Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, how can a government sink so low as to exploit a mass shooting for political purposes? Lia Scanlan, a spokesperson for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said, and I quote: “[The minister], all these people, the Prime Minister, they were weighing in on what we could and couldn't say...It was all political pressure.” This government is totally immoral. Can the Prime Minister tell us wh…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her fine speech. I would like to ask her a question about the federal ombudsman for victims of crime. This position has been vacant for nine months, yet the ombudsman for federal offenders position was filled one day later. Could my colleague tell me about this government's priorities when it comes to victims?
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Mr. Speaker, let me quote what Andrew Coyne wrote in The Globe and Mail: “If the Liberals were trying to convince people they had something to hide with regard to the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, they could hardly do a better job.” The situation is serious. The Minister of Public Safety misled Canadians. He must resign. When will he step down?
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Mr. Speaker, Andrew Coyne also wrote, and I quote, “well, there is a penalty for this sort of thing. And the penalty, in the conventions of Westminster-style parliaments, is resignation.” The minister basically misled Canadians. When Jody Wilson‑Raybould was minister, she acted according to her principles. The Minister of Public Safety has no principles. When will he resign?
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Mr. Speaker, it seems the minister has memory issues because on April 28, 2022, he said, “I remember my hon. colleague and I having an exchange during the debate of the invocation of the Emergencies Act, which was only put forward after police officials told us they needed this special power to ensure they could restore public safety.” The RCMP says it never made such a request. The Minister of Pu…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety seems to have a new nickname: Pinocchio. In recent months, he told the House something that is absolutely false. He said, “It was on the advice of law enforcement that we invoked the Emergencies Act.” However, federal and municipal law enforcement agencies have confirmed that they never made any such recommendations. Now, the minister is saying any old th…
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Mr. Speaker, let us continue with the history lesson. On May 2, the Minister of Public Safety said that the government invoked the Emergencies Act on the recommendation of the police. I congratulate him. During the parliamentary committee hearings, he said that it was the RCMP that requested it because they needed that tool to do their job. The minister has repeated this many times in recent month…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister is talking about Bill C-21, but I am asking him about Bill C-5. Gang crime in the streets of Montreal is currently on the rise. Gang members are walking around with their guns and showing them off to everyone. They are not afraid, because the message the Liberal government is sending is that there is no problem and that people can commit gun crimes and will not receive a …
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Mr. Speaker, there was another shooting in the east end of Montreal last night. A woman from Rivière-des-Prairies who was sitting on her balcony went inside to hide out of fear of being shot. The Prime Minister's proposed Bill C‑5 would get rid of mandatory minimum sentences like the one for discharging a firearm with intent. The Prime Minister is telling us that Bill C‑5 has nothing to do with se…
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Mr. Speaker, let us hear what Stephan Fogaing, a member of Montreal's Black community, has to say about Bill C‑5: “In short, when the federal government contemplates doing away with some of the minimum sentences in the Criminal Code, we can only wonder whether they are more interested in protecting criminals than the public and victims of crime.” Given what these people had to say, is the Prime Mi…
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Mr. Speaker, when something comes from the Liberal side, it is always perfect, but when it comes from the opposition parties then it is always disinformation. I would like to know what the minister thinks about what Quebec's public safety minister said when she announced her strategy to combat gun violence. She said, “To all those gang members terrorizing our citizens...you are going to have to de…
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Mr. Speaker, I invite the Minister of Justice to listen to the following quotation: “while the federal government is using the overrepresentation of indigenous peoples and people of diverse backgrounds in our prisons to justify abolishing many minimum sentences, it seems to forget one important fact: Members of these same communities are equally overrepresented among the victims of these armed cri…
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Mr. Speaker, on September 1, 1939, the Régiment de la Chaudière was called up and deployed at the beginning of the Second World War. Nearly five years later, more than 900 members of this legendary regiment landed on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from Nazi oppression. The Régiment de la Chaudière was the only francophone regiment to take part in the landing operation on June 6, 1944. …
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Mr. Speaker, since the government wants to tackle real problems, let us talk about illegal arms trafficking, which is a scourge in Canada. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, the Prime Minister is attacking law-abiding citizens. Police forces have repeatedly said that the guilty parties are street gangs and organized crime, which operate in different parts of Canada and use transit poi…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister likes to make fine speeches about the safety of Canadians, but he clearly has a rather lax attitude about it. For example, as a result of the changes he made to the parole board, a violent criminal was released, which led to the murder of Marylène Levesque. Federal inmates now have access to syringes, and drug trafficking in penitentiaries is on the rise. Bill C‑5 w…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my excellent colleague for her good and long question. As I mentioned in my speech, from what I and my other NATO colleagues can tell, at present, there is virtually unanimous support for the principle of admitting Finland and Sweden. The only exception is Turkey, for the reasons that I mentioned. What is Canada's role? Given the war in Ukraine and the supply of gas, which c…
