Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the Prime Minister's Bill C-5 will severely threaten the safety of families, children, mothers and vulnerable communities, because Bill C-5 would allow criminals who commit serious and deadly gun crimes to serve house arrest rather than go to jail, meaning these dangerous criminals will be kept in the communities they have terrorized, which will disproportionately …
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is misleading Canadians. Bill C-5 and the other measures by the Liberal government are failing to keep our communities safe. They are putting them at risk. If they wanted to stop gun violence, they would put more resources to border agents to stop gun smuggling. They would put more resources to police to stop violent criminals with guns. They would put more resource…
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Mr. Speaker, the fact is that violent gun crime has only gone up under the Prime Minister. Actually, it has gone up significantly since he has formed office, and the data proves this. He has failed to keep Canadians safe from gun violence in cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Winnipeg. At the same time, he has been weak on violent crime and soft on criminals by allowing them to avoid …
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Mr. Speaker, the fact is that violent crime and gun crime have gone up significantly. Gangs and criminals are running rampant in our streets. Canadians are seeing it with their own eyes on the news every day. What is the Liberals' response to this? On one hand, they are eliminating mandatory prison time for criminals who commit dangerous crimes with guns, and on the hand, they are doubling down on…
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Mr. Speaker, the fact is that Canadian communities along the Great Lakes heavily depend on boaters being able to cross the water from the U.S. Prepandemic, there were 400 such check-in points, and now there are 84. It has gone from 400 to 84. Some are having to travel 76 kilometres out of the way, rather than just going 800 meters across the river. It has been disastrous for local communities, and…
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Madam Speaker, the Internet is an incredible invention. We have all the information in the world in the palm of our hands. Just as the creation of the printing press in the 1400s changed the course of history forever by allowing information to be disseminated to the masses, rather than just to the elites of society, bringing literacy to millions of people, so too has the Internet revolutionized ho…
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Madam Speaker, what is really concerning, and what I discussed in my speech, is giving the Liberal government the ability to decide what is misinformation and disinformation. That is very concerning. Just the other day, our critic and our shadow minister for defence quoted an Ottawa Citizen news article talking about the military surveillance exercise that flew around the convoy, which was taking …
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Madam Speaker, proposed section 4.2 of the bill actually provides an exception to the exception that would allow the CRTC to regulate user-generated content. Further, proposed subsection 7(7) would provide the Liberal government's cabinet the ability to, in essence, dictate the policies of the CRTC concerning online content. Again, it is very concerning. These are new powers for the CRTC that did …
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Madam Speaker, I do not have a lot of confidence at all. I certainly do not have a lot of confidence in the government to maintain transparency. For example, this House compelled the Liberal government four different times to provide the Winnipeg lab documents. For the first time in a century, we brought someone to the bar, compelling them under the democratic powers that we have in this House to …
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Mr. Speaker, when I say “ArriveCAN”, what words come to mind? “Unreliable”, “frustrating”, “ageist”, “broken” and “painful” are just some of the words constituents of mine have used. The app is so difficult that some seniors are having to cancel trips to funerals, weddings and the birth of grandchildren. They are facing massive fines and mandatory quarantine, all because of a government app. After…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member about the budget generally. We have seen her government bring forward about $60 billion of deficits this year. In the past couple of years, it said that it needed it because of COVID. It needed all this program spending. We know that the $60-billion deficit this year has no COVID spending. I think it is quite reckless. I am not sure if she would a…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciated the member's personal journey and story with co-op housing. I thought he did an excellent job, but I would like to ask him about the issues facing those who need government housing, particularly with inflation. There are a lot of seniors in my riding who could use the housing described by the member. They live on very fixed incomes, so when inflation goes up 6% or 7%, …
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member outlined that the Liberal government is going to be forcing farmers to reduce their fertilizer use. In light of his comments, 100 million people may starve to death this fall because of the impacts on agriculture in Ukraine. Now we are hearing from the Liberal government that it is going to force us to reduce our fertilizer use, but we know farmers do not use more fe…
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the minister claimed that Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act because they needed it, yet there was a large protest, related to the winter one that he just referred to, this past weekend, and as far as I am aware, no one remains camped out on the roadways around Parliament. This is in direct contradiction to what the minister is claiming. As this weekend showed, with leade…
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Mr. Speaker, for three weeks, MPs, staff and members of the public all walked through the protest in downtown Ottawa. Meanwhile, the government is claiming that the national security threat was so serious and so dangerous that it could not be addressed using any other law. If that is the case, how were we all permitted to walk through that protest every day? Either there was not a real threat and …
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Winnipeg is an excellent public speaker. I have a number of concerns with Motion No. 11. First and foremost is that this is a scandal-prone government. We have seen the WE Charity scandal and SNC, and the Aga Khan's island has re-emerged. We have also seen a government that avoids accountability. In the two and a half years since I have been elected, the Liberals p…
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Mr. Speaker, it is important to remember that the Ambassador Bridge and the Coutts, Alberta crossings were cleared before the Emergencies Act was invoked. The act was not needed to clear the border blockades, and police were well equipped to take care of this with all the existing laws and powers. What, then, was the national security threat that met the extraordinarily high threshold needed to in…
