Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, today is February 3, the first day that 254 forestry workers at the Crofton Mill are out of work. Almost all of them are still without jobs, and another 125 workers will be following them to the unemployment line in the coming weeks. Since the Prime Minister took office, Vancouver Island has seen a steady drumbeat of mill curtailments and closures. Shifts are being cut, mills are bein…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I rise to present a petition from Canadians concerned about Bill C-9. Faith, as we know, is a matter of conscience, and the petitioners are worried that the state is interfering with their religious texts and teachings, will impinge on religious freedom and lead to government overreach in matters of faith. They are calling on the House to prevent government interference in faith, re…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the whole thesis that the Conservatives are putting forward through this sovereignty act is the idea that we should stop the flight of capital outside of this country. We should remove the barriers to investment here, the things that cause Canadians to want to invest in other countries, and help bring that capital and investment back to Canada by removing the barriers to that. That …
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Madam Speaker, I think it is incredibly rich for the member opposite, who keeps referring to this as a new government, to look into the past to try to assume that Conservatives cannot change and that we cannot put forward new ideas. From a government with which we have offered to co-operate, it is especially distressing that he continues with the insults and the rhetoric and that he is not willing…
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Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives worked with the government to pass Bill C-5, giving the Prime Minister extraordinary power to approve major projects quickly. The same spirit of co-operation should bring the House together to support a Canadian sovereignty act, which would cut delays for everyone and put Canadians back in control of our destiny. The Major Projects Office is supposed to be a workaround f…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, near the end of his speech, the hon. member spoke about the MOU with Alberta. We know Alberta has identified some of the very pieces of legislation listed as ones we want to affect through a sovereignty act. These are ones that are impediments to moving projects forward. My question for the hon. member is this: Why can we not have both? Why do we have to choose between what he calls…
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Madam Speaker, last week in Davos, the Prime Minister outlined his vision to restore Canada's position as a leading middle power in the world. In the prequel to that speech last October, he reminded a room full of young Canadians that it will take time and sacrifice to realize that vision. In both speeches, the Prime Minister framed the hardship we will face in Canada to realize that vision as una…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I have been thinking a lot about topics like this over the past weeks, and what I think this really reflects on is the concept of agency. Agency is one of the real things that divide us on this side of the House from our colleagues in government on the other side of the House. We firmly believe in agency, and we can see it in this concept of the sovereignty act. We firmly believe th…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I want to welcome everyone back to this place, including Canadians who are watching at home. I am pleased to rise on our first day back to contribute to this debate on Bill C-228. I want to start by thanking my hon. Bloc Québécois colleague who introduced this bill. The context for this bill is important, because it concerns how we, as parliamentarians, understand our role in relati…
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Mr. Speaker, I am willing to accept that the government meant well in bringing the budget forward. The Prime Minister claims that he wants to reshape Canada's economy so that it is more self-reliant, more resilient and less vulnerable to outside shocks. That starts with food security. The Prime Minister has said that Canadians should judge his leadership by their experience at the grocery store. I…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am really glad the hon. member asked me about Bill C-15 and particularly the MOU. One of the really big challenges with it is that no one knows what it means. We have first nations chiefs and B.C. saying there is a veto and that they will not approve it. We have the government saying that it is going to go ahead. When it comes down to it, we do not actually know what is going to hap…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, believe me, I would like to think the best of my colleagues across the aisle. The challenge is that the programs are so confusingly organized that, while they actually help some people, the litany of complaints and the number of people in my riding and my communities who are having trouble navigating them mean that the programs the Liberals have established are creating immense backlo…
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Mr. Speaker, I am so glad the hon. member asked me about the national school lunch program, because we absolutely believe that children should be fed, but we believe that parents should be able to do it. What is incredible is that if the federal government really wanted to make a difference and wanted its dollars to make the maximum difference, it would recognize that a fabulous local school board…
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Madam Speaker, on the question of whether or not the Prime Minister is aware of this particular issue, I will say that if he reads his email, he would know that the British pensioners were actually here a couple of weeks ago. They had a Hill day. They had a suite. All MPs, including the Prime Minister, were invited to come by, and they had extensive briefings on the issue. If the Prime Minister ch…
