Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister found out about the closing of the Main, a famous deli, he tweeted, “Ouch”, but his “Ouch” was not for the 35-year-long employee who lost his job; his “Ouch” was that he is not going to be able to eat his favourite sandwich anymore. We found out from a loyal customer that the reason why the Main closed is that food prices have skyrocketed under the Prime Minister. He is determined now to increase his carbon tax threefold, which will send food prices flying higher. Why does he not park his plane, cancel the hypocrisy and axe the tax?

Mr. Speaker, the only one thing that the Prime Minister wants to know about is himself. That is why he cannot help but use his own name right here on the floor of the House of Commons. It is why the only concern he had about a business closing is that he is not going to get his favourite sandwich. That means people are losing their jobs. Customers are losing the ability to eat. One in five Canadians is skipping meals now, after eight years of the Prime Minister, and 1.5 million are going to the food bank. The carbon tax hits the farmers who make the food and the truckers who ship it, and therefore it taxes the food itself. Why will he not bring down food prices, bring home lower prices and axe the tax?

Mr. Speaker, since the Prime Minister promised to lower the cost of housing, the cost of an average down payment has doubled, the cost of a mortgage payment has doubled, and the cost of the average rent in Canada's 10 largest cities has doubled. What did the Prime Minister do for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the agency responsible for housing? He increased the bonuses paid to executives. The fact is, 100% of the executives received a bonus, which translates into $25 million in bonuses paid by people who are buying homes. Why are Canadians being asked to pay twice?

Mr. Speaker, the sum total of the result is that the cost of an average mortgage has doubled. The cost of an average down payment has doubled. The average cost of rent in the 10 biggest cities has doubled: double trouble. What is the Prime Minister doing to the federal gatekeepers at the CMHC whose mandate it is to carry out his policies? He has given them $27 million of bonuses. Now homebuyers will have to pay high prices for the house and then fees to the CMHC so his executive gatekeepers can get more money. Why does he not stop giving money to gatekeepers and start getting out of the way so we can build affordable homes?

Mr. Speaker, actually, we are blocking the disastrous inflationary budget, which would cost an extra $4,200 for every family in Canada. He says he wants to accelerate home building. In fact, his own housing agency says that, this year, home construction will go down by 50,000 homes. That is a one-third reduction of the already pitiful numbers from last year. In other words, we are building fewer houses while bringing in more people. This housing crisis is getting worse because of his gatekeeping. Why will he not get out of the way so that we can bring homes that workers can afford?

Mr. Speaker, well, we know we have a plan because he just, for the first time, plagiarized it on the floor of the House of Commons. He literally listed all the things I have been saying in the House of Commons. I only had to say it 40 times for him to get it, but this is progress. Unfortunately, we know he will not bring it home, because he never actually gets these things done. In fact, speaking of homes, one realtor predicts that it is now going to cost $3,000 to rent a room in a boarding house, as the norm, by 2030. That is the track we are on right now. Why will he not get out of the way so that we can bring homes that Canadians can afford?

Mr. Speaker, I am very flattered that he is pretending to agree with my plan. My plan has always been to incentivize municipalities to speed up building permits, to tie the amount of money for infrastructure to the number of houses built and to require more housing around public transit stations. That is the plan I have been promoting for a year. Now, he is trying to copy it. I think he is incapable of implementing it because he never does the work. He is all talk and no action. Will he finally let Canadians build houses that Canadians can afford?

Mr. Speaker, my plan has been, for over a year, that we should link the number of dollars big cities get for infrastructure to the number of houses they allow to get built, so that we speed up and lower the cost of building permits, that we should require every federally funded transit station to have high-density housing around and on top, and that we should sell off federal buildings to turn them into housing. He has tried to plagiarize that today, which is flattering, but it is interesting to note that his own housing agency predicts a 32% reduction in the number of houses built, a 50,000-unit decline. Why will the Prime Minister not put his action where his words now are, get out of the way and let—

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's story continues to change when it comes to the threats made by a Beijing operative against a Canadian MP. He said that no one outside the intelligence community knew about the situation. However, his national security adviser admitted that his office had been made aware. Of all the Prime Minister's staff, both in the public service and in his office, which members of his team were aware of this threat two years ago?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's own national security adviser told the member for Wellington—Halton Hills that her office had received it when her predecessor was in charge. That predecessor would have been the direct adviser to the current Prime Minister. That is important because, if his office or his top officials were aware that a foreign operative was threatening a Canadian MP's family back in July and they did absolutely nothing about it, it demonstrates their unwillingness to protect our country. If the Prime Minister was not aware, it demonstrates his total incompetence in protecting Canada. Which is it?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is basically saying that it just was not important enough for anyone to be informed that a Canadian MP had his family threatened by a foreign operative in order to punish him for a vote. No one believes the Prime Minister when he says that. Everybody knows that this is of the highest importance. If his government is operating in a way that it is not important, then he clearly cannot defend the national interests of this country. Recently, we had testimony from the chair of the Trudeau Foundation, who said that he cannot tell us to whom the donation from Beijing was returned. Can the Prime Minister tell us?

Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister is doing is massively increasing the drug overdose crisis in this country. He has been providing taxpayer dollars for high-powered drugs that have flooded our streets and lowered the cost of hydromorphone on the streets by as much as 95% in Vancouver. This has led to the deaths of 30,000 Canadians. Will the Prime Minister back away from his reckless plan to join with the NDP in B.C. and decriminalize crack, heroin and other deadly drugs?

Mr. Speaker, the question was about the donation from Beijing to the Trudeau Foundation. We know that the Prime Minister's own brother processed the donation. We know that CSIS intelligence, from an intercepted phone call of Beijing's diplomats, revealed that the purpose of the donation was to politically influence the current Prime Minister. In the new development, the chair of the Trudeau Foundation said that he cannot tell where the donation ended up. He said they gave it back, but they do not know whom they gave it back to. Will the Prime Minister support new powers for the Auditor General to fully audit the Trudeau Foundation so that we can get to the bottom of this scandal?

Mr. Speaker, what the science shows, and I will quote Giuseppe Ganci, head of the Last Door Recovery Society, is this: “One-hundred per cent of all of the people I’ve met who are on safer supply sell their safer supply. I’ve never met anybody who’s taken all of it”. Why do they sell it? It is because, while it is powerful enough to get a high to begin with, it loses its strength with use. It gets sold to kids, and the profits are then used for fentanyl. Then those kids buy the fentanyl when the hydromorphone is not—

Mr. Speaker, furthermore, to quote a recent article on the matter, “According to some of the experts I spoke to, this has caused the street price of hydromorphone (the primary opioid dispensed at safer supply sites) to drop by an estimated 70-95 per cent in cities with safer supply programs.” In other words, the only thing that has been exempt from the Prime Minister's inflation is the powerful drugs that are killing people, because he is subsidizing them and flooding them into our streets, including through dispensaries. Will the Prime Minister finally put an end to the deadly policies he has put in place that are killing our people?

Mr. Speaker, to be blunt, his policies are killing people. The number of overdose deaths that have happened in this country, in British Columbia in particular, where the policies of this government and the NDP are most advanced, are up by 300%. Those deaths were 75% lower before these policies came into place. Worse, beyond just subsidizing deadly drugs, now he wants to decriminalize crack, heroin and cocaine in partnership with the NDP government in B.C. This policy is insane. It is killing people. Will the Prime Minister reverse it before it is too late for more Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, what is truly alarming is a walk through many of our inner-city streets. There he will see tent cities where people are lying face-first on the ground, because he has flooded those streets with taxpayer-funded drugs and has signed a deal with the NDP to decriminalize crack, heroin, cocaine, meth and other drugs. He has imported this ideological and extremist policy from failed big American cities where the result has been exactly the same. Will he finally abandon his reckless and extremist policies in favour of a common-sense plan that gives recovery and brings home our people?

Mr. Speaker, here are the choices: The Prime Minister is generally outside the country and the Bloc Québécois wants a referendum to break up the country. There is only the Conservative Party who wants things to be more affordable and for people to have bigger paycheques and a better country. That is the choice. Let us talk about choice. The Prime Minister wants to bring in a second carbon tax that will increase the cost of fuel. How much will Canadians have to pay for the second carbon tax that the Prime Minister wants to bring in? How much?

Mr. Speaker, this Prime Minister's government spread false information about the number of belugas in the St. Lawrence River to justify the rejection of the GNL Québec project, which would put bigger paycheques in the pockets of people from Saguenay. We know now that that information was false and that the number of belugas is double what the government said it was. Will the government reverse its position to give jobs and paycheques to the people of Saguenay rather than sending that money to Vladimir Putin?

Mr. Speaker, the difference is that I would rather see that money go towards a paycheque for a Jean‑Marie Tremblay or a welder from Saguenay than to Vladimir Putin. In fact, the Japanese Prime Minister and the German Chancellor both asked the Prime Minister for LNG. He said, “No, call Putin. He'll provide it to you instead,” claiming there was no business case. Nobody told the Americans who have built six LNG plants at the same time that the Prime Minister blocked 18. Will the Prime Minister get out of the way so that we can turn dollars for dictators into paycheques for our people?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister continues with his ridiculous claim that there is no business case for the 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas we have here in Canada. Nobody told the Americans, who built six export plants. Nobody told the Qataris, who are increasing their production by 66%. Nobody told the Mexicans, who are using a formerly Canadian company, Trans Canada, to bypass and exceed Canada's export potential. We could be shutting down dirty Asian coal fire and replacing it with clean Canadian LNG and we could turn dollars for dictators into paycheques for our people. Why will the Prime Minister not finally bring it home?