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Mr. Speaker, the protest organizers are being held accountable in courts as we speak, but this inquiry is to ensure the government is being held accountable. Invoking an act with the power to override charter rights is dangerous, so the purpose of the inquiry is to tell the public whether the threshold needed to invoke the act was in fact met. The Liberal government has not made a convincing argum…
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Madam Speaker, I would say that any Liberal who suggests that they support the oil and gas industry is living in a fantasy. All they need to do is look at the electoral map. They have no seats in the areas of the country that generate some of the most economic wealth because they are consistently ignored and consistently abused by the Liberal government and its policies. Any words from a Liberal m…
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Beauce. The Canadian dream is dying, and the Liberals are digging its grave. They put us on an economic suicide mission, and the world that millennials are inheriting will be far different, after six years of the Liberals' rule in this country, from that of the baby boomers who preceded us and that of our parents. I am very concerned a…
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Madam Speaker, I think the answer to the housing crisis is that we simply need to build more houses more quickly. We need to ensure that federal dollars are incentivizing municipalities to build homes more quickly. I think we need to be moving forward in our economy. If our economy is going to keep growing, and if our population is going to keep growing, we need to ensure that our housing continue…
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Madam Speaker, I certainly would appreciate a government that takes the needs of the disability community very seriously. There are many seniors in my riding who suffer from disabilities as well. What I would say is that whenever we talk about inflation or gas prices, heating prices and grocery prices going up, we have to see that it impacts those who are on a fixed income the most, such as those …
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Mr. Speaker, that inquiry will be useless unless the Liberals waive cabinet confidence and allow Canadians to know the whole story. Really, the stakes could not be higher for Canadians, given that their charter rights are at risk with this unprecedented invocation of the Emergencies Act. To be clear for Canadians at home, the emergency powers allow the government to freeze their bank accounts, sei…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to say that the Conservative members of the public safety and national security committee are providing a supplementary report to the official report from the national security committee. The supplementary report just outlines that we feel that the billions of dollars to be spent on the federal so-called buyback program and proposed provincial handgun ban should be direc…
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Mr. Speaker, the Emergencies Act is one of the most powerful laws in the land, with an extremely high threshold needed to invoke it. That is a good thing, otherwise charter rights could be easily abused by governments. That threshold is whether there is a national threat to public safety so serious that it cannot be addressed by any other law, yet we well know that there are many existing laws tha…
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Mr. Speaker, tomorrow is Canada's first-ever NDP-Liberal government budget, and the stakes have never been higher for my generation. Many of us cannot afford a house. We cannot afford groceries. We cannot afford to fill our tanks with gas. We know dental care is not going to solve it. Pharmacare is not going to solve it. Child care is not going to solve it. Spending more money is not going to solv…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, with the first NDP-Liberal budget in history coming in a few days, it is important to take stock of the world the millennial generation is inheriting. Half of us will never be able to buy a home, despite Canada being the second-largest land mass on earth. There is plenty of land to build houses. Why is it getting less and less affordable to do so? Around $300 might buy someone four sm…
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Mr. Speaker, we really do not appreciate the arrogant tone coming from the housing minister day after day, especially since after six years of this government, housing prices have effectively doubled. Half of my generation will never be able to afford a home as a result of its failed policies. A little humility would be welcomed from the Minister of Housing. When will the government abandon its fa…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member opposite for his speech. I particularly appreciated his remarks on critical minerals and the importance of developing them in Canada. I want to get the member's thoughts on whether he feels it is important to use national defence spending to upgrade our early North Warning System, in particular expanding it to include coastal surveillance, maritime a…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to get my colleague's thoughts on the concerns being raised by YouTube and Michael Geist, foremost expert in Canada on the Internet and e-commerce, concerning the threat that Bill C-11 would be forcing streaming platforms to push Canadian content. It sounds great, but as a consequence it may actually downgrade that content abroad, which I think would be very concerning to our o…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to statistics held by the RCMP in relation to firearms: (a) what definition does the RCMP use to determine if a firearm is domestically sourced or foreign sourced; (b) is the definition in (a) universally used by other police jurisdictions in Canada that trace the origins of firearms; (c) does the designation of a firearm as domestically sourced (i) include firearms that entered Canada…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives of course support every effort to aid Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion. Given Canada's very vocal support internationally and given the threats issued by Putin and the Russian regime to punish those who try to stop them, Canada must be prepared for a worst-case scenario. This is the government's paramount responsibility. What meetings has the defenc…
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Mr. Speaker, Russia has 40 nuclear-powered weaponized icebreakers. Does the House want to know how many Canada has? It is zero. Russia has 18 military bases near Canada's Arctic border, whereas we are struggling to get one naval base up and running. Yesterday, Russia's foreign affairs minister said that a third world war will be “nuclear and devastating”. These remarks are deeply concerning and pr…
