Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am terribly upset by the incompetence of the government and the growing backlog of cases at Service Canada. Again, I challenge that member. If she is as upset with the government's incompetence, the government's deception and the terrible job the government is doing, will she vote against the budget implementation act?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, after eight years under the Prime Minister, Canadians cannot afford a place to live. What do the Liberals have to show for the $90 billion they have committed to housing? Mortgages have doubled. Rents have doubled. It is $2,500 a month for a couple to rent one room in a townhouse. That is not the townhouse, just the room. A government on autopilot cannot fix a housing crisis. When w…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak on this bill. The member rises to speak to every bill. He began his speech by apologizing for his inability to address the House in French. I wonder if he could have maybe not spoken, and let the member for Mount Royal or the member for Lac-Saint-Louis participate in this debate, because it would be great to hear their views on this bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We clearly do not have quorum.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, this government will shamelessly announce anything, but it always fails to implement anything other than, say, higher taxes, deficits, inflation and now higher emissions. Yesterday, we learned that this Liberal government has broken another one of its election promises. The environment commissioner’s audit revealed that the Liberals' promise to plant two billion trees within 10 years …
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Mr. Speaker, we usually hear from only two or three members over there when we are debating legislation, so it is nice to have a different voice. I wonder what the member's constituents have to say about a promise the government made when the Liberals won in 2015. They distinguished themselves from both the Conservatives and the NDP by promising to run deficits. There is a general consensus agains…
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Madam Speaker, I thought we should get a ruling from you. I think this is at least the third time the member has spoken to the budget. Perhaps another member would like a turn. Members can only speak at each stage—
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the budget still allows the automatic tax increase to take place tonight on beer, wine and spirits. Under this Liberal government, simple pleasures like enjoying beer with friends after work or a bottle of wine over dinner with a loved one have become unaffordable luxuries for working Canadians. Will the government commit today to support my bill, Bill C-266, and cancel the automati…
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Madam Speaker, we are in the middle of an affordability crisis. Any tax increase is too much. The tax was too high to begin with. There is no room for any more tax. The budget adds $4,200 in new costs for every Canadian family, more spending, more taxes, more debt. That means more inflation. Canadians cannot even afford basic necessities like food, housing and transportation, and tonight the tax o…
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Mr. Speaker, we know this bill has been an absolute disaster in how it was managed through the House. It was introduced in the previous Parliament, and the Liberals called an election, so they were the ones who killed Bill C-10. It was brought back as Bill C-11. It did not include the critical exemption that critics from the Green Party, as well as other critics out there and Conservatives, pointe…
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Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to that response, he did not answer the previous question. Why did they not include the amendment? It would have made it all clear, and there would have been much less for people to object to in this bill had they accepted that amendment.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. By all means, I am sure you have a responsibility to look into the issue that was raised. I am not sure what happened, but nobody really appreciates a tattler or the extent to which the member piled it on there. I think we can be more reasonable about these issues.
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Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that the bill is a disaster. Liberals have been flailing away with it for months. They tried it in the last Parliament. They steadfastly refuse to exempt user-uploaded content. It has been to the Senate; indeed, as the minister said in his remarks, the Senate spent a record amount of time debating this bill because it is a disaster. The bill needed the 20-odd amend…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, yesterday’s budget tried to fool Canadians into thinking the Liberals had capped the tax on beer, wine and spirits, but they did no such thing. If it was actually capped, the tax would not be going up on Saturday. Canada already has one of the highest excise duty rates in the world, and the tax is still going up on Saturday, and it will still go up automatically next year. New spendin…
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Madam Speaker, we have heard a lot tonight about creating even playing fields, but Bill C-11 is about doing the opposite. It would make the field less even, take us backward and jam the Internet into a 1971 system around Canadian content. I wonder if the member could comment on whether he agrees that there is nothing more even than the playing field of an unfettered Internet.
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Madam Speaker, I would invite the member to listen more carefully then, because I did not say many of the words that she put in my mouth, and she did not notice or note any of the words other than a couple that she picked here and there. I said quite the opposite of what I think of Canadian content. I talked about the regulation of Canadian content, and I oppose it in this bill.