Mr. Speaker, actually, the LNG Canada project was approved before the Prime Minister even took office. He showed up for the photo op. The only way it could get built was exempting it from the carbon tax and exempting it from Bill C-69. There were 18 proposed LNG projects on his desk the day he walked in on his first day on the job; zero have been completed. That is because his gatekeeping keeps our resources in the ground and the money in the pockets of foreign dictators. Why will he not bring it home to Canada for our people?

Mr. Speaker, is he bragging about the Trans Mountain project? He said it would cost $7 billion to get it done. It has cost $30 billion, and it is still not complete. By the way, the money he spent went to Kinder Morgan, a foreign company that took it to build pipelines in Texas. Under the Prime Minister, all our exes are in Texas. Why will he not bring jobs, resource production and opportunity home to Canada so we can put paycheques back in the pockets of Canadians?

Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister learned nothing or does not want to learn anything from these threats and the fact that Canadians found out about them. Today, the House voted on a Conservative motion to create a registry of foreign agents, those people who are paid by dictatorships to influence and manipulate our policies here in Canada. The Prime Minister and his party voted against the motion. Why? If a person wants to lobby for a food bank, they have to register. Why would we not ask the same from someone who wants to lobby for a foreign dictatorship? It makes no sense. These people who are paid to intimidate people and influence our politics can do so in secret. Everyone runs the risk of being approached by these same people because we do not know who they are. If a person working for Beijing or another dictatorship meets us in our offices, we never know if they are being paid by this government to do so. A registry like those that already exist in the United States and Australia would allow us to know who these people are. It is not a crime to work for a foreign government, but people should have to at least register so that we can know when that is the case. The Prime Minister, however, wants this to remain secret. Our motion called for a public inquiry to get to the truth. The Prime Minister voted against that motion, choosing instead to appoint a former member of the Trudeau Foundation to conduct an investigation. Can we really trust the Trudeau Foundation, which has already received $140,000 from Beijing? All Trudeau Foundation board members resigned because of problems with that donation. The Prime Minister has appointed two people to investigate foreign interference, two people out of 40 million Canadians. According to the Prime Minister, no one in Canada was qualified to conduct this investigation except members of the Trudeau Foundation, which is funded by Beijing and with which the Trudeau family continues to have ties. Is there no one else capable of conducting this investigation in a country like ours? Of course there is, and that is why we need a public inquiry. The Prime Minister voted against closing Chinese police stations. If the United States' FBI opened police stations in Canada, Canadians would be outraged, and rightfully so. It is unacceptable for another country, no matter the country, whether it is one of our allies or one of our enemies, to have a police station here. By definition, a sovereign country has the sole authority to use force legitimately and legally on its territory. Police stations must be managed by our system, by our governments elected by Canadians. We want to close Beijing's police stations and we want to do it now. The primary responsibility of a prime minister is to defend his citizens against foreign threats. That is even more important than the economy and all other issues. Protecting our country and its citizens against foreign threats is the primary responsibility. What we are learning is that the Prime Minister did nothing to protect us. He does not want to do anything. It has been six months since Canada learned of these threats. The Prime Minister has done absolutely nothing to protect us and is incapable of doing so. We need a new government that will protect us, that will make Canadians the priority. That is just plain common sense, and that is exactly what I will do as prime minister of Canada. Before I begin my remarks in English, I want to acknowledge the total hell that the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills has suffered. I cannot imagine receiving a phone call from a journalist late one night to find out that family members on the other side of the world have been threatened for two years and that my own government knew about it, said nothing to me nor did anything to protect my family, and, worse still, allowed the perpetrator of these threats to remain in Canada and have immunity from our laws all of that time. It must have been the worst phone call he has ever received, but I have to say that the member dealt with this incredible hardship with grace, dignity and honour. All of us, and all Canadians, stand with him four-square. What has the Prime Minister learned? Apparently, he has learned nothing. He finally kicked out the operative from Beijing, after two years of knowing about this. CSIS informed the Prime Minister's national security adviser in July 2021, two years ago. He did absolutely nothing. It was not until the media found out that he responded at all, and even then he said he was too afraid to kick this agent out. This agent not only went after a member of the House, but also, sadly, may have targeted countless other families. The member in question told me, and I think he would not mind if I shared, that what bothers him most is that, while he has the floor of the House of Commons in order to raise these threats, many thousands of other patriotic Canadians of Chinese origin have faced exactly the same intimidation and threats. We hear the stories of members of