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Madam Speaker, I was not in government then, but to my knowledge, the Conservative government at the time spent more on international aid. That 2% target is part of what NATO expects of its members. Of that 2%, 20% is used to purchase military equipment. I think we can make a pretty good case right now for why we need to be ready. With guys like Putin invading Ukraine, we need to make sure our arm…
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in my speech, this membership will strengthen our collective ability to address threats, for example in the Arctic. By having Finland and Sweden as NATO partners, we will be politically and militarily united under the NATO umbrella. They are two major partners. In addition, Sweden and Finland are countries with very efficient and well-equipped armies. These partners w…
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Madam Chair, by happy coincidence, I recently returned from a four-day stay in Vilnius, Lithuania, where I attended a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that included discussions about whether or not to bring Finland and Sweden into NATO. My speech this evening could therefore not be more timely for me. The Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security has tabled its fou…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is trying to play both sides. We are talking about Bill C-5 and he is talking about Bill C-21, but what is clear is that Quebecker Anie Samson told the committee that “a criminal who uses an illegal firearm, regardless of their [ethnic] origin, is still a criminal. It would be incomprehensible to let criminals use firearms to kill, rob or threaten people without wor…
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Mr. Speaker, Anie Samson, the former vice-chair of the City of Montreal's executive committee and now the head of public safety, said, “There is concern about the fate of our criminals in prison, when at the same time there are hundreds of families mourning the loss of a loved one.” If the Liberals continue with their reckless strategy, even massive injections of money from the provinces to crack …
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Madam Speaker, when the Prime Minister calls racist for opposing this dangerous law, he does not realize that, by the same token, he is accusing members of his own caucus of the same thing. Bill C-5 is nothing more than a public relations exercise that seeks to reduce incarceration statistics by letting violent criminals go free when they should be behind bars. Since the Prime Minister likes to br…
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Madam Speaker, by calling anyone who disagrees with his reckless policies a racist, this Prime Minister is playing a dangerous game. He should know that even some of his most loyal MPs have had enough with that cop-out, because it is getting harder and harder for them to explain it to their constituents. He calls us racist because we know how bad Bill C‑5 is. If passed, it would reduce the number …
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Madam Speaker, Anie Samson is a former city councillor and member of the City of Montreal's executive committee who was responsible for public safety. She said, and I quote, “What does Bill C‑5 do to protect our young people and deter them from taking this path? It does absolutely nothing to deter them, in fact. Abolishing certain MMPs simply exacerbates impunity for these kinds of acts.” Would th…
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Madam Chair, Andrew Kendrick, who testified on May 13 at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, mentioned that the major shipyards always transferred the risk to the smaller suppliers, the contractors, and that the costs associated with the risks were assumed by them. If they needed to boost the price, they just had to increase the bill and the government paid. Why are the …
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his speech, in which he took multiple shots at the concept of populism. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the fact that hundreds of sovereignist voters in Quebec who vote for the Bloc Québécois often ask the same questions as Conservatives on issues like the vaccine mandate and airport management. There are a large number of Blo…
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Madam Chair, I would like to salute and welcome the minister. Now, on to the first question. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said the following at the February 4 meeting of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates: “The pattern is that whenever we look at major procurement issues, for example, combat ships, supply ships, and now polar icebreakers, there is one constant: the c…
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Madam Chair, the cost of everything is skyrocketing right now. None of the contracts involve fixed costs. A number of witnesses told the committee that many businesses in many countries had fixed costs. The witnesses suggested signing fixed-cost contracts. Does the minister agree?
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Madam Chair, was Canada the only country to experience COVID‑19 or did it happen in other countries as well?
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Madam Chair, I have another point that was raised by officials from Public Services and Procurement Canada. On April 7, these bureaucrats told the committee that we can expect further cost overruns and delays regarding the delivery of new ships for the navy and the Coast Guard, and that the multi-billion dollar shipbuilding program faces significant challenges. Will the minister admit that billion…
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Madam Chair, nobody is questioning the shipyard employees' work. What we are questioning is the excessive cost overruns taxpayers have to cover for projects that, to make matters worse, are often delayed. There are delays. Here is my question. Are these delays and cost overruns due to government management, or does the problem lie with the shipyards?