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Madam Speaker, I guess this member is sort of a part of the government, or his party is governing with the Liberals. Why did the government not exempt user-generated content and the uploading of user-generated content? This is a big bill, and I am not going to oppose everything that is contained within it. I am not going to suggest that every motivation behind the tabling of this bill was wrong, b…
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Madam Speaker, it was actually because of interventions by this member earlier in debate that I chose to mention his city's great band. There is a real Canadian value on display, which is a modest understatement. I really believe that band was so talented and connected so well with Canadians that it could have succeeded under any set of rules. That is why I mentioned them. Other Canadian artists w…
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to join this debate, mostly to refute some of the claims that have been made by Liberals and the NDP about the Conservative position on this bill. During debate on Bill C-11, the Liberals and the NDP have falsely claimed the Conservatives do not care about Canadian artists and that we do not care about Canadian culture. They have accused us of spreading misinformation and…
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Madam Speaker, at the beginning of his speech, he expressed pleasure at hearing Orwell quoted to him from Conservative benches, so I will maybe continue in that vein. He was certainly my favourite novelist of the first half of the 20th century, although he did spend most of his career writing and criticizing socialism and its excesses. In 1984, the main character worked in the “Ministry of Truth” …
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Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned the talk we heard in the debate about level playing fields. Could he comment on whether an unfettered Internet is the most level playing field that could ever possibly exist?
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Madam Speaker, the intervention just before the last one was unusual, where the member for Winnipeg North said that any time a Conservative debates a bill, we are somehow obstructing it from getting to committee. However, right before the minister's speech, a Liberal member spoke. Therefore, when Liberals speak, they are debating, but when Conservatives speak, they are obstructing. The debate on t…
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Mr. Speaker, with respect to the first question, I will set it aside and await more testimony and discussion at the defence committee about that. With respect to the second point, about the overclassification of information, that is a good one and I am glad the member raised it. It actually speaks to the overall culture of secrecy that exists in the Government of Canada. This is a real problem tha…
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, any tax increase on Canadians during a cost of living crisis is just plain wrong. I have opposed the increase happening on April 1 to the carbon tax. I opposed the payroll tax increases that took effect earlier this year, and for years I have spoken against the automatic alcohol escalator. With the budget coming up next week, these are tax increases that were imposed on Canadians, and…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I listened to the member's speech. At the very end, I heard him acknowledge a province, and he did not name it, but it was pretty clear he was talking about Alberta. He thanked it for supporting the country for so long. I would like to make sure we do identify or be clear about which province the member was talking about. That was quite an acknowledgement from the member about an indu…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is different in every province. It is fairly complicated. I am not going to give him the run through, because I do not have time. I will merely say that it is quite astonishing that the government's main defence of the automatic excise escalator tax is that it is only raising taxes a bit; it is not raising them that much. Why should people complain? The Liberals are only raising ta…
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Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. I have not given significant thought to the products the member mentioned and the taxes placed on them. My first reaction and instinct is to agree. I do not support additional taxes. Taxes are high in this country, and our taxes on alcohol are among the highest in the world. The most expensive ingredient in beer, wine or spirits in Canada is taxes. It is more …
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Mr. Speaker, I agree that dental care is very important for families, and I understand the costs and concerns around access to dental care. However, I am also concerned that the government's approach to just about everything it has done is to harm our ability to have a robust economy that can afford the sustainable programs Canadians rely on. I have concerns about cost and about how any type of sy…
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise and table a petition signed by a number of Canadians who are concerned and agree with me on the need to repeal the automatic excise escalator on alcohol. They are concerned, as I am, that this tax is an automatic tax that impedes our industry from competing in world markets and that it is the wrong approach to excise. The timing is particularly bad with the record…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and join the debate this morning in the House of Commons. I will be sharing my time with the member for Fort McMurray—Cold Lake. Bill C-26 is a bill that addresses an important and growing topic. Cybersecurity is very important, very timely. I am glad that, in calling this bill today, the government sees this as a priority. I struggle with trying to figure out…
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Mr. Speaker, the primary function of government is to protect its citizens from external harm and to ensure that Canadians are able to live freely and safely in their communities. I do have concerns about the gatekeeping aspect of this bill. I am concerned that if this bill does not get the balance of the regulation and the ability of commerce to continue, we will lose businesses and we will lose …
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Mr. Speaker, that may be a better question for the government to answer, but I do not believe this is the intent of this bill. This bill is about cybersecurity. The government has another bill before the House, Bill C-27, which is a bit closer to privacy changes. The government has not proposed changes to the Privacy Act or the Elections Act, so I do not think this bill is relevant to the question…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I would just as soon see the bill pass right now, but I would request a recorded division if there is no agreement to pass the bill at all stages.
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Madam Speaker, if this bill does not affect what Canadians will post, why did the government choose to remove the amendment that would have explicitly said that? We, the Conservative members, have been accused repeatedly throughout the debate, of misinformation, and yet they have refused to explicitly exclude content posted by Canadians. Why?