Parliament, and some who were defeated, who knocked on doors only to have these Canadians in tears, asking them to go into the backyard and leave the telephones at the front of the house so that they could quietly relay the stories of the threats and intimidation they have received: knocks on the door from Beijing's agents and visits to family members who live in China itself, with veiled, and sometimes overt, threats that were not acted upon by the Canadian government. Meanwhile, there have been foreign police stations on our soil. If the FBI opened police stations in Canada, there would be thousands of people out to protest them. It would be seen as a massive attack by our American friends on our own sovereignty. Are we are expected to accept it when it is by a hostile foreign dictatorship? Can anyone imagine a prime minister ceding law enforcement powers to a foreign dictatorship? The Prime Minister can claim he is offended by all this, but he has been briefed and has known about it for years, and he has done nothing except having his public safety minister go out and claim there is nothing to worry about and that the police stations were all closed. We find out now that this was false. At least two stations are up and running, and they have not even been visited by Canadian law enforcement authorities. How many other police stations are out there? How many other aggressive foreign operatives are harassing good, solid Canadian people? We need an answer to that question. Why is it that the Prime Minister refuses to take action? Is it because he still admires the basic Chinese Communist dictatorship, as he so famously said? Is it because, as he said, he admired Fidel Castro? Is it because the dictatorship in Beijing gave $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation? Is it because he now knows that Beijing interfered in two consecutive elections to help him win, and he is just as happy as a clam to have them interfere one more time to give him an advantage? Is he prepared to put his own electoral interests above our national security? Is that how bad it has become? We know that he has voted against, in our recent Conservative motion, the creation of a foreign influence registry, which exists in the United States and Australia. It is necessary to register if one wants to lobby for the food bank; why should someone not have to make themselves know if they are taking paid interests from foreign dictatorships to manipulate Canadian politics today? It is just common sense, and that is why we want to bring it home. This would not apply to any particular race, group or nationality of Canadians; it would apply exclusively to people of any race who take financial payment from a foreign dictatorship, and that is something that can be done in a manner that is respectful of human rights. The Prime Minister knows that, but he does not want the truth to come out. He voted against a public inquiry, instead relying on two former members of the Trudeau Foundation, a foundation that received $140,000 from Beijing, to do all of the so-called investigating. Out of 40 million people, he expects us to believe the only two people in all of Canada qualified to look into this matter are members of the Trudeau Foundation. That is not credible, especially when it was his own brother who facilitated the donation coming from Beijing. The Prime Minister voted against closing the foreign police stations. Closing those stations was part of the Conservative motion that he and the Liberal Party voted against, and the Liberal Party voted against kicking out all the operatives who have been attacking our people. The Prime Minister has one principal, primordial responsibility, which is to protect the Canadian people and their democracy. He has put that job aside for the priorities, either ideological or financial, that are driving him in the other direction. Conservatives, however, will not let up. We will continue to fight to close these foreign police stations. We will stand up against foreign interference in our elections. We will push for stronger laws to detect and prevent future interference in election campaigns. We will continue to call for, and, eventually, when I am prime minister, bring into place a full public inquiry so we can get to the truth in this scandal. We will, every day in every way, call for and demand the end to anyone who has been involved in setting up police stations on behalf of a foreign government. This is the least we can do. Remember that we will bring home control of our democracy, back to Canadians, not to any foreign government. We will bring home security to our country by removing Iran's, Beijing's or any other foreign regime's operatives who are harassing our people on the ground. Let us make no mistake, as we go forward and do this work: We are not doing this on behalf a group of people who are simply members of some diaspora. Chinese Canadians are Canadians. Iranian Canadians are Canadians. They are good people, and I want to say to them that we are their allies in defending the reason they came here. I know why they came here; it is because they wanted to work hard, to contribute to this country and to be free from censorship and oppression. They wanted to live their lives and build their dreams, and they should have every right to do that. They are our people. They are part of our home. This is our land. This is our democracy. Let us bring it home for them and for everyone. I thank them very much for standing here as Canadians. We stand with them too.

Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, the Minister of Finance admitted that deficits add fuel to the inflationary fire. A little later, she announced that she would never eliminate these inflationary deficits. The few Liberals with common sense put forward a motion at the Liberal convention demanding a plan to balance the budget and eliminate these inflationary deficits. The Prime Minister ensured that this motion was voted down. When will the government get rid of the inflationary deficit?