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Madam Speaker, I have no doubt that some of my colleagues will speak more directly about the Liberal failures and the problems with the bill, but I want to focus today on an issue affecting more than 2,800 people in my riding and thousands more people across Canada, which is the frozen pensions of British Canadians. For 75 years, the U.K. has refused to provide annual increases to the state pensio…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Bow River. I rise today to speak to Bill C-13, an act to implement the protocol on the accession of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. It may be a technical bill filled with tariff schedules, statutory amendments and trade protocols…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I want to compliment the hon. member for really connecting his speech to his riding. I want to ask the hon. member about the country of origin quotas, which expired 18 months ago. I am going to provide him with the example of Canada Goose, which I believe he is familiar with. It is a Canadian company that generated $75 million of revenue in the U.K., but paid $10 million in duties l…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, 375 workers at our local Crofton mill are losing their jobs 10 days before Christmas: 150 jobs gone in Chemainus and 165 jobs gone in 100 Mile House. Thirty-one B.C. towns have been gutted so far because the Liberals broke their promise to get a deal. What is the Prime Minister's take on stalled talks? "Who cares?”, he said; there is no “burning issue”. Well, the people who lost their…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I wish I could answer the hon. member fluently in French. I am working on it. I am a new member of the House, and one of the things that actually astound me about this Parliament is how little the Prime Minister's office and the government actually involve the House in making laws and making decisions. I would have thought that the Liberals' calls for collaboration and requests that…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House to represent our beautiful riding of Nanaimo—Ladysmith, a part of our country that is shaped in every way by water. Our sea, our rivers, our swimming holes, our creeks and our wetlands are an intrinsic part of our identity. They are where we fish, farm and play; where our kids swim in the summer; and where many of us first fell in love wit…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, food banks across Vancouver Island are overwhelmed. We are seeing a surge in seniors, young families, newcomers and, increasingly, full-time workers who cannot afford the price of food. These are people who played by the rules, who worked hard and who never imagined they would need a food bank just to get through the week. Instead of helping, the Prime Minister is increasing the indus…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I asked a question, and I got a deflection. People in my community can speak to the impact of the industrial carbon tax, because unlike the Prime Minister, they do go to the grocery store. It is not just my local food bank, the Saanich food bank in that member's riding says they have also been seeing more young families, seniors and newcomers. Family Services of Greater Vancouver is a…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to Bill C-238. This bill would amend section 738 of the Criminal Code so that courts could make offenders pay back community organizations, like shelters, emergency services and victim support groups, that have faced rising costs because of human trafficking and serious drug offences under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This is a worthy idea, and I ap…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives worked hard to repeal Liberal bail. We introduced legislation weeks ago. Unfortunately, the Liberals refuses to work with us. They refused to propose amendments, and ultimately, they defeated our bill because it was put forward by us, not them. Now the Liberals have introduced their own bill and are calling for co-operation. I want to be clear that we will work with anyo…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the Liberal government, Liberal elites and insiders have never had it so good. The Prime Minister told Canadians they need to sacrifice. He promised he would spend less, but instead he spends more. The latest example is that the head of the Prime Minister's new defence investment agency, who has never served, will draw a $700,000 salary. Meanwhile, rent has doubled, …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the member should tell that to the 700,000 kids lined up at food banks. How much more do they have to sacrifice for Liberal insiders? Canadians need a government that puts ordinary families first. While Canadians are sacrificing, the Prime Minister is handing out $700,000 salaries to his high-flying buddies like Halloween candy. When will the Prime Minister stop using taxpayer dollars…
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Mr. Speaker, I have two teenagers, so when it comes to young people and their future, it is on my mind as a parent, as it is on the minds of parents in our communities. The current generation of youth is working so hard and facing so many obstacles. If we want to keep them out of gangs and out of trouble, we have to provide them with opportunity. That is one of the things that drives me.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, when I heard about Bill C-12, I was hopeful. I was hopeful because I believed that the Liberals had listened to what both Canadians and Conservatives have been saying about Bill C-2. On the surface, it looked like there was some reason to hope. Bill C-12 is a repackaged and less offensive version of Bill C-2. It does remove the most egregious of the sweeping new powers that the govern…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is a good reminder that I have naloxone in my truck, in my car and in my house. We have it in our community offices. It is ubiquitous in our lives. When it comes to the CBSA officers whom the government has promised more times than I can count, not only has it not hired those officers but there is also no money in the main estimates or the supplementary estimates (A) for those CBSA…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member opposite talks about the Liberal Party's receiving more votes in the last election than it has ever received before. Well, the Conservatives also received more votes in the election than we have ever received before. When it comes to transformational change, the Prime Minister will make that change for his buddies, but there is no minister of mental health and addictions in…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Loaves and Fishes Community Food Bank, based in Nanaimo, feeds more than 15,000 families up and down the island who cannot afford to keep up with rising grocery prices. They have done everything right, but they are still waiting for the $5 million in federal funding they were promised by the Liberal government. The Prime Minister said he would be judged by the prices Canadians pay…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to join the debate on Motion No. 14, and I begin by thanking the member for York South—Weston—Etobicoke for bringing it forward. It appears that the minister has been listening to those of us on this side of the House, because the motion speaks to three things. First, it speaks about strengthening the accountability and effectiveness of Canada's international deve…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I especially appreciate the emphasis my colleague has put on Conservative support for the reconciliation process with first nations, Métis and Inuit communities, and also the emphasis he put on the expense of creating another costly bureaucracy when families are struggling so hard to make ends meet. The Auditor General's office is an independent institution that audits federal governm…
