Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the beginning of his comments sounded almost like an S. O. 31, and I encourage the member to try to catch the Speaker's eye the next time he rises. He is absolutely right. From what I can tell, at no time in the decisions of Truchon or Carter, and I have read both, did the government say there was a right to die in Canada because of an underlying mental illness as the only condition…
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of my constituents, the ones I have noted on the record and the many others I have spoken to, I will say that they are not so much interested in what the expert panel had to say. They simply do not want the extension to happen, and I do not mean a delay. If the government is looking for a pat on the back and a reward for a good deed, as the Yiddish proverb goes, it is not …
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke about the charter and how every single piece of legislation is supposed to be complying with it. He mentioned that, at the justice committee, they did not have information about whether this particular piece of legislation was charter compliant. I want to give him the extra time to go over the matter just so the House can be well briefed on the current situation wit…
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Madam Speaker, it could get interesting with two members from western Canada debating in French in the House on the topic of mental health. I think that program funding and increased government services are not the only things that matter when it comes to mental health. There is the role of the family and the community. It is about having a career, a profession and a reason to live. There is faith…
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be joining this debate at this late hour. I understand this is an issue that is very close to many people's hearts, and a lot of members wanted to rise. I wanted to make sure I caught your eye on this one. “The Lord rewards a good deed but maybe not right away.” That is a Yiddish proverb I have often heard. I have heard it in Polish. I love Yiddish proverbs, as many mem…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the question. She has the theme right, which is the enforcement of the provisions. The government could be directing the Canada Border Services Agency to focus on the deportation of dangerous foreign nationals, or specifically, nationals from the Islamic Republic of Iran who are known affiliate members of the regime. It could focus on individuals…
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Madam Speaker, on this particular piece of legislation, the member will find there are many Conservatives who are in agreement that aligning our sanctions regime with our inadmissibility criteria is a very good idea. It would make sure that we keep people out who have been found to be part of regimes that are violating people's human rights or that do not have the best interests of Canada in mind.…
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Madam Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill. I know members often forget to indicate this and it causes a bit of consternation at the table, so I wanted to mention that off the top. Just so my constituents know what the debate is about, we are talking about Bill S-8, which would amend paragraph 35.1(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which is …
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Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North likes to bring up what happened over eight years ago. That is over a decade ago. I do not think Netflix existed back then. What does what happened eight years ago have to do with Bill S-8 and the current legislation we are debating? The government passed a motion so it can do evening sittings, but it has chosen not to exercise it many times. This is a c…
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Madam Speaker, the signal it sends to other countries is that we are slow to act. That was the case when the protest in Iran happened, for example. It took the government six to eight weeks before it actually reacted as a government. There were statements made in the House by different government caucus members for sure, and members on our side of the House mentioned it as well. However, there was…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, as I speak, Turks, Kurds, Syrians and many others are living the tragedy of the 7.8 magnitude earthquake. As of now, reports estimate the death toll at over 22,000 people, and unfortunately the number of lives lost is expected to increase. However, there is more we can do to help, both as a government and as a people, starting with urging Turkey’s government to end the discriminatio…
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of my constituents, I am tabling a petition on the immigration backlog. Petitioners are reminding the government that the backlog is over two million applications. They are specifically drawing the attention of the Government of Canada to seven immigration programs. I will not read them all, but I will draw members to some that are effecting my riding specifically. The ser…
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Madam Speaker, the member brought up in his intervention how we would treat people who are returning from overseas who have potentially committed serious war crimes or crimes against humanity, so I wonder if he can elaborate on this matter. We have individuals who either fought for, fought with or are sympathizers of ISIS, such as Daesh, a proto-state across the Syrian-Iraqi border, which committe…
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Madam Speaker, I will continue on a different track. Within Bill S-8 there are provisions for persons to be able to challenge being put on a sanctions list, but they are not allowed to appeal being found inadmissible to Canada if they happen to be on a sanctions list. During the debate on the sanctions for the victims and the Sergei Magnitsky act, there was a provision put in to ensure that a pers…
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Mr. Speaker, as with you, English is not my first language. I grew up in the province of Quebec, so this is an issue that actually touches me very deeply. I am an enfant de la loi 101, as many Quebeckers will recognize it. I knew neither French nor English when I came to this country, so when I ask a question about the Constitution of Canada and about the charter and how it affects us, I may not g…
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Pardon me. Did you not like the accent on it?