Mr. Speaker, the question was for the Prime Minister, but he does not have the courage to stand up to answer it. His finance minister said, just a few months ago, that deficits add oil to the inflationary fire. A few weeks later, she announced she would continue running deficits forever. There were a few courageous Liberals who showed up, in a minority to their congress, to push forward a motion, which would have required the government eliminate these deficits, but it was voted down, sadly. Will the Prime Minister have the courage to stand up to answer? Will he get rid of his inflationary deficits, or does he believe that budgets will balance themselves?

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister was so courageous, he would not be afraid to stand up to answer a question, would he? If the Prime Minister was so courageous, he might throw out Beijing's agent. A week after we found out as a nation that this agent had been threatening the family of a Canadian MP for a vote that he cast in the House, the Prime Minister has not thrown him out. In fact, he extends credentials to that agent, allowing him to operate with impunity from our laws here in our country. Will the Prime Minister show some courage, answer the question and kick this agent out today?

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister believes that, he should stand up to say so and kick out this operative from Canada. So far, he has been hiding. He is hiding from answering my questions, but he is hiding from the regime in Beijing. The government is now saying that it cannot kick out this operative, even though he threatened the family of a Canadian MP, because it is afraid of the consequences that Beijing will impose on the Liberal government, which it has supported for so long. Will the Prime Minister finally put this country first, bring home security to all MPs and kick this operative out, yes or no?

Mr. Speaker, it is because we want to protect democracy here in Canada. The Prime Minister was not courageous enough to answer the questions. His minister said that the government will never tolerate foreign interference, but that is exactly what the government is doing right now. If the government and the Prime Minister want to protect our democracy, then they need to throw out the agent responsible for the threats against a member of Parliament here in Canada. Will the Prime Minister show some courage and kick this agent out today?

Madam Speaker, before I begin, I want to acknowledge the total hell that the family of our foreign affairs critic, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills, has been through. I also want to highlight and salute the courage he has shown in the face of threats from a foreign dictatorship. This should never have happened to any MP of any party. All Canadians are with him and his family. We wish them happiness and complete safety. Unfortunately, a member, with the privileges of a member, told me something. I believe he will allow me to share it with my colleagues. How many families remain silent when faced with similar threats by this dictatorship? We have heard stories about this. Families of Chinese descent here in Canada, patriotic people who care about our country, tearfully asked our candidates, during the election, to go into their backyard, without their telephones, because they thought the regime was eavesdropping on them. Families are threatened by the police stations of a foreign dictatorship that exist across the country. We know that there are still at least two of them in Montreal. The government has known about these threats for years. The Prime Minister and his government were aware that families were being threatened and that propaganda from a foreign dictatorship was being posted on social media. They knew that Canadians were being threatened. These individuals were being told not to vote for the Conservative Party in elections. Their families abroad were being threatened. The Liberals have known about all of these instances of interference for years. The government did absolutely nothing to stop it. Instead, if any journalists asked about this, the government said they were racist in order to shut them down and avoid these kinds of questions. Our intelligence services had to leak it to the media. It is inconceivable that our intelligence services felt the need to give this confidential information to the media to inform the public of the Prime Minister's dangerous inaction. Why has the Prime Minister done nothing—and that is being generous—about this threat? Allow me to list some possible explanations. We now know, thanks to our security intelligence services, that Beijing helped the Prime Minister win two elections. Is he happy to let this go on because the regime is helping the Liberal Party? Is he pleased to see it happen again in future elections because it would give him an edge? Are these the reasons he is doing nothing? Is it because he still admires the “basic dictatorship” of Communist China, to quote his words? Is it because Beijing donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation, the same foundation whose donors funded the Prime Minister's lavish vacations? Is it because he supports the regime's ideology? As he said himself, he admired Fidel Castro, another communist dictator. Is it because the Liberal Party has corporate ties, financial ties, that have made members of the Liberal Party, including former prime minister Jean Chrétien, very rich? We do not know why. What we do know is that after he became Prime Minister of Canada, he went to Beijing. The dictatorship nicknamed him “little potato”. He was very proud of it. His foreign minister announced it to everyone and translated it from Mandarin to English to broadcast the fact that Beijing refers to our Prime Minister as the “little potato”. He is happy to be their “little potato” instead of our prime minister who protects our national security. What we do know is that nothing has changed. After each and every Canadian learned that a member of Parliament had been threatened, it took one week for the Beijing agent who was responsible for those very threats to finally be expelled. Then there was a motion in the House—

Madam Speaker, I do not know what he would have had us do when we learned that a member of Parliament had been targeted with threats against his family by a foreign dictatorship. Would he have had us just stay silent? Would he have had us just sit on our hands? Would he have had us praise the Prime Minister for having done absolutely nothing about it? Would he have had us just take the word of the Prime Minister that he knew nothing, despite all the now publicly available evidence? We did not politicize it. We stood up for a member of Parliament whose family had been targeted. What is politicization is the fact that the Prime Minister has known about this and other interference and did absolutely nothing about it because he thought it was in his electoral interest to keep it going.