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Madam Chair, Troy Crosby, the person responsible for National Defence procurement, told the committee that the ships are not being built fast enough and that they are costing more. I want to know if the minister has sent the shipyards an official letter, directive or document of some sort expressing the Government of Canada's concerns about the delays and cost overruns. If so, when did she send it…
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Madam Chair, about the construction timeline, the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that construction of the first polar icebreaker will begin in the 2023-24 fiscal year, and the second in the following year. The ships should be delivered in 2029-30 and 2030-31, respectively. How can they even have a timeline when the Davie shipyard is still not an approved partner in the national shipbuildin…
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Madam Chair, let us talk about some of projects that are currently being delivered or have been delivered, particularly the Arctic and offshore patrol ships. A witness who appeared before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates last week, Mr. Kendrick, said he really could not understand why the cost of the seventh and eighth ships to be delivered to the Canadian Coast Guard …
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Madam Chair, obviously it depends on the ships. In the case of these ships, however, we understand that the contract for the first five ships was for $400 million each, but the sixth ship is going to cost $800 million, bringing the total to $2.8 billion. We have learned that the total bill for all the ships would be $4.3 billion. The cost per ship normally goes down, but instead it is going up. Th…
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Madam Chair, for some time now, the minister has been telling me that the government is monitoring the work very closely. Why does the Parliamentary Budget Officer regularly complain in his reports that the government is so cagey that he cannot get any information? The committee is in the same boat, and the experts who came to testify told the committee members that they were not allowed to know m…
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Madam Chair, let us talk about transparency. I will give the minister an opportunity to say more. The committee recently heard from representatives of Irving Shipbuilding. For the contract to build the 15 new frigates, the president mentioned that Irving's bid was under $60 billion and added that the government had announced that it would cost $60 billion. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer…
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Madam Chair, let us talk about transparency again. An article in the April 19, 2021, issue of the weekly newspaper The Hill Times discusses the secrecy surrounding the fees that the federal government has paid to Irving, the prime contractor for the construction of these 15 surface combatants. We know that Canada is paying Irving fees, but the Department of National Defence refuses to disclose the…
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Madam Chair, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who we are lucky to have, by the way, estimates that the polar icebreakers announced by the government will cost $7 billion, or $3.5 billion each. However, the Government of Canada only announced the purchase of two polar icebreakers, not how much they will cost. Does the Parliamentary Budget Officer have the right figures? If not, what should we expe…
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Madam Chair, I will come back to the issue of the polar icebreakers. We currently have the cost estimated by the Parliamentary Budget Officer. I understand that the minister is in negotiations. I would like to know who she is negotiating with. Is the Davie shipyard included in these negotiations, because it is not yet a partner in the national shipbuilding strategy?
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Madam Chair, at present, we see that defence procurement for major projects is rather complex and we understand this complexity. That is why, in his 2019 mandate letters for the then Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Minister of Defence, the Prime Minister included the creation of an organization whose sole focus would be defence procurement. This was missing in the 2021 mandate lett…
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Mr. Speaker, a criminal is a criminal, no matter their race. Does the Prime Minister know that 90% of victims in 2021 belonged to the same communities as the perpetrators? Black, white or indigenous, it does not matter. The unlawful use of a firearm must be punished. Why not stop Bill C‑5? Why eliminate minimum sentences for gun crimes?
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Mr. Speaker, 16-year-old Thomas was shot and killed in northern Montreal after an individual called out to him from an alleyway. Thomas lived in the riding of the member for Bourassa. A 17-year-old teen was shot several times in his upper body in Laurier—Sainte‑Marie and later succumbed to his injuries. Now the NDP-Liberal coalition, supported by the Bloc Québécois, wants to expedite the passage o…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister is deliberately conflating two different matters. We are talking about Bill C‑5, which would change the law so that the offences of using a firearm during a robbery, discharging a firearm with intent or being in possession of an unlawful firearm will no longer carry a minimum sentence. Street gangs are making fools of us all. This is sheer hypocrisy. Can the minister talk…
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Mr. Speaker, we are seeing more and more shootings by street gangs. There were three in Laval last week. The Quebec association of police chiefs does not support Bill C‑5, and for good reasons. In addition, the Montreal police service reports that there has been an incident involving a firearm every two days since the beginning of 2022. Does this mean that the Prime Minister follows expert advice …
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Mr. Speaker, as reported by various news outlets, the Taliban are controlling the people of Afghanistan in a very radical way. This government has abandoned our Afghan interpreter friends. We are talking about people who served Canada for years with our armed forces, people who are very well known to our military and who are already trusted by Canadian authorities. Given that this is a matter of l…
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Madam Speaker, what planet is my colleague from? China is one of the biggest economies in the world, and that has a direct impact on Canada's economy. Let us not forget what happened when China blocked canola imports with billions of dollars at stake. How about hospitals and health care? Chinese nationals worked against Canada and Quebec to steal intellectual property and research. There are plent…
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. When I was asked if I wanted to speak to our motion, I jumped at the opportunity, of course. Since the beginning of the debate this morning, I have been hearing my Liberal colleagues making assumptions about the way we see Chinese people. I would therefore like to read the first four …
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Madam Speaker, knowledge is the best resource to have. We need to understand the Chinese Communist regime and its approach to the economy and national security. With that information, we can make the right decisions for Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, is the minister denying that the RCMP commissioner, in her testimony, said the police did not need the emergencies act to clear the borders? Maybe the act helped the authorities do other things, but the salient point here is that the commissioner confirmed the RCMP did not need the act to clear the borders. Is that true, yes or no?
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