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member if he could opine on the Egan v. Canada decision from 1995 and the Oakes test. He went on and on about section 33, which is the substance—
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Madam Speaker, indigenous people in Canada have the highest law on their side. Section 35 of the Constitution of Canada, duly passed in this country, forms the very foundation of our state. It gives them the rights that were guaranteed to them by the Crown. They do not need this inserted into this law. They have it directly in the Constitution of Canada.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères is right in saying that I am concerned about the investments that are being made by big public corporations that are owned and operated by Beijing. For the past two decades, the People's Republic of China has used businesses that it runs to make investments in other countries, without necessarily caring about the workers in those…
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Madam Speaker, the member talked about how businesses differed 100 years ago. Although he is correct on that point, more broadly we have itemized the list on this legislation. The member for South Shore—St. Margarets itemized a few concerns he has with this particular piece of legislation, including things such as automatic reviews of proposed acquisition of company's assets, plants, mines, land, …
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to see you back in the chair as well. I want to start by thanking my constituents for giving me the great privilege of being able to rise in the House to speak on their behalf to the issues they are concerned with these days. To the constituents back home, the debate today is on Bill C-34, which is amendments to, although the government calls it the modernization of, the I…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Thank you for making that clarification on Bill C-18. There is a defect in the design of the House. While making your statement, there was much noise outside, quite disrespectfully, when you were trying to inform us of the corrections that are being made to this bill. I have raised this multiple times, but since this is the first day of the return of our se…
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Mr. Speaker, happy new year. I am tabling a petition on behalf of my constituents who are calling on the Minister of Finance to suspend the federal excise tax and carbon tax for Canadians until the cost-of-living crisis has been resolved. The petitioners are reminding this Parliament and the government as well, in their petition, that the price of gasoline is intended to go up much more and the cl…
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With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC): (a) what is the breakdown of the 6,800 health care sector workers who were granted permanent residency under the Guardian Angels initiative, between December 2020 and August 2021, by specific health care related job; (b) of the workers in (a), how many are (i) medical doctors, (ii) nurses, (iii) personal support workers, (iv) othe…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Véronique Brunelle, from Calgary Shepard, who is the recipient of the 2022 Prime Minister's Award for Teaching Excellence in STEM. Véronique teaches at William Aberhart High School and works as a French immersion math teacher for grade 10, 11 and 12. Véronique is committed to innovation and her unique teaching style. It is not uncommon to see students writ…
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With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC): (a) how many IRCC employees or full-time equivalents are currently on “Other Leave With Pay” (code 699); (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by continent and region of the world that the employee works from; (c) how many IRCC employees are currently working from home as opposed to working from an IRCC office location; and (d) what is…
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With regard to requests made under the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), since January 1, 2020, broken down by year: (a) how many requests were received by IRCC; (b) of the requests in (a), in how many instances was (i) the information provided to the requestor within 30 days, (ii) an extension required; and (c) of the extensions …
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With regard to deportation orders issued by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada or the Canada Border Services Agency, since January 1, 2016, broken down by year the order was issued: (a) how many deportation orders were issued; (b) of the orders in (a), how many (i) resulted in the individual being deported, (ii) have since been rescinded, (iii) are still awaiting enforcement; and (c) wha…
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Madam Speaker, on behalf of my constituents, I am tabling a petition calling on the Minister of Finance to suspend the federal excise tax and the carbon tax for Canadians until the cost of living crisis has been resolved. They remind the House of four facts, including that next year the clean fuel standard will raise the cost of living by $1,300, and that the estimated cost of extra mortgages will…
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition is on behalf of constituents in my riding who are calling on the Minister of Finance to suspend the federal excise tax and carbon tax for Canadians until the cost of living crisis has been resolved. They are reminding the Government of Canada, in their petition, that the price of gasoline is way up all across the country, that the clean fuel standard will cost the …
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Mr. Speaker, I am tabling two petitions today on behalf of my constituents. The first petition is on behalf of Canadians of Persian heritage, as well as Rojhelat Kurdish heritage who live in Calgary. It calls on the government to immediately implement a Conservative motion passed in 2018 and to list Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization. The petitioners remind the Go…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a petition to table on behalf of my constituents. They are asking for the Minister of Finance to suspend the federal excise tax and carbon tax for Canadians until the cost of living crisis has been resolved. They are reminding the government that we are currently at triple the Bank of Canada's targeted 2% inflation rate, and it is destroying their ability to purchase groceries …
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Madam Speaker, I was following along with the member's speech with the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge and we have just one observation to make. According to the government's own fall economic statement, within seven years we will pay more in debt interest payments than we pay right now for the defence department's annual budget. If the member is as concerned as we are with the national security of…
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Mr. Speaker, as an Albertan, I agree with some of what the hon. member says. Many Quebeckers and Albertans have the same problem with the federal government. The federal government thinks that it has all the good ideas and that no good ideas come from our provincial capitals. With respect to health transfers, the provincial ministers of health and the federal Minister of Health are always fighting…
