Parliamentary Speeches

Mr. Speaker, here is what Canadians know. When I was the minister responsible for housing, they could rent an average apartment in our 10 biggest cities for $950 a month. Now it is over $2,000 a month. When I was housing minister, it was $1,400 a month for the average mortgage, and now it is $3,200. One-fifth of mortgage holders at CIBC are actually watching their mortgage grow as Liberal deficits push up interest rates on their monthly payments. They have done nothing to stand up to the gatekeepers that block housing construction. Will the Liberals get out of the way so homes can be built and we can bring home ownership home for our youth?

Mr. Speaker, when I was the minister for housing, we did not have students living in homeless shelters as we do right now. We did not have nine in 10 young people saying they will never afford a home. In fact, people could buy the average home for $450,000 and rent an average apartment for $950. They are now double. The Liberals have doubled house prices, doubled mortgage payments and doubled rent. Their inflationary deficits are driving up interest rates, and they have done nothing to get gatekeepers out of the way and get housing built. Will the Liberals reverse these disastrous housing policies so that we can bring home ownership home for our youth?

Mr. Speaker, on International Women's Day, Canadians across the country come together to celebrate the incredible women who build this country and who have built it over the centuries. Whether it is fighting for civil rights, like Viola Desmond, or leading Canada to gold medal glory, like Christine Sinclair, women have played an essential role in crafting our story. I also think of lesser-known but equally important people, like Tracy MacDonald in Nova Scotia, who dropped out of high school but then returned and succeeded, and now dedicates her life to helping similarly disadvantaged women. I think of the mother who had me, the mother who adopted me, the wife who agreed for some reason we do not understand to marry me, and of course the daughter who makes my life so much worth living. Every day, in every way, there is more work to be done to improve equality and opportunity for women, but today is an opportunity for all of us to thank the women in our lives who built our country, and all around the world, for whom we must fight to advance opportunity and equality.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said repeatedly that he had no knowledge of funds from the dictatorship in Beijing going to federal election candidates. Today, we learned that is not true. His department prepared a briefing that said a large clandestine transfer of funds earmarked for the federal election, from the PRC, in Toronto was transferred to an elected provincial government official via a staff member of a 2019 federal candidate. Why did the Prime Minister say the opposite of what he knew to be true?

Mr. Speaker, that is impossible, because not only did his own department prepare a briefing for him, which said candidates had received funds, so did his own security committee. I will quote Global News: “Global News also learned of an earlier, high-level warning about clandestine funding of China’s ‘preferred candidates’ that came from a bipartisan panel of parliamentarians two months before the 2019 election.” That so-called bipartisan panel is the Prime Minister's secret committee. It reports to him. He knew. Why did he say the opposite of what he knew?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister stated another falsehood. He said it reports to the public; many of its findings are not reported to the public. Second, section 21 of the act that creates that committee states that its reports go to the Prime Minister. They have to go to the Prime Minister, and he is the one who decides what becomes public thereafter. Therefore, he knew, when that committee reported, that candidates received money directed by the dictatorship in Beijing, yet he has been saying and continues to say exactly the opposite. Why is that?

Mr. Speaker, section 21 of the act that creates that secret committee says, “Each year the Committee must submit to the Prime Minister a report of the reviews it conducted during the preceding year.” In other words, he did receive the report. He should stop playing word games. Nobody needs to go to the library. What we need to do is get to the truth. The Prime Minister knew that his own security committee said Beijing had directed funds to candidates in preceding elections, yet he continues to say exactly the opposite. Is he saying the committee is lying?

Mr. Speaker, we all agree that the Prime Minister has seen the report. Well, this is what Global News says of the report: “Global News also learned of an earlier, high-level warning about clandestine funding of China's ‘preferred candidates’ that came from a bipartisan panel of parliamentarians two months before the 2019 election.” China gave money to its preferred candidates. The Prime Minister admits that the committee reported to him on this fact. Why does he continue to state the diametric opposite of the truth in his answers in the House of Commons?

Mr. Speaker, if the Prime Minister respects committees, why did he prevent them from doing their work? He is currently obstructing a motion to have his chief of staff testify. Katie Telford was apparently informed by intelligence services of foreign interference in our electoral system. Will the Prime Minister be transparent and let Katie Telford testify before the parliamentary committee, yes or no?

Mr. Speaker, I just asked the Prime Minister if any parties, leadership campaigns or electoral district associations, that is to say parties and their local arms, received money directed by Beijing. He used the very tiny technical term, “candidate”, which only applies to a limited scenario 30 days before an election. He refuses to answer about whether his party or any other received money directed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. We can assume that the answer, therefore, is yes. How much did his party, and other parts of his party, get from the communist dictatorship?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is not interested in protecting the safety of the people serving this country. He is interested in protecting the Liberal Party of Canada. The question was regarding how much his party got in illegal donations funnelled from Beijing. I have asked the question twice now. He refuses to answer it. He distracts and he now claims that he cannot tell, because it would harm national security. Give me a break. It would harm his political career, once he tells how much the Liberal Party or its various arms received in money from Beijing. How much?