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Mr. Speaker, why did the government choose not to place the new commissioner under the independent oversight of the Office of the Auditor General, where accountability and transparency are already well established? This would give first nations, Métis and Inuit partners greater confidence in the commissioner's impartiality.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his question. I think he has raised a point that really needs to be addressed. We have gotten to a point on this file where the trust is so low that we need to move these kinds of offences into the criminal justice system. I really cannot help but wonder what would have happened if the Liberal government had acted faster during the 10 years it had to d…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, this bill is about the prosecution of serious criminal offences around sexual misconduct. The government has had 10 years and six months to bring this forward. We need to get it right and we need to work together to do that.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, Canadians hold deep pride in the men and women who wear the uniform of the Canadian Armed Forces. They serve in dangerous places with courage to defend the values and freedoms we hold dear. We ask them to put country before self, to risk their lives so that we can continue to live in safety and freedom. For far too long, too many of those who have served have had to fight another batt…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the problem is not as much with the courts as it is with the speed of justice that the government feels they need to pursue. When it comes to the issue of Liberal bail, they Liberals say they have been waiting for that, they are waiting for this, they are waiting for a trade deal. They are waiting and waiting. Canadians are tired of waiting for the Liberals. They use lots of nice word…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we will see what the amendments are and what the process brings.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member defended the Liberal record on bail reform, yet he acknowledges that serious violent crime is on the rise. We have certainly heard member after member tell tragic stories of situations that occurred in our ridings with people out on bail. The Conservative bill we are debating today talks about protection of the public. I am wondering how the hon. member believes that c…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I would ask my hon. colleague to elaborate a bit on the ways in which a Conservative government would address the issue.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, every dollar the Liberal government wastes means higher taxes hidden in Canadian grocery bills. The Prime Minister has not even spared our morning coffee. Since he took office, the price of coffee is up 23%, and sugar is up 20%. Liberals refuse to scrap the industrial carbon tax, the packaging tax and the fuel standard tax. The sweet things in life should not come at a bitter price. W…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think that is a really important point. One of the real struggles, particularly in the last couple of years, has been for people who are experiencing extreme examples of hatred and violence in their communities and on the streets. We have had a lot of instances where people stand on one side of the street and yell at people on the other side of the street with law enforcement in bet…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, Canadians believe in a country where everyone can speak freely, worship freely and live without fear. I believe that all hon. members of the House agree that no one should face threats because of their race, their faith or who they love, yet today, Canadians are confronting an alarming reality. The police tell us that hate crimes have risen sharply since the Liberals came to power, up…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the hon. member for everything he has done to support his community and our communities. He has really shown care. I am personally grateful for that. When it comes down to whether or not we need new laws, we are only going to find that out when we make a sincere effort to enforce the ones we already have. Yes, that will involve working with our provincial counte…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think that is a good question. Part of the challenge with this legislation is that it leads to legislative whack-a-mole when we start talking about different locations. I fear that it really will drive people back into residential neighbourhoods. Then we will be constantly trying to chase these protests around to different locations. We have had these protests in so many different l…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for his remarks. I particularly appreciate the depth of the historical references and the research he has done. Turning to the situation and the serious challenges that we are facing today, including things like failure to get a trade deal, mounting federal debt, runaway costs and serious crime in our communities, I wonder if the hon. member agrees that…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Alberta's prevention sites were meant to be temporary, but the Liberal government just extended its legal exemption by a year without consulting local governments or residents. Nanaimo's city council debated spending $412,000 of taxpayers' money to fence off City Hall because of issues tied to our downtown overdose prevention site, and it still has a deferred motion on the books calli…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, more than 52,000 Canadians have died since the addictions crisis was declared a public health emergency in 2016. Over 16,000 of those deaths were in B.C., including heartbreaking losses in Nanaimo—Ladysmith, yet the Liberal government has quietly extended overdose prevention site exemptions by a year while failing to expand treatment and recovery. Why are the Liberals doubling down on…
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