Rob Morrison

Mr. Speaker, Canada has an incredible opportunity to become a global leader in the resources that power modern economies. In Columbia—Kootenay—Southern Rockies, the communities of Elk Valley and Trail are helping make that possible. Elk Valley is home to a highly skilled mining workforce that produces world-class metallurgical coal, while Trail earned an international reputation in excellence in metal processing, refining and innovation. Steel is fundamental to energy infrastructure, transportation networks and national defence. The materials required to produce steel are therefore critical to the economic and industrial security. Met coal, also known as steelmaking coal, is recognized as a critical mineral in the United States, the European Union and India. Canada needs to formally recognize metallurgical coal as a critical mineral as well. As the global demand for critical minerals and steelmaking materials continues to grow, the workers, the families and the businesses of Elk Valley and Trail remain at the forefront of Canada's prosperity. I thank them for their hard work and invaluable contribution to our country.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member, whom I have worked with. I appreciate victim services, after being in the RCMP for 35 years. I am thankful for what she has done. My question goes back to the issue of mandatory minimum penalties for individuals who commit crimes. Do you think there is enough accountability in our Supreme Court justices? Can we hold them to account so they will actually put people in jail who need to go there for those minimum penalties? I think we are a little bit weak on that. I just wonder if the hon. member, whom I loved working with, could answer that question, please.

Madam Speaker, coming from a rural area, when I go to the grocery store, people are telling me how expensive everything is, and it is a two-hour trip for me to go to a grocery store. Food prices are so high. Of course, fuel prices are high. I have had no one tell me they have never had it so good. I am wondering if the member can expand on that. Has he heard that? I cannot get out of a grocery store for two hours, because it is so expensive and people are blaming me for the food prices.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present petition e-7104, with over 700 signatures. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to establish a comprehensive legal framework to protect minors from predatory drug dealers; to monitor social media, target online trafficking and require social media companies to implement policies to prevent it; to enact a federal law against child criminal exploitation based on the approach of the United Kingdom's crime and policing bill; and to empower and require police to thoroughly and effectively investigate all reports of drug trafficking and criminal exploitation involving minors, and to provide witness protection when needed. Sixty per cent of all illicit drug users in Canada are young people aged 15 to 24, and drug overdose is the leading cause of death among youth ages 10 to 18 in several Canadian provinces.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to present petition e-6974. I want to recognize my constituent TJ Hagarty from Fernie, British Columbia, for his dedication in bringing forward this important issue. Mr. Hagarty's family experienced a significant hardship when they were unable to transfer their son's medical care to Alberta rather than Vancouver due to limitations of the current system. I am proud to present this petition, which has gathered more than 2,500 signatures from residents across my riding. Since elected in 2019, I have worked hard to support constituents within our health care system. It is my responsibility on their behalf to bring this to the attention of the House of Commons. Petitioners call on the Government of Canada to work with the provinces to address the barriers in accessing care across provincial boundaries.

Madam Speaker, it is interesting that one of the highest paved roads in Canada, the Kootenay Pass, has no cell service. It is still, today, one of the most dangerous roads in Canada. However, my question is actually related more to credit cards. So many people are relying on credit cards and the interest payments are becoming unmanageable, so that people cannot even afford to make those payments. That is sort of what the government is doing. When we do not have solid economic growth, we end up having a hard time paying off debt. We have sawmills, for example, that are using a line of credit to pay their staff. That is not sustainable. They will have to shut down those sawmills. How do we move forward so that we do not have a credit card budget and are actually making some real payments and supporting Canadians?