Madam Speaker, Beijing sees the government's inaction as a major vulnerability. According to the intelligence service, Beijing sees Canada as a country that is very vulnerable to its interference because the government does not want to do anything to prevent such interference. For example, a foreign agent registry is a tool that exists in the United States and Australia but that does not exist here in Canada. The intelligence service pointed out that, in Beijing's eyes, we are uniquely vulnerable to interference because we do not have that tool to protect us. That is why the Conservative Party called for such a registry during the last election. We will continue to call for one and to exert pressure to make that happen.

Madam Speaker, I agree. In fact, had the government already launched an independent commission of inquiry, we could depoliticize this issue. We need to do that. It would make it possible to have a judge who is respected by all parties in the House rather than simply having another member of the Liberal club. We need someone who has the respect of the NDP, the Bloc Québécois, the Conservatives and the Liberals. That way, we could have an open process where people would be compelled to testify truthfully. That way, we could get to the truth. That is why we will continue to call for that. It was in our motion, and that is why we will continue to exert pressure to make that happen.

Madam Speaker, that could be because the Prime Minister admires the basic Chinese Communist dictatorship. He has also said words of praise about former dictator Fidel Castro. It could be because Beijing donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation. It could be that Beijing helped in two consecutive elections and he is just fine with it interfering once again. What is most disgraceful is the fact that he has made our Chinese population, the people in this country, vulnerable to this foreign threat. The data shows that, in the 2021 election, it was not that Canadians of Chinese origin went en masse to vote for the Liberal Party; it is that, in communities with large Chinese populations, there was a massive drop in the number of people who actually voted. That is because they were intimidated and threatened about what would happen if they went out and cast their ballot. Can members imagine that, in Canada, where we have the constitutional right to vote, some people thought that they or their family would be in danger if that vote went ahead, and that their Prime Minister found out about that in briefing after briefing and sat there and did nothing, perhaps because he was the beneficiary of it? It is disgraceful, and it demonstrates why we need a new government that will stand up for our home and native land.

Madam Speaker, we passed two laws that held it illegal for foreign bodies to provide any material support in elections. That is what we did. I find it incredible that whenever the current government gets into a scandal, it asks why the previous government did not pass tougher laws to prevent the Liberal Party from getting into its more recent scandal. It is like it is saying that it is so clever that it is better at scandal than we are at legislating against it. We are going to get better still. We are going to have a strong platform in the next election that fights all sorts of Liberal scandal, but more importantly, protects our democracy and brings home the control of our government back to the Canadian people.

Mr. Speaker, the question was for the Prime Minister, and he should have the courage to stand up and answer it. The former head of CSIS indicates that a briefing note with explosive revelations about a threat against the family of a member of Parliament would have been brought to the Prime Minister's top advisers. His top adviser says everything is brought to the Prime Minister. It is impossible to believe that he was not made aware of these threats two years ago when they were documented by his own intelligence services. How does the Prime Minister expect us to believe such a ridiculous claim?

Mr. Speaker, two years ago, our intelligence agencies indicated in a report that a member of Parliament and a member of Parliament's family were threatened by an agent for Beijing in response to a vote in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is saying that he did not know about this, even though the former head of CSIS has stated that the Prime Minister's advisers were informed. Even the Prime Minister's chief of staff has said that nothing is ever kept hidden from the Prime Minister. How is it possible that the Prime Minister did not know that such a risk existed here in Canada?

Mr. Speaker, if intelligence services would not tell the Prime Minister about this, what would they tell him about? It is hard to imagine a threat to the security of our democracy that is more grave than members of Parliament having their families threatened because of how they voted on the floor of the House of Commons. If the intelligence agency is not telling the Prime Minister these things, it is because he is not competent enough to ask for them. There are two options. Either he did not know and he is incompetent, or he did know and he is dishonest. Which is it?

Mr. Speaker, they are not protecting anybody but themselves. The same agent for Beijing who carried out the threats against the family of a member of Parliament is able to do so because he has diplomatic immunity from Canadian laws. If any other Canadian had done this, they would be charged and in jail, but because the Prime Minister has given diplomatic immunity and credentials to this agent, he is able to act with impunity right here on Canadian soil. Even if they believe the Prime Minister's far-fetched claim that he did not know about this until Monday, since Monday he has not kicked that agent out. Why is that?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister expects us to believe that the dictatorship in Beijing donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation to influence him but he knew nothing about it, even though it was his brother who arranged it. He would have us believe that Trudeau Foundation donors paid for the Prime Minister's vacations but he knew nothing about it. He would have us believe that intelligence officers knew two years ago that a member of Parliament and his family were being harassed, but the PM knew nothing about that either. If the Prime Minister knows nothing, how is he supposed to protect us?

