate about whether the House should request the documents; the House has requeste…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I would be delighted to comment on those things. I would say that the cost to operate this Parliament is a small price to pay if we are debating a motion that goes to the democratic accountability of the government, but that also has the side benefit of preventing the government from introducing more bad laws that will harm Canadians. I talked about that in my speech. I noted that o…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, the member is absolutely right. The $400 million was misallocated by Liberal insiders, who were deliberately appointed by the previous minister. The misappropriation of that money could have gone to any of a number of things, including housing our troops. There is a base housing problem, in which our men and women in the armed forces do not have access to housing. That is just one t…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, there is a bit to unpack there, but I will start with this. If the votes in this chamber are to mean anything, they have to be respected. It is to—
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, Canadians are getting poorer while Liberal insiders are getting richer. That is not my opinion; that is a fact. Per capita GDP is declining. It is lower now than it was nine years ago when the Liberal government was first elected. The total value of all the goods and services produced in Canada, divided by all the people in Canada, is shrinking. It is not shrinking in the United Sta…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, Adjournment Proceedings are where we debate unsatisfactory responses to questions raised in question period, and tonight I rise to follow up on a question asked on June 14. That day, I asked two questions of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. The questions were about the suppression of his department's information proving that the carbon tax costs the Canadian economy $…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary has misrepresented and mis-characterized both me and our party. We know that the industry will lead the way in best practices and in technology to reduce or be able to produce more efficiently while doing its best to minimize emissions. He has ignored the question again, which was about the suppression of information. The current government ran on a platf…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, we are talking about $400 million in the green slush fund. Liberal insiders got rich by voting to give themselves money at a time when the government is, once again, waging war on the western economy. I know the member has some very strong feelings about the energy industry. We even heard about some of the things today in question period, just nonsense from the other side about the …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, Monday is Remembrance Day, the day when we pause to remember those who serve, those who continue to serve, those injured in body or mind, and those who gave their lives in service to Canada. Canada was built on eternal foundational values, values that include freedom, democracy, the rule of law, pluralism, peace and orderliness, yet our way of life has often been threatened or attac…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it is customary in the House to give members a chance to correct the record when they make a mistake. That is what this member must have done because he said things that were not correct. For example, he was not correct on the number of times I have spoken to the motion, its amendments and its subamendments. I do not want to digress too far from the question, but I still have not ha…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, in Adjournment Proceedings, we debate questions that were not answered properly in question period, when members of the opposition ask a question and the government refuses to answer or provides an unsatisfactory answer. This, indeed, is the case with the question that I asked on June 14. I noted that the Liberals had promised to be the most open and transparent government in histor…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I can assure the member that I am speaking to the question that was presented before the late show. It was about the carbon tax. It was about the suppressed report. The reason I asked the question on June 14 was that the Minister of the Environment had suppressed a report. That led to the access to information system, which the minister was using to suppress and prevent the release …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I am going to take the member back to the intervention of the member for Saint John—Rothesay, who was frustrated that, roughly in his words, there is no business being done. However, if there is an impasse over the government's failure to table the documents, there is a clear constitutional remedy, and that is an election. Does the member believe that if the government is unprepared t…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member might comment on some of the arguments that have been brought forward from the other bench. Already this morning, the Liberals are talking about whether the House of Commons should order the production of documents. That ship sailed. The House of Commons did vote for the production of documents and the government has failed to comply with an order of Parliament,…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the member might spend a moment on talking about remedies, for those who think the House should merely move on to other business. I do not care for the government bills that are potentially going to be debated, but some would say we must get on to other business. However, the remedy for what one might think of as paralysis in the House would be to dissolve the House and go…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, one in 15 Canadians will be diagnosed with lung cancer. Lung cancer affects thousands of Canadian families, including my own. It is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in Canada, and one of the least survivable, with only a 22% five-year survival rate. Many Canadians would be surprised to know that lung cancer kills more Canadians than prostate cancer, breast cancer and colon cancer co…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, the relevance issue is one that I care deeply about. I will note that you have permitted the member for Winnipeg North and many others to repeatedly ask questions unrelated to the motion. You have already granted extraordinary latitude in this debate, so if we are going to narrow the speeches, we will have to narrow the questions.