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Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer identified $14.2 billion of new spending in the fall economic statement that had no details attached to it. Effectively, it is a blank cheque for $14.2 billion that the government is asking parliamentarians to accept. Why is that member supporting more inflationary spending when we know that Canadians are hurting? The right thing to do would be to not …
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Mr. Speaker, the riding of Calgary Skyview is one I know well as I am often there. According to Statistics Canada, the median income in that riding after tax is about $87,000. That is not a lot of income for Calgary, and it puts people directly into the middle class. They will be paying thousands more because of the inflationary spending that the current government keeps supporting. I will ask him…
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Madam Speaker, the member for Joliette is right. I think that the best part of his speech was when he referred to the moon. The Adventures of Tintin is one of the best comic strips I have ever read in my life. Indeed, “lunacy” is the word that comes to mind when I think of this government and its budget. Since the last budget, it has spent another $20 billion. In this update, which we could refer …
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With regard to expenditures by the Department of National Defence or Global Affairs Canada relating to visits to Canada by senior members (senior officers and generals or higher ranking officers) of foreign militaries, since January 1, 2016: what are the details of all such trips where expenditures were incurred, including, for each, the (i) dates, (ii) reason for the visit, (iii) country of milit…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, on behalf of the people of my riding of Calgary Shepard, I am pleased to speak to Bill S‑245. It is always a great honour and privilege for me to be able to speak on behalf of Canadian citizens. I am not like everyone else in the House. Like 23% or 24% of Canadians, I am an immigrant to this country. I was just talking about that with my colleague, the member for Calgary Forest Lawn…
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Madam Speaker, just to be clear with the member, I said that the right to a healthy environment, as it is embedded and updated in the legislation, is unenforceable because it is in the preamble. It gives no force of law, essentially. Someone cannot go to court and make a claim before a judge that this is somehow an enforceable right. It is not in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is not a rig…
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Madam Speaker, what a great privilege it is always to rise on behalf of my constituents. It is just too bad I missed my opportunity to be recognized to speak for a 20-minute slot now that we have moved past the first five hours of debate. It is always a privilege to be speaking on behalf of my constituents and rising to share some of their views. On this legislation, it is a bit more difficult. It…
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Madam Speaker, as an MP from Alberta and as an Albertan, I would say that we have environmental regulations governing the largest industrial companies operating the biggest projects in our province. When it comes to legislating and regulating our province's biggest corporations, we are leading the way. The rest of Canada could follow our lead on things like ethane and methane. For large industrial…
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Madam Speaker, that is a rich argument from the member for Winnipeg North, who has probably spoken more words in the House than any other member. I dare say that perhaps he has spoken more than his entire caucus combined possibly. Maybe we should add the member for Kingston and the Islands. This is the place where consultation happens with the citizens of our country. The House of Commons, through…
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Mr. Speaker, I was just discussing with some members on our side that this is an example of the shortcomings of a hybrid Parliament. I want to congratulate the member for Dufferin—Caledon for this private member's bill to reunite families in Canada. It is critically important. As a new Canadian and immigrant to this country, I value the fact that Canada prioritizes ideas like this. The family is t…
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Mr. Speaker, in the member's speech, he went over the defects in the retail carbon tax. He also reminded the House and the public of every single target the government has missed on the environment. He made us see back to better days during the Harper years, so I would like the member to elaborate further on that.
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Madam Speaker, Bill C-9 would amend the Judges Act, and I know that many of my constituents will be wondering what exactly the act does and what the government is proposing to do. Over the past few years, I think many of our democratic institutions and civic institutions have come under stress, such as different courts of law, given how the process works. I think what the government is doing here,…
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Madam Speaker, the member asked an Albertan what he thinks about the federal government and, like in conciliatory or co-operative federalism, we have not seen a lot of co-operation, especially from the western provinces, with this federal government. I am sure my colleagues from Quebec, from all parties, would agree. Oftentimes, I find myself on the opposite side from members of the Bloc, for inst…
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Madam Speaker, this bill would have been passed, had the Prime Minister not called an unnecessary election back in August 2021. Bill S-5 would have likely passed the Senate. I do not want to prejudge the work that it would have done, but it likely would have passed. Many of us had been looking at the bill beforehand, and I am sure it would have gotten due review in the House. As the member knows, …
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Madam Speaker, the member is quite right. It would be interesting to take a closer look at clause 102, which deals with dismissal of the complaint and other actions that can be taken. There are perhaps two possibilities. The victim could be present when the decision is handed down, to find out what happens to the judge. We could also do what professional associations sometimes do and call on a mem…
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Madam Speaker, it is an interesting question. Fast-tracking bills in the House, in my experience, has usually led to more work at committees. Oftentimes, members bring forward quotes, citations, references to articles, documents and reports that are then used by the committee to do its work. Any member of the House who wishes to rise and speak on behalf of their constituents should be allowed to d…
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