Mr. Speaker, we might disagree on some things, but here are the facts on which we all agree. We all agree that a foreign dictatorship had an agent organize threats against the family of an MP because of how he voted in the House. We all agree on that. We all agree that the government knew about this two years ago. We all agree, whether we like it or not, that the Prime Minister is the head of government. In other words, he is responsible for the action or inaction of his own government. In other words, he should have known and he should have taken action. When will he finally show up for work, take responsibility and do his job?

Mr. Speaker, this is actually not about one member of Parliament. This is not about all members of Parliament. This is about millions of patriotic Canadians of Chinese descent who face this kind of abuse and harassment every single day. We hear stories of Chinese Canadians in tears because they are being intimidated by agents just like the one who attacked this member's family. These are our people. This is our home. When will the Prime Minister finally do his job and protect us?

moved: That, given that, after eight years of this Liberal Prime Minister's inflationary policies, (i) inflation has reached a 40-year high and is forcing Canadians to cut back on the basic necessities of eating, and heating their homes, (ii) monthly mortgage costs have more than doubled since 2015 and now cost Canadians an average of $3,000 per month, (iii) Statistics Canada reports that "mortgage interest cost rose at a faster rate in March (+26.4%) […] this was the largest yearly increase on record as Canadians continued to renew and initiate mortgages at higher interest rates", (iv) government fees, taxes and delays now add on average $200,000 to the cost of every new home in Canada, (vi) nine out of 10 young people who do not own a home believe they never will, (vi) nine out of 10 young people who do not own a home believe they never will, (vii) recent reports state that a couple is paying $2,450 to rent a single room in a Toronto townhouse, that they have two other roommates, and they consider this an "excellent deal", the House call on the government to make renting affordable and home ownership a reality for more Canadians by enacting policies that will remove big city gatekeepers, NIMBY local politicians who block construction of new housing, and unnecessary red tape by: (a) tying federal infrastructure dollars for municipalities to the number of new homes built, and imposing clawbacks on municipalities who delay new home construction; (b) tying federal funding for major transit projects to cities that pre-emptively "up-zone" lands around transit infrastructure for high-density housing so that young and middle­class people don't need to use cars; and (c) making available 15% of under-utilized federal properties across Canada for new housing while guaranteeing an appropriate ratio of affordable units in the developments. Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset that I find your ruling baffling. We have a member of Parliament who was threatened—

