Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to the health minister's speech. He talked about, at one point, finding common ground and finding solutions. He recited every single anecdote in this speech that he did in his second reading speech on the bill. This bill, Bill C-64, only got three days of debate in the House, and it was then sent to committee. Now, we have a programming motion, so it is a guil…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, in yesterday's debate, I mentioned that I was one of the 18 parliamentarians targeted by this pixel reconnaissance attack from APT31. As I disclosed, this was not just any cyber-hacking group in their mom's basement. These were actually intelligence officers working for one of the subnational governments that the Beijing government loves to use in order to target legislators. I was ta…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member for Edmonton Manning is absolutely correct. The message the government basically sends to the diaspora communities, to former political prisoners whom we meet with and to people in civic organizations in Canada is that they do not matter. They will not be protected by the government. It is a free-for-all, with foreign agents and foreign hacking. It is not just their physica…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member is right. As with many things with the Liberals, they are not leaders on anything. They are followers on where other governments have gone. The U.S. State Department has already listed seven of these intelligence officers connected with APT31. Let me just read some of the targets mentioned. It goes to why we should list them, why we should penalize them and why we should sa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very good point. It is possible that one of the reasons the government chose not to inform us, those 18 of us who were targeted, is not just because the attacks did not succeed but also because there would have been an expectation from us, and calls by us, for sanctions on the people, organizations and governments that were doing this. This is, again, not something…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North talked about your ruling, so I did want to read a bit from it. I did quickly read it over one more time, and you actually did not praise anything the Liberal government has done over the past nine years to try to offset the amount of foreign interference in our country or said that the government has succeeded in somehow protecting parliamentarians, becau…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I wish I were pleased to join the debate, but I am not. I am one of those 18 parliamentarians who had their email targeted by APT31. To be perfectly honest, I did not know what APT31 was. I think many of my colleagues know that I spend a lot of time in diaspora communities, so I do know quite a bit about random, obscure groups that many of us do not pay attention to, but this is a new…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is a line I hear from the government whenever it has made a mistake. “Do not be so partisan” is the response Conservatives get from the government benches. I have made the case that the government followed its own process, but the process is immoral. It is unethical. The Liberals' line is that, because the interference was not successful, we did not need to know about it. That i…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, first, I would never tell members not to rise in the House when it is their opportunity to speak on a particular issue. Second, I think every single member who was targeted should get an opportunity to rise in the House and explain exactly how this impacted their work. Third, I note that it is after 11 o'clock. I doubt PROC will be meeting tonight. The debate should continue until eve…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am tabling a petition on behalf of Hong Kongers all across Canada. The petitioners draw the attention of the House specifically to the treatment that Hong Kongers have received ever since the national security law in Hong Kong was implemented, instituted in Hong Kong by the Communist authorities, on June 30, 2020. They draw the attention of the House to the fact that it has suppress…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to Immigration and Refugee Board hearings on refugee claims, in 2023: (a) for written hearings, how many claims were (i) accepted, (ii) rejected, (iii) abandoned, (iv) withdrawn and other, in total and broken down by the country of origin of applicants; and (b) for oral hearings, how many claims were (i) accepted, (ii) rejected, (iii) abandoned, (iv) withdrawn or other, in total and br…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am tabling two petitions today on behalf of constituents in my riding. The first petition calls on the federal government, which has already issued sanctions against the Russian Federation, to also name the Russian Federation as a foreign state supporting terrorism and to list it as a state sponsor of terror under specific legislation related to terrorism and the State Immunity Act.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is very dear to my heart, because I am a member of the Calgary Co-op. The Government of Canada has made illegal single-use plastics across the country as of December 2023, including the Calgary Co-op's 100% compostable shopping bags. This is despite the fact that the Calgary Co-op states that its bags contain no plastic, including no plastic in the ink, and that th…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I want to make a comment and ask the member a question. The first line of the report calls on the government to designate the group, called Sepâh-e Pâsdârân in Farsi, as a terrorist group. We have been trying to convince the government for six years now to designate it as a terrorist group under the Criminal Code. Some members have asked the question about the people who have been f…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I would like to commend the member on at least recognizing the fact that there are IRGC agents in Vancouver. I do spend quite a bit of time in the Persian community, but also with Kurds and Baloch, who are also all impacted. Many of them originate from Iran and are chased here by IRGC agents who continue to try to persecute them, whether it is with WhatsApp messages or telegram mess…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I know the member cares about this particular issue quite a bit. We had a kind of round table on the Hill, what now feels like many months ago, regarding specifically the issue of conscripts in the IRGC, in Sepah-e Pasdaran. The way it works in Iran is that one enters a room where all the conscripts are and people are basically assigned in thirds to whatever service they are going to.