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Madam Speaker, that is an interesting question, and the member may well be right. The bill certainly has a lot to catch up with. It has been, as has been pointed out, a long time since the existing law was updated. It seems to me that so many questions remain unanswered about problems that have been well identified by all sides in this chamber, yet they are not clearly and definitively solved by t…
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Madam Speaker, while it is true that this bill contains the provision for substantial fines, who is going to be fined? Who would it apply to? Will the tech giants, with their armies of lobbyists and lawyers, figure out the loopholes within all the ambiguity in this law? For a small business owner, who is not in the business of harvesting data but nevertheless must collect information to complete a…
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Madam Speaker, privacy is important, and I think nearly all Canadians agree on this. I presume that all members of the House agree on that as well. A generation ago, the Supreme Court also agreed; it said that privacy was something upon which our most basic and ancient expectations of liberty depend. The security of the person depends on privacy, and without a basic expectation of privacy, it is d…
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Madam Speaker, if I was convinced the bill would do no harm, at a minimum, perhaps I would be inclined to send it to committee. I am not sure of that. If we send a bill that has this many holes in it and this many items that need to be fixed, I am not sure that can be done at committee. I am disappointed the government did not table a better bill.
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Mr. Speaker, in the questions and responses, I think there has been some confusion about what this bill addresses, which is investment by foreign state-owned enterprises as opposed to foreign investment that is private and not from authoritarian state-owned enterprises. I wonder if the member could use the remaining time to ensure that we understand the difference.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to talk about Bill C-295 and the new offences it would create in cases of neglect of seniors. The neglect of seniors and vulnerable people is a serious problem in Canada, and abuse is endemic. Ensuring the protection of vulnerable seniors is a very personal matter for me. My grandfather and his companion were defrauded by a caregiver. They were vulnerable seniors who were…
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Madam Speaker, I think this debate is a wasted opportunity to demand better service from the government for Canadians. It is up to the member's party and his caucus colleagues as to what they want to debate in the chamber, but no, I will stand by my comment that I think we could have done better in making the case and, through the debate process, arguing the shortcomings of the government and the …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, inflation is at a 40-year high. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, half of Canadians are cutting back on groceries. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, 20% of Canadians are skipping meals. After eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, the average rent in Canada’s 10 largest cities has doubled. After eight y…
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Madam Speaker, it is always an honour and a pleasure to join debates in the House of Commons. Here we are today. It is a Bloc opposition day, which is a day when the Bloc can choose anything it would like to put into a motion, and it is a bit of an unusual one today. The Bloc has chosen to spend our day and have a recorded vote on this motion, which purports to simply remind the federal government…
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Madam Speaker, this Manitoba MP is quite something. He gets up and demands that I, as an Alberta MP, weigh in on Ontario provincial politics while the government avoids accountability for the issues it is responsible for. It is the perfect example of the type of deflection that the government engages in. Do members know how many times I have been asked by constituents to weigh in on the Ford gover…
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Madam Speaker, there will be a provincial election soon in Alberta and I invite this member to contest that provincial election, because all she does is come here and raise issues about provincial politics. This is the federal Parliament. Let us focus on federal issues and let this member run in the provincial election if she wants to debate Danielle Smith on the sovereignty act.
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Madam Speaker, that is an excellent point, which I did touch on, but it bears repeating. The government failed to use the existing tools under this act in the past, so here we are, debating the creation of new tools and stronger tools with a government that would not use the tools that already existed. Its credibility on this issue is a problem, and we need to get really serious about this, not ju…
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Madam Speaker, I hate to have to do this, but in the time since you ruled on the previous point of order, we have not had any connection yet to the bill. Perhaps, through you, Madam Speaker, we could remind the member to tie this to the bill, because we are actually talking about Bill C-34 and not a laundry list of funding announcements by the government that have nothing to do with the bill.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for Abbotsford. Conservatives have been calling for changes to this act for years. For nearly eight years, the government has ignored the growing role of state-owned and state-controlled enterprises in Canada’s economy. For nearly eight years, the government has failed to take seriously the threat posed by the government of Beijing. For ne…
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Madam Speaker, that is what this is all about: debate to get the best ideas out there. That is why it is important to go to a zero-dollar threshold when we are talking about a state-owned enterprise from the People's Republic of China. They buy a series of small businesses that in aggregate can actually distort markets. Buying a single fishing boat or buying a single wharf is perhaps not going to …
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