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member for Calgary Signal Hill to maybe elaborate a bit. Some have said that this place is now in a state of paralysis over the Liberals' refusal to comply with the order the House that was already voted on, but, of course, there is a remedy. The remedy is an election. If there is urgent business we cannot attend to because the members cannot agree to get pas…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I will comment on the previous question. Debating whether the House of Commons should have voted for the original opposition motion is the old debate. Liberals are debating something that has already been pronounced on by the House. What we are debating now is the actual issue of the breach of privilege. In his speech, the member talked about the accusation that it is the opposition p…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, those on the Liberal benches have alleged throughout the debate that it is the opposition grinding this place to a halt. They set aside the issue that, of course, it is the government's own action and refusal to disclose the documents that has led members to wish to debate their corruption rather than to move on to other business. However, there is an important mechanism built into ou…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, when will Mark Carney disclose his conflicts of interest? That is the question I asked the government about three weeks ago. The answer? Well, none. They refused to answer that question and instead accused me of engaging in personal attacks. When the adviser to the Liberal Party happens to be the chair of one of the largest asset management and private capital firms in the world, is i…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I will note that there was no answer to the question. I asked a question about the conflicts of interest disclosure. I had asked it before and did not get an answer, so I am here in Adjournment Proceedings to get the answer I did not receive in question period. However, the parliamentary secretary has again refused to answer it. In her response, she began by saying that since 2015, th…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I am on the record from my time at the defence committee about the need for parliamentarians to have clearances, so that is not the question nor the point here. I do not agree with the member, as the opposition leader has been very clear on this all the way along. However, every time the member rises in this debate, he is engaging in filibuster. He is filling time to extend the govern…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, in his speech, the member brought up the brazenness of this. It was an interesting observation on how we have this issue of scandal after scandal and violations of the privileges of elected members over and over again. He brought up the Winnipeg lab and much from the 42nd Parliament as well. It is as though the Liberals are just trolling us now. They do not even care anymore that thei…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Kelowna—Lake Country for what is actually a really intelligent question about the matter at hand. We have had comments about all kinds of other things but that was right to the point. The House voted for the production of documents because of an Auditor General report, as well as whistle-blower testimony about severe corruption at SDTC, where Liberal insiders vo…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, obviously he did not listen to my speech this morning, where I actually expanded on the topic of the nature of the debate quite extensively. He is also taking enormous liberty with what I said on the record. He can maybe go back to Hansard and look at what I actually said, if he would like. The point is that there is a choice between sending the motion to committee to study the issue …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I will go back to the response that the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner gave to the member for Scarborough—Guildwood. He raised a question that was for the arguments to be made on the original motion that the House has already pronounced on. The ship has sailed as to whether Parliament should receive the documents. The question is now around contempt and the government's refus…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, again, we will just let the record show that the member believes that if other members of the House of Commons, who have been elected, wish to debate the motion, there is something horribly wrong with that and that the members should be silenced in order for the issue to be dealt with before debate has been exhausted.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I am going to stick to questions that are related to the speech I made. That question is not relevant to my debate.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for that correction and also for correcting that member's unparliamentary behaviour. It was a nice deflection by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, which was entirely unrelated to the present debate. He may want to ask himself about the Prime Minister, whom he supports, using a judicial inquiry to make a partisan broadside against the Leader of the…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, the member could perhaps check with the Table and get the orders of the day to understand what we are debating here today, or he could have listened to my speech, and then he could debate the actual motion before the House. It is a tactic, a deflection, and he is very good at that, but I will take the bait and say that the issue he is so fixated on could be solved easily: release the …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I am quite certain that my remarks on the record were in order. I do not know if you heard something from other parts of the chamber that was not on the record. You would be the first to tell me if there was anything out of line in that speech. I gave a pretty clear description and debate about the motion at hand in the House of Commons. It is disappointing that so many other members …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, on the Friday before Thanksgiving, I talked about the culture of secrecy and the corruption in the form of conflicts of interest that was obvious right from the very beginning of the Liberal government. In the time I have left, I will talk about the situation we are in right now. Parliament is paralyzed because the government has refused an order for the production of documents, which…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, the most common thing I hear when I am door knocking in Calgary is, “When is the election coming, and how soon can it be here so we can get rid of this government so it can stop bringing in policies that harm Canadians, especially western Canadians?”