I will remind the Speaker that we will decide what is relevant to our speeches and that he should not shut us down. We think it is an emergency when any member of Parliament faces threats against his family related to the votes conducted on the floor of the House of Commons. Nothing is more basic to our democracy than the ability of members to vote for their constituents' interests and to not have to vote in order to protect their family members from threats and violence.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Parry Sound—Muskoka. What we have today, with the Prime Minister's housing crisis, is double trouble. Since the Prime Minister took office and since he promised to make housing affordable, the average cost of a mortgage payment has doubled, from $1,400 a month to over $3,000 a month. The average cost of rent in Canada's 10 biggest cities has doubled, from about $1,100 to over $2,000 every single month. The average required minimum down payment for a house in Canada has doubled, from $22,000 to $45,000. This is all since the Prime Minister became Prime Minister and promised that he was going to make housing affordable. This is not just an inconvenience. This is not just a case where politicians stand up and say that Canadians are having trouble making ends meet or putting food on the table, as politicians always like to say. This is becoming possibly the single biggest socio-economic crisis in my lifetime, as an entire generation of young people have come to accept, for the first time in Canadian history, that they will not be able to afford a home. Let me share with members the mathematics of hopelessness. I was speaking to a young lady who is 28 years old and is a CATSA screener at Toronto Pearson Airport. She calculates that, at her current rate of savings, about $5,000 a year, it will take her somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20 years to save for a down payment in Toronto. That means she will be well over 40 and unable to have kids. The hopelessness is not that she cannot afford a home; it is that her calculator tells her she will never be able to afford a home. It would be nice and comforting for the Prime Minister if he could claim that this problem is out of his hands and that it is the result of some crazy global phenomenon that is not in his grasp, and therefore that he is once again just a passive observer in the misery that the Canadian people are living, as he so often tries to portray himself. The stats prove otherwise. This problem does not exist in the vast majority of countries in our peer group around the world. For example, last year, Fortune magazine concluded that the standard home in Canada now costs twice as much as it does in the U.S. Can the Prime Minister explain this? Prices are determined by supply and demand. The U.S. has 10 times the demand because it has 10 times the population. It has a smaller supply because its land mass is more confined and less than ours. It has 10 times the demand and less supply, yet, according to Fortune magazine, the prices in the U.S. are half what they are here in Canada. Around the world, we see other examples. Vancouver, in NDP British Columbia, is now the third most overpriced housing market in the world according to Demographia. Toronto is the 10th. Both are more unaffordable than Manhattan, Los Angeles, London and even Singapore, an island where there is literally nowhere left to build. All these are places with more money, more people and less land, yet their real estate is more affordable than ours. The practical consequences of this are that, for example, almost one-third of homeowners with a mortgage will pay off that debt over more than a 30-year period, due to higher interest rates, a significant increase over the once-standard 25-year amortization. The average rent for a spare bedroom, just the bedroom and not the overall housing unit, in a home, condo or apartment in Vancouver was $1,410. Let us put this into perspective. There are now couples who consider it a bargain to move into a townhouse with two other couples, each couple renting a single room, often sharing a bathroom, always sharing a kitchen, and paying $1,500 a month just for that room. Here in Canada, this is true housing poverty, and it has happened after eight years of the Prime Minister's policies. Why is housing so unaffordable? First, government deficits are driving up interest, which increases the mortgage rates for people with debt. Second, we have the fewest houses per capita in the G7 even though we have the most land to build on. Why is that? The answer is that government gatekeepers block housing construction. It takes up to 10 years to get a building permit. We rank 64th in the world for building permit delays. We rank second-last for the speed at which we approve building permits within the OECD. Every other country but one in that group is faster to deliver permits and allow houses to be build. This blocks construction and prevents Canadians from owning a house. We know this problem is worse in NDP-controlled British Columbia, where hard-left, woke mayors who stand up for the wealthy mansion owners in leafy, ritzy neighbourhoods block the poor, the immigrants and the working class from ever owning homes. Therefore, we do not have enough homes, and that is why Canadians do not have a place to live. The government wants to bring in half a million people per year, which is a million people over the next two years, and it has no plan to build the houses to go along with that. In fact, since the current Prime Minister took office, we have fewer houses per capita than we did eight years ago. In other words, this problem is metastasizing and worsening every single day. The only party with a common-sense plan to fix it is the Conservative Party, and this is the plan. The government has put $89 billion into housing programs. Government housing is not the solution. It is not working because, if there is a confined space of permitted land to build on, we could pour as much money as we want into it and we are not going to get more housing; we are going to get more expensive housing. Worse still, the Prime Minister has announced $4 billion more, not for housing, but for the gatekeepers. The money is literally going to go to the zoning and permitting departments of the big cities that are blocking the construction in the first place. In other words, it is a big, fat reward for those same bureaucrats who are blocking our youth from having homes, and that will build out the bureaucracy and slow down the construction. Here is my common-sense plan. We will link the number of dollars big cities get for infrastructure to the number of houses that actually get built. Those who block construction will be fined. I will cut back their infrastructure. Those who speed up and lower the cost of permits to build more will get a building bonus from my government because incentives work. I will require every federally funded transit station to have high-density housing on all the available land around and even on top of the station. We will sell off 6,000 federal buildings to convert them into affordable housing for our young people to live in. We will speed up immigration for building trades. We will shift more of our education dollars over to the trades, rather than just to the white-collar professions. We have seen the way. We can look at what the Squamish people have done in the city of Vancouver. They have their own land and do not have to follow the rules of the gatekeepers. They are building 6,000 units of housing on 10 acres of land. The Squamish have shown what can happen when we get the gatekeepers out of the way. That is exactly what we are going to do right across the country. We will clear the gatekeepers. We will remove the privileged class inside the castle walls and open the gates of opportunity up to anyone who is prepared to work hard. If people work hard in this country, the rules should allow that they have a decent home where they can start a family and raise kids. It is common sense, the common sense of the common people united for our common home, their home, my home, our home. Let us bring it home.

Madam Speaker, first, it would have been better if that government had done nothing. Nothing would have been better than what it did in reality. If the member wants to compare records, when I was the responsible housing minister, housing costs were half of what they are today. The average mortgage payment required on the average house was $1,400, and now it is $3,000. The required amount of a person's paycheque to make monthly payments on a house was 39%, and now it is 70%. The average rent was $1,100, and now it is $2,200. The average down payment was a modest $22,000, and now it is $45,000. These are just the results. It is true that the Liberals have far more expensive housing programs, but that is a double loss. It means that not only are homebuyers paying more; now taxpayers are paying more. Under the Conservatives, both of them would pay less.