Madam Chair, I want to start off by saying I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Chicoutimi—Le Fjord. I want to thank the great people of Columbia—Kootenay—Southern Rockies for their support. For the last decade, Canada has been locked in the same exhausting, costly and frankly predictable dispute with the United States over softwood lumber. For a decade, it has been Canadian workers, Canadian families and Canadian communities who have been forced to shoulder the burden of the ongoing trade conflict. It is not a new issue and not a surprise. It has been staring at us in the face for years, yet somehow, despite all the warnings, all the promises and all the opportunities to act, the Liberal government has failed to secure a stable, lasting agreement, leaving the forestry sector to navigate the longest period in Canadian history without a negotiated settlement. It is not progress. It is not leadership. It is failure. Softwood lumber is not just another commodity. It is one of the foundational pillars of Canada's economy. It supports more than 200,000 direct and hundreds of thousands of indirect jobs. It sustains hundreds of rural, northern and indigenous communities. It feeds our domestic construction industry, fuels innovation and generates billions of dollars in exports. When the lumber sector thrives, Canada thrives, but when it is threatened the shockwaves ripple across the entire country. Right now, the sector is under threat. Punitive U.S. duties, which are unfounded, protectionist and arbitrary, continue to hammer Canadian producers. Nearly $10 billion in duties have now been accumulated. That is $10 billion that should be supporting workers, innovation and reinvestment here at home sitting instead in an international account. What has the Liberal government done in response? It has done nothing that has made any meaningful difference, nothing that has moved the needle for struggling mills and nothing that signals to Americans or Canadians that the dispute is being treated with the seriousness it deserves. Year after year, we hear the same lines from the government: that they are working on it, that talks are ongoing and that a solution is close. However, here we are 10 years later with less certainty, less stability and fewer tools to protect our producers than we had before. Let us talk about the past deals for a moment because history matters here. Previous softwood agreements, when they actually existed, provided at least a degree of predictability. They allowed producers to plan, invest and grow. The 2006 softwood lumber agreement provided clarity and protection, including caps, and prevented the kinds of disproportionate duties we are seeing today, especially for value-added producers who are now punished for simply selling higher-value finished products. That agreement did not happen by accident but because Canada had a government unwilling to accept endless uncertainty, a government prepared to negotiate with focus and determination, and a government that understood the needs of the forestry sector. What do we have now? We have a vacuum, a leadership gap, a government that appears more comfortable with reacting to a crisis than preventing them. Without an agreement, investment dries up, mills do not modernize, producers hesitate to hire, projects get shelved and opportunities vanish. Once the jobs are gone, once a mill closes, once a community loses its primary economic engine, it rarely comes back. We are seeing that risk at play across the country. British Columbia is already dealing with reduced harvest levels, wildfire impacts and fibre shortages. It must get more value from less wood just to survive. How can that happen in an environment where the federal government cannot secure predictable market access? From our fourth-generation sawmill, Kalesnikoff, Ken said that the softwood lumber dispute is beyond its control and that the current rates of 45% tariffs are unsustainable. He said that businesses are drawing on their lines of credit to pay payroll. At J.H. Huscroft, a 100-year mill, Justin said, “We need a plan for three years, just to feel secure” and he said that they have a million dollars in annual shipping bonds, but they don't have access to it.” At another small family-operated mill, Porcupine, Craig said, “The combined 45% plus tariff is a severe challenge to any business in the industry.” At the ATCO sawmill, with 70 years in business, Scott said that all mills rely on each other for success and that when one operation fails, everyone fails. At the logging contractor Hummers, Nick said that he had to lay off half their staff, that shipping to the U.S. was not economical and that Europe was slow as well. He said that even local mills have cancelled some of their orders. The question is simple: How long will they be forced to wait before the government finally delivers the leadership it has been promising for a decade?

Madam Chair, that is for sure a complicated issue, especially after 10 years of the market, the lumber industry, slowing down and losing mills. I do not know how many mills have been lost in B.C., but it has been maybe 10 or 15. Once we lose them, it is really hard to get them back. For British Columbia, I agree that we need to work with the province as well for tenures for our logging, but it also takes leadership from Ottawa. We really need action, not words. We really need to see something produced, not just some comments about people being given money. Again, they are not looking for handouts; we all agree on that. They are looking for stability. They want to be able to predict what they are going to do in the next three years so that they can actually start to upgrade their mills and do more with the lumber they have. A lot of the mills now are actually really specialized and to do that, they need more equipment and it takes more investment.

Madam Chair, it is really about innovation and it is about our sawmills moving ahead. For example, one mill is building modular homes and is trying to work with laminate products. It is investing its own money in it, but when it sees there are 45% tariffs down south and how difficult it is, it has a hard time surviving. How does it continue to invest money when it is losing money? I brought up the example of a business that is actually using a line of credit to make payroll; that is not sustainable. We need to go back to that predictability. We need to know where we are going with softwood lumber across Canada, and we are not there.

Madam Chair, that is a really good question, but the answer certainly is twofold. It is Trump with the tariffs, but it is also 10 years of no action. We cannot go 10 years without dealing with the problem and expect everything to go smoothly. The lumber industry has been crying for the last 10 years. It wants a deal. It wants a softwood lumber deal. There is $10 billion in a bank account that it cannot get access to. Now we are closing mills across Canada that are likely not going to come back, so that increases production in the United States and means less for us. How do we build our homes without sawmills? Let us think about that for a second. Where is our strategy to build these homes if we do not have any sawmills?

Madam Speaker, I presented petition e-4474 on this matter, with 15,000 signatures from across Canada of individuals who were concerned with the new changes to natural health products. These changes would really impact a lot of our small and medium-sized businesses that provide natural health products. In Columbia—Kootenay—Southern Rockies, we have areas where a lot of people are proactive with their health care and are using natural health products. The member gave an awesome presentation of the bill. I think we are going to have success with this across Canada.

Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court's decision in this case is devastating: Two men were found with hundreds of images and videos of children, some as young as three years old. One had 317 images, mostly of little girls between three and six. The other had hundreds of videos of children between five and 10. These are not victimless crimes. Every image is a real child hurt, humiliated and forever changed. Those children deserve justice, not excuses, yet the court chose to focus on theory instead of the horrifying facts in front of them. Canadians know justice means protecting the most vulnerable among us. A future Conservative government will use the notwithstanding clause to overturn this ruling. We will restore mandatory minimum sentences for child sexual abuse material and ensure predators face the full weight of the law.

Mr. Speaker, the member had a very thoughtful and well-researched speech. I wonder if he could tell us why he supposes, for the 120,000 Canadians who were affected by the U.K. pension, the government did not deal with that when it had the opportunity? I have a lot of people in Columbia—Kootenay—Southern Rockies who are in the same boat.

Mr. Speaker, in Columbia—Kootenay—Southern Rockies, forestry is not just an industry; it is a way of life. From small family-run mills like Huscroft, Kalesnikoff, ATCO, Porcupine and Mardis in the Kootenays to the dedicated men and women working across the southern Rockies, the forest sector is the backbone of our local economy. However, once again, these hard-working Canadians are being left behind. The Liberal government has failed to secure a new softwood lumber agreement with the United States, leaving our producers facing uncertainty and unfair trade barriers. Despite these challenges, our small mills continue to push forward, investing, modernizing and finding innovative ways to stay competitive, but they are doing it without the support of the Liberal government, which should be standing up for them. They are not asking for handouts; they are asking for fairness, stability and leadership that will fight for their livelihoods. Conservatives will always stand by our forest families and the communities that depend on this vital sector.

With regard to government employees who were on "other leave with pay" (699) during the 2024-25 fiscal year, and broken down by department, agency, or government entity, and by month: (a) what was the total number of hours or days of "other leave with pay" utilized; (b) what is the total number of public servants who have utilized "other leave with pay"; and (c) what is the total number of employees who were on 699 leave and the total number of hours attributed to 699 leave, for reasons related to (i) work or technology limitations, (ii) the inability to work remotely while diagnosed with, experiencing symptoms of or self-isolating because of, COVID-19, (iii) caregiving responsibilities resulting from school or daycare closures, or COVID-19 illness or isolation requirements, (iv) the inability to work remotely while at high-risk, or while having someone in one’s care who is at high-risk, of severe illness from COVID-19?

With regard to the Canadian Intergovernmental Conference Secretariat: (a) since January 1, 2022, what is the total number of meetings supported by the Secretariat, and for each meeting, what are the details, including, the (i) date of the meeting, (ii) nature or subject of the meeting, (iii) total cost, broken down by type of expense (e.g., travel, accommodation, personnel, venue rental, etc.); (b) what is the detailed proof of the “significant cost efficiencies and economies of scale” referred to in the Main Estimates, 2025-26, and attributed to the Secretariat; (c) what is the annual budget specifically allocated for salaries at the Secretariat, since January 1, 2022; and (d) what are the details of any consulting or similar service contracts signed by the Secretariat, since January 1, 2022, to maintain and improve its services since its creation, including, for each contract, the (i) date it was signed, (ii) vendor, (iii) value, (iv) description of the goods or services provided, (v) manner in which the contract was awarded (sole-sourced or competitive bid)?

Mr. Speaker, the people in Columbia—Kootenay—Southern Rockies are expecting that this money will be recovered. Obviously, everybody in this House will be voting for this motion. Would you not agree? What do you propose would happen if some people, perhaps on the other side, do not vote in favour of this motion and do not want to recover the money that has been taken?

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues, past and present, I rise today to pay tribute to the late Jim Gouk, a former member of Parliament who passed away on May 27 after a courageous three-year battle with cancer. Jim was first elected in 1993 as a Reform Party MP for Kootenay West—Revelstoke. He served for 12 years and four elections, later representing British Columbia Southern Interior with the Conservative Party. Before politics, Jim worked as an air traffic controller. His deep knowledge of Canada's transportation sector earned respect across party lines. A dedicated parliamentarian, he served on many committees and always focused on providing sound, informed advice to government. In his maiden speech, he said, “Those who are from there [the Kootenays] know how incredible it is. Those who are from other places are mistaken in believing that theirs equal it.” Upon retiring in 2005, Jim said it was time to enjoy life with his wife, Ann, and practise the three Gs: gardening, golf and grandchildren. Jim leaves a legacy of service, integrity and dedication. We extend our deepest condolences. May he rest in peace.