Mr. Speaker, no drama lesson will distract from the question that I asked. The question was very clear: How much did the Liberal Party get in donations directed from Beijing? I have asked it multiple times. I find it incredible that the Prime Minister cannot stand up and answer with a zero. If he knows for sure it did not happen, and he has not been briefed to the contrary, he would say so right now. However, he is dodging the question. He is trying to engage in a dramatic distraction. Therefore, I will give him one more chance to answer the question: How much money did his party get from the dictatorship in Beijing?

Mr. Speaker, this is a serious issue. It affects the lives of everyday people. Canadians of Chinese descent have been targeted for abuse in their own country, including right under the nose of the Prime Minister. There have been police stations set up by a foreign government in our country. He has done absolutely nothing about it. We need to know why he has done nothing about it. Can the Prime Minister tell us how many diplomats from the Chinese embassy and consulate has he expelled since learning about these police stations? How many?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister will not answer how many diplomats he has kicked out, because the answer is zero. Even as they open police stations in our country, he will not answer that question. He will not answer whether members of his existing cabinet and caucus have been implicated in foreign interference. He will not answer whether his staff has been briefed about that interference. He will not answer even whether his party received illegal money directly from the foreign dictatorship in Beijing. He will not answer any of these questions, which is exactly why we need an independent inquiry that can compel his testimony. Will he call it now?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is blocking a public inquiry that would compel him to give answers. His members are blocking an investigation here at Parliament. He will not answer questions on the floor of the House of Commons. He even has a bill that would allow him to censor the Internet. It is almost as if he admires the basic Chinese communist dictatorship. Will he tell us whether he still admires the basic Chinese communist dictatorship, as he so profusely said he did several years ago, yes or no?

Mr. Speaker, the dictatorship in Beijing has been helping the Prime Minister for 10 years. It started with a $200,000 donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and now it has helped Liberal candidates get elected in at least two elections. What does the Prime Minister want to do? He wants to set up a secret committee that will do a secret investigation with secret information. It is the Las Vegas rule: What happens in committee stays in committee. What does the Prime Minister have to hide?

Mr. Speaker, if they have known about it for 13 years, why have they never done anything about it? Ten years ago, the dictatorship in Beijing gave the Trudeau Foundation $200,000. It then interfered in two elections to help keep the Liberals in power. It even helped campaign for certain Liberal candidates. What is the solution now? The Prime Minister proposes a secret committee that will do a secret investigation with secret outcomes. This committee will follow the rule of Fight Club. The first rule is that no one talks about the committee. Why is the Prime Minister trying so hard to keep everything so secret?

Mr. Speaker, I forgot to mention that other than the secret committee that will see secret information and never actually publish any information, there will also be something called a rapporteur, a fake new position that the Liberals have invented. Does the rapporteur come with a costume, maybe a cape and a sword? Is this the best they can come up with, a fake position doing fake work? Why are the Liberals trying to cover up the truth?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been hiding this for the last 10 years. Ten years ago, he found out that the Trudeau Foundation got $200,000. Over the last five years, he has had briefing after briefing, warning of interference by Beijing in our elections to support him. Now he is hiding the truth behind a secret committee that will not provide public information. Whatever he is hiding, it must be bad. It must be really bad. How bad?

Mr. Speaker, for the past 10 years, the authoritarian government in Beijing has been trying to give the Prime Minister a helping hand politically, starting with a $200,000 donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Our intelligence services have since informed the Prime Minister that the Chinese government has interfered in two elections to help the Liberal Party, yet the PM has done absolutely nothing. Will he finally allow a public independent investigation so Canadians can get the truth?

Mr. Speaker, we did not have to, because the Communist dictatorship in Beijing was not helping the Conservative Party to get elected. Contrary to that, for 10 years the Communist dictatorship in Beijing has been helping the Prime Minister. It gave $200,000 in donations to the Trudeau Foundation and interfered in two successive elections to help the Liberals win. Moreover, the Prime Minister knew about it. After numerous briefings to that effect, he has done absolutely nothing to stop it because he benefits from it. Will the Prime Minister finally allow a public and truly independent investigation of it?