…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask for a recorded division.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I would like to ask for a recorded division.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I would like to request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the third and final petition that I am tabling is on behalf of constituents in my riding who are also members of the Calgary Co-op. This is with regard to Environment Canada's decision to continue to ban compostable shopping bags that are 100% non-plastic bags. These constituents are drawing the government's attention to the fact that the Calgary Co-op has successfully kept over 100 m…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Financial Post headline says it all. Scotiabank reports that the Bank of Canada rate cuts could be delayed due to high government spending. Under the Prime Minister, our national debt has more than doubled, more than all other prime ministers combined. The consequences are spiralling inflation and skyrocketing interest rates hitting every single Canadian family. Rents and mortgage…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the federal government's commitment to resettle 15,000 refugees in Canada following the renegotiation of the Safe Third Country Agreement: (a) what is the breakdown by country of origin; (b) what is the breakdown by country of citizenship; (c) what is the breakdown by demographics of the claimants by (i) age, (ii) sex or gender; and (d) how many claims were (i) accepted, (ii) refuse…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present three petitions from my constituents. The first petition is on medical assistance in dying or the assisted suicide system. These constituents are drawing the attention of the House to the fact that, on March 17, MAID was supposed to become available to those with a mental illness. Parliament has since then extended it. They are still calling on the Government of Cana…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, my second petition goes back to the issue of the lost confidence that many Canadians in my riding have about the government here. They are calling on the House for a vote of non-confidence again. They are asking for an election to be held within 45 days after the vote is won. Once again, as the current government is not acting in the best interests of citizens, they are asking the Hou…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the family-based humanitarian pathway for Sudanese and non-Sudanese nationals due to the ongoing conflict in Sudan, since the December 28, 2023 announcement: (a) how many applications have been (i) received, (ii) accepted, (iii) denied, (iv) pending or under review; (b) what is the breakdown by male and female; (c) what is the breakdo…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the temporary special measures for extended family in Gaza due to the Israel-Hamas war, since the December 21, 2023 announcement: (a) how many applications have been (i) received, (ii) accepted, (iii) denied, (iv) pending or under review; (b) what is the breakdown by male and female; (c) what is the breakdown by age range; (d) how man…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member is giving an impassioned speech about her riding and there is so much noise in the chamber, it is impossible to hear her from the front of the floor of the House.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the acceptance of government assisted refugees from United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugee camps in Uganda: (a) what is the total number of refugees accepted from Uganda since January 1, 2017, broken down by year; (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by ethnicity; (c) what is the breakdown of (a) by country of origin; and (d) what is the breakdown of (a) through (…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the rarest day of the year is upon us once more. February 29 appears once every four years, and it is quite a fitting day to mark this occasion. My family is affected by two rare diseases. Three of my living kids have a rare chronic kidney condition called Alport syndrome. My youngest daughter passed away from Patau syndrome in 2018. Since I rarely do haikus in the chamber, here is on…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member raises a great point. There are a lot of vulnerable, disabled Canadians who have expressed themselves through not only their associations but also as individuals by communicating to their elected representatives that they do not want to see this expansion because they are worried. It comes from their experience when they go into a clinical setting or into a hospital setting…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am glad to be joining debate on Bill C-62. Off the top, I will mention that I will be voting for it. Like the shadow minister for justice on the Conservative side said, this is about protecting the vulnerable. Though the federal government has dropped the ball in this latest iteration of its legislation, these three years, I hope, will be taken to basically fix the mistakes that w…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is something that I also think about. The member mentioned courts, and sometimes, I feel that these court decisions should apply for six months to the judge who makes them before they apply to the rest of the public. I sometimes