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives strongly support every effort to aid Ukraine in its battle against the Russian invasion. That being said, Putin has warned those who defend Ukraine, saying, “Whoever would try to stop us...should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and lead you to such consequences [as] you have never faced in your history.” Is Canada prepared if Putin follows through on his th…
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Mr. Speaker, I asked about Canada's emergency preparedness. This is a very serious matter. Putin has publicly directed an alert of Russia's nuclear forces. Canada's national security and public safety must be the paramount priority for the Prime Minister. Canadians have every right to know what our emergency preparedness plan is should Russia launch, for example, a major cyber-attack or move in on…
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Madam Chair, one of the things we can do immediately is move to remove Russia from the G20 and from other international organizations. They have no place, having violated the international order, on those international bodies. Again, I mentioned that we can expand our pipeline capacity to ensure we are offsetting the European dependence on Russian gas. We have gas, if only we could get it to tidew…
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Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley. I rise today on a very serious issue, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We know that Russia's attack is the most serious threat to rules-based international order since the Second World War. Since 1945, we have not faced something like this. It really threatens the longest period of relative pe…
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Madam Chair, the hon. member and I worked together on the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. I very much support seeing the government put more resources into ensuring we have a visa-free regime with which we can bring Ukrainians to Canada to be reunited with their families, to be reunited with Canadians and to bring them to safety. That is something we can move forward with immedi…
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Madam Chair, what I think is not viable is having Europe dependent on Russian gas and having our country's own sovereignty and security at the whim of 40 nuclear-powered weaponized icebreakers. I do not really care about the cost. We need to ensure that the security of Canada is first and foremost the priority of the federal government.
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Madam Chair, it is really great to see the very civil discourse tonight. This is probably the most civil I have seen any debate in the House in my few years as a parliamentarian. I thank the hon. member for those efforts. I would like to ask the member what his thoughts are on Europe's dependence on Russia for gas. What does he feel the impact of that is on Europeans and their ability to support U…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, in 1970, Tommy Douglas took a stand against government overreach when he courageously opposed the use of the War Measures Act by Pierre Elliott Trudeau, yet where is that courageous and historical NDP today? New Democrats are standing up for the son of Pierre Trudeau, giving him extraordinary powers to freeze bank accounts of political dissidents without due process. When the Liberals…
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Mr. Speaker, the blockades have ended. Downtown Ottawa has been cleared. If there was ever a national emergency, which remains in doubt, it is over. There is no need for the Emergencies Act vote tonight. It would seem then that this vote tonight is about far more than the blockades and the protesters in downtown Ottawa. It would seem it is only about power, about the government having the power an…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal member for Beaches—East York said today in the House, “I am not convinced that the emergency measures should [extend] beyond today. I would vote accordingly, but...it is now a confidence vote”. It would seem that the Prime Minister is strong-arming his back bench and the NDP to vote in his favour by threatening an election. Is that not true?
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I rise today, which is a very serious, historic day in our country. We are literally making history today by debating the government's ability to invoke the Emergencies Act. It is a critical vote. Twelve people will decide history today. As we know, the Liberals have a minority government, so they need 12 votes and only 12 votes to decide the future of this country and the precedent…
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Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. The blockades had been cleared. The Liberals did not need the emergency powers for that. When it comes to Ottawa, the police have also cleared that out. However, we consistently hear ministers and members from the other side say that they need these emergency powers to end the unlawful blockades in Ottawa. That is what we keep hearing and yet, when we look at th…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my hon. colleague what his thoughts are on the government strong-arming his backbench who do not want to vote for this tonight, and perhaps strong-arming the NDP, whose members have sort of been waffling on whether they are going to vote for it or not. The Prime Minister has made this a non-confidence vote today. If it fails, there may very well be an election. I w…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Manitoba. I have a lot of respect for her and her advocacy. Although the member did not quite get to her question, I know that members of the House, particularly NDP members, Liberals, and the Greens for sure, have gone to protests. Actually, the leader of the Green Party was arrested for blockading a road to a pipeline construction site four years ago, …
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague. I would like to also thank the Bloc Québécois for standing strong and voting against this abuse of democracy today. This is a really good point that we need constituents at home to hear. The Prime Minister today decided that this vote is going to be a confidence vote. If members do not vote in favour of his motion, he is going to call an election. That is hi…
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Mr. Speaker, yes, I was briefed last week. What is interesting is that when the department officials say one thing and the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada says another, I'm not quite sure whom to believe. Were the department officials mistaken or was it the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Canada who was withholding that information? I honestly was not sure. I am really glad she came …
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Mr. Speaker, the hypocrisy I am seeing is a Prime Minister who yesterday said, “Canada has never been as strong and together as we are now.” Does the Prime Minister not own a television? Does he not drive by what is going on in our nation's capital? That is hypocrisy. A man who, for years, said that diversity is our strength and who has now won votes off dividing Canadians, on their health choices…
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