Mr. Speaker, all they have done is had the former CEO of the China-financed Trudeau Foundation write a report about it in which he unsurprisingly says, “Do not worry; be happy.” We know why the Liberals want to cover this up: They benefited from Beijing's interference in two successive elections. The question is, why is the NDP not actually doing its job? New Democrats have been working against transparency by preventing top Liberal campaign operatives and PMO officials from testifying in committee. Why will the NDP not stop its cover-up coalition and allow top-level officials to testify and answer questions?

Mr. Speaker, we learned that the Prime Minister now has a big announcement to make at 5:00 p.m. today. This, after 10 years of having known that Beijing was interfering to support him with donations to the Trudeau Foundation and help in numerous federal election campaigns. Now he is announcing something. We know that he is probably going to try to sweep this under the rug by naming a Liberal establishment insider to have a secretive process that would never bring about the truth. What we do not know for sure is whether the NDP is once again going to be a co-conspirator in making that happen. Will we have a final and clear public investigation so that Canadians know the truth?

Mr. Speaker, that member could have walked across the floor and let me know that the Trudeau foundation had received $200,000 from Beijing, let me know that the dictatorship in Beijing was planning to interfere in successive elections to help Liberals get elected. If they had been transparent about that back then, we would not be having this conversation now. Instead, we have had 10 years of cover-ups from the Prime Minister, who has benefited from the interference, known about it, been briefed on it and done nothing except to try to sweep it under the rug. Will the NDP stop covering up for the Liberals and get top PMO and Liberal party officials to answer questions before our committee?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said this week that he was surprised that his own health department granted a permit to a company to get into the cocaine business. I do not know why he would be surprised. His own addictions minister put out an ordinance on January 30 allowing for cocaine, crack, heroin and other deadly drugs to be possessed and used in British Columbia. This is the obvious consequence of his decision. Why does he not reverse his decision and ban cocaine and other deadly drugs?

Mr. Speaker, the misleading statements are coming from the government, which actually decriminalized cocaine, crack, heroin and other deadly drugs. We can forgive the company for believing that when it got a permit to get into the cocaine business that is exactly what it meant. In fact, the company got the permit for cocaine in two months, so it is faster to get a cocaine permit than a passport in Canada under the Prime Minister. Why do we not bring back some common sense and ban cocaine and other dangerous drugs to protect our people?

Mr. Speaker, this week, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is slamming the government for deciding that it was not worth trying to recover the $15 billion that was overpaid to large corporations in wage subsidies. This is money that they should not have received and that comes out of the pockets of Canadians. That is the equivalent of $1,000 for every Canadian family. When will the Prime Minister finally go after the money that was illegally given to these big companies?

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's top tax collector, Bob Hamilton, the commissioner of revenue, said, “it wouldn't be worth the effort” to review and recover the $15.5 billion paid out illegally to these corporations. He said that it would not be worth the effort. Fifteen billion dollars equals $1,000 for every single household in Canada. It is money taken from working-class single moms who cannot feed their kids and given to wealthy corporations with connections to the government. Why will they not take back the money that was illegally taken and give it back to Canadians?

Mr. Speaker, that is absolutely false. Where was I? I was in the House telling the government that it should not pay wage subsidies to corporations that were wealthy enough to pay out dividends, bonuses and share buybacks. That is where I was. Now, we find out that it gets worse and that there were 37 corporations that received wage subsidies worth $81 billion that paid out dividends to their wealthy shareholders. This was not money for workers. It was money for the wealthy. Why is it that the government always gives more to the “have yachts” by taking from the have-nots?

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely true that we were able to collect taxes from powerful corporations while having less bureaucracy at CRA. We delivered more for less. By contrast, the Prime Minister's top tax collector says he does not have the resources to go after the $15 billion the Prime Minister gave in illegal wage subsidies to these powerful corporations. This is an agency that has added 10,000 additional tax collectors. What are they doing? They are going after the little guy. Why will they not go after the Prime Minister's corporate friends instead?

Mr. Speaker, the member should talk to her colleague, who just admitted that I voted in favour of supporting small businesses during the pandemic. However, on this side of the House, we are against fraud. There has been $15 billion in overpayments given directly to the largest corporations, which should not have received it. Now, the Prime Minister's top tax collector says he is not going after the money. He will just leave it in the hands of those corporations. This money equals $1,000 for every household in Canada. Why do the Liberals put the burden on Canadians who are drowning in debt rather than the powerful corporations that are swimming in profit?

Mr. Speaker, after eight years under this Prime Minister, a study by the Bank of Canada has found that it now takes $1.7 million for someone to retire, to be able to feed themselves for the rest of their life. After eight years, we have the highest inflation rate in a generation. With mortgage costs going up, with the cost of rent and groceries going up as a result of this Prime Minister's inflationary policies, people can no longer afford to pay their bills. Will the Prime Minister personally take responsibility for these problems, so we can fix what he broke?