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise and speak in this chamber, but not happy about the occasion. We are talking about yet another example of the culture of secrecy that has penetrated the government. It was baked in right from the start and that is the shame of it. Many Canadians are old enough to remember the 2015 election campaign. The government promised to be the most open and transparent governme…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I asked the parliamentary secretary a polite question and he did not answer it, so I am not sure what that response was about. I will ask again and point out, though, that the PBO report could not have been more clear. It is right there on page 18, table 3. That is where the PBO said that Canadians pay more in the carbon tax and GST on the carbon tax than they get in rebates. The carb…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after nine years, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. This week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer once again reported that the carbon tax costs more per family than families get back in rebates. In Alberta, the carbon tax will cost nearly $2,000 by driving up the cost of gas, home heating, groceries and nearly everything else. All 10 provinces do not like it and Ca…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure, as always, to rise in this place, and tonight I am here to talk about an unsatisfactory response to a question. That is what we do at the late show. It was on May 10. Actually, I will back it up. On April 1, the government raised rents for Canadian Armed Forces personnel who live on base. It raised the rents on base housing. This was at a time of an affordability cri…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, in May, I asked the parliamentary secretary if the government would reverse the rent increase, yes or no? She did not answer the question then. I have repeated and revisited the question. She spoke for four minutes without answering it. Therefore, we will just take it as no: The government is not interested in reversing the rent increase it placed on the CAF. Fine, that is its choice.…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. The Prime Minister's economic vandalism is making Canadians poorer with every passing year. Per capita GDP is lower than it was nine years ago and shrinking. Since 2015, Canada has had the worst per capita GDP in the G7. We are down 2%, while the U.S. is up 8%. That is what nine years of capital …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after nine years under the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. Now carbon tax Carney is waiting in the wings, advising the Liberal leader and getting richer with every new Liberal policy announcement, such as the Liberals' recent increase on mortgage insurance limits. Higher limits will not build houses, but they will increase profits for mortgage ins…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the Conservatives are focused on axing the tax. The Prime Minister plans to quadruple the carbon tax, which has already made life unaffordable for working Canadians, and the NDP leader agrees with him. He has already voted for the carbon tax 24 times, no matter how much it hurts working people. The NDP leader will say or do anything to save himself, proving that he is not worth the …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, two years ago, the NDP leader sold out workers when he signed on to the costly coalition that raised taxes, increased food costs and doubled the cost of housing. Two weeks ago, he tore up the agreement, he said. However, this was just a cheap political stunt to avoid losing a safe NDP seat in a Winnipeg by-election. After nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, c…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, yes, the Arbour report did clearly recommend this legislative change, but so did the Deschamps report years earlier. This was a legislative change that was recommended almost 10 years ago and accepted by the previous government, but it sat on the current government's desk without movement for years. Here we are now, nine years into the Liberal government, in the twilight of this Par…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am actually no longer a member of the defence committee, but my colleagues who remain there always prioritize important work to ensure the best for our troops, and they will take that approach. They will ensure this bill is examined correctly, and identify if there are any issues and if amendments are required. We had an intervention a moment ago about some of the details of this …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member brought up a good point. This is why we have legislative processes. This is why the bill needs a thorough study at committee. While the passage of this bill is urgent, given the length of time the government has caused delay in creating this legislative change, it still cannot be rushed. It has to be done right so we make sure the bill best serves victims and the members …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I voted against confidence in the government. When the estimates were presented, Conservatives voted every chance we had to bring down the government. The estimates he speaks of, which we voted against, contained a cut to the military budget. I will not take any lessons from him on who supports the military. The government has failed the military every step of the way and continues …
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