wonder, when they think these things through, that it goes back to too much legal information that clouds their judgment at times. This is where I worry th…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I obviously agree with the member. The dog that ate the government's homework has been fattened up over the last nine years, because it had a lot of homework to eat that the government has not done or pretends not to have done. However, we had an opportunity to close the door completely with the bill from the member for Abbotsford, Bill C-314. I think it was a grave mistake of the Hou…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am tabling a petition from my constituents, asking for another non-confidence vote to be held. This is a petition I had out at my new year's levee earlier in January, and this is the earliest opportunity I have had to get it certified by Journals. It is very simple: My constituents are asking for a vote of non-confidence to be held within 45 days, and, should the government lose t…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the Senate amendments to Bill C-234 have drastically changed the contents of the original bill that this House passed with support from multiple parties. It would basically have reduced the tax bill for farmers by about a billion dollars, savings that would have been passed on to my constituents whose greatest relationship with farmers is when they go to the grocery store to buy Canad…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it is sad that those members have not read the immigration plans pre-2015. It was a Conservative government that created the super visa program for parents and grandparents. It was a Conservative government that made the PGP, the parents and grandparents permanent immigration system, work better. What the Liberal government has done is create a lottery system whereby people have spe…
Read full speech →Government Orders
The member is saying it is not true. I invite him to check the immigration committee's records, because all the numbers have been tabled successively over the last year, which proves the case that all the backlogs are worse than they were in 2015 for almost every single program the government controls today.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on a Bloc opposition day motion. To summarize it briefly, it would recall a vote in the House that tied immigration targets in Canada to various areas of capacity in social services, French and English-language training, transportation infrastructure, health care, jobs availability and education. This was voted on at the end of last year, typically wh…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, a Yiddish proverb I love is that if a wise man and a fool are debating, and rabbis love this proverb as well, what we have are two fools debating between each other. Sometimes I feel this is what I am watching. I have listened to the Herle Burly Podcast, and the new Minister of Immigration has appeared on it twice now. He talks a really tough game when he is on the podcast. Then he …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am glad that the minister was able to contribute to this debate. It is hard to take him seriously, though, because that immigration plan was tabled November 1. By that time, in his own ministry, there were now over one million international students in Canada. He knew that. He came two to three months later to announce a cutting down of 35% and capping all over the country on a sy…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, what I am prepared to say is that we will have a common-sense immigration system. We will not need a referendum, since we will have a federal government that is able to work with all the provinces fairly. Furthermore, our government will make sure that the provinces are able to tackle the challenges. It will not call them names, compare them to heat pumps or insult them. It will wor…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member has a lot of experience, especially on the immigration committee. I usually do not agree with her, but I do respect the fact that she brings a deep level of knowledge to a lot of the immigration issues that she approaches. We are usually on opposite sides of voting. She has basically supported this government for the last three or four years without objection, every singl…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I did say that she bears responsibility with voting on every single confidence motion and every single confidence measure in the House, and so she does bear responsibility for decisions made by this government. She is supporting the spending, she is supporting the employment, she is supporting the number it is hiring and how it is handling the files. That is what I am saying. The me…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, concerning the first part of my colleague's question, it depends. I know that this is not the answer he was hoping for. However, it depends. We will see how the debate unfolds. As for the second part of his question, as the member knows, we Conservatives voted in favour of the Bloc Québécois's motion on the Century Initiative. At the time, we voted with the Bloc Québécois and the ot…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member is wrong. When the Paul Martin government was defeated in 2006 and a new Conservative government took over, it took a few years to realize that, in fact, there was a six million to eight million application backlog created by previous Liberal governments. At that time, the decision was made to reset the system to zero, because there was no way to fix it. Liberal governmen…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member for Sarnia—Lambton is correct. I asked the government to tell me how many construction workers were brought in through all immigration streams under the different NOC codes. The minister claimed that he was not the minister responsible for NOC codes. It is about 4,500 per year since 2016. We have a shortage of 100,000 residential construction workers just in Ontario. They…
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