Government Orders
Madam Speaker, land is one way to look at this, but the way we are looking at it is actually through buildings. Buildings are what our concern is. There are ways to take underused buildings and convert them to residential areas. They are often in places where we can use them in the city and that are close to transit. We know that the government has underutilized resources, underutilized buildings,…
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Madam Speaker, we have talked a lot about increasing the rental supply. As I said before, we need to look at all the different ways of increasing that supply, whether it is through the private sector, the public sector or the not-for-profit sector. All of these areas can contribute to the solution. The sad part is that 50% of young people today have completely given up on the hope of even owning a…
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Madam Speaker, today I will be speaking to the housing affordability crisis in Saskatoon and to our motion, which attempts to get something done on housing, compared with six years of Liberal inaction. This is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, and I would like to give some quick thanks. I want to thank the residents of Saskatoon West for choosing me to represent them here in Ottawa. It is my…
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Madam Speaker, I think that we need to look at all options for investing into housing. Of course, the government can invest in housing, but we also need to look at having the private sector and other organizations invest in housing. There are many charitable organizations that want to do this work. There are a lot of options. This is a case where, as the member pointed out, we need 1.8 million new…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, on August 15, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, endangering thousands of Afghans who worked and fought beside Canadian Forces. It is the same Taliban that has hunted and killed our soldiers over the past 20 years. The government has committed to taking in 40,000 Afghans but to date has taken less than 10% of that number. In the meantime, another 10,000 Afghans are frantically wondering…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, first, I would like to thank the wonderful people of Saskatoon West for once again putting their trust in me to represent them here in Ottawa. Many of those people, by the way, are seniors, and they have spoken to me many times about the difficulties they are facing. Of course, most seniors live on a fixed income, and the government has made it very difficult for them. Inflation is …
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Mr. Speaker, yes, global warming is real and yes, we need to do something about it. It is not other politicians that need to be convinced of this, it is people. Where people struggle sometimes with this, is the fact that many of the proposed solutions to this point will affect them deeply. They are going to take away their jobs. They are going to take away their livelihood. They are going to take …
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Mr. Speaker, this is a core issue of one of the flaws in the bill. The government says one thing and does another. The Liberals said they were going to have an advisory committee that would be made up a variety of different people, yet they created the committee even before the bill was passed. We are still talking about it here, yet the committee already exists. The membership of that committee i…
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Mr. Speaker, what we have to understand is that right in the numbers she provided there will be oil and gas used in the world for many years to come. I want to ensure that Canada is the country producing and supplying that oil and gas to the world. We have some of the toughest rules when it comes to human rights, labour policies and environmental legislation. We do not want oil that will be produc…
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moved: That Bill C-12, in Clause 22, be amended by replacing line 32 on page 12 to line 9 on page 13 with the following: “(2) The Minister must make the annual report available to the public within 30 days after receiving it and then, within 120 days after receiving the report, the Minister must publicly respond to the advice that the advisory body includes in it with respect to the matters referr…
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Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege and pleasure to speak tonight to this important bill. I am going to take a bit of a different slant on this. As members know, I was first elected in 2019, so I am a relatively new member of this House. This period of time just before the session ends for the summer is a very busy time, as I understand. This is my first experience with it. It is the first time I have…
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Mr. Speaker, I have had the privilege of sitting on the environment committee with my colleague, and I did notice all of the collusion that happened between the NDP and the Liberals on this issue. My question to him is simple. How will all of the collusion in the way the NDP has worked to support the Liberals be portrayed in the next election? Can Canadians trust NDP members to have their own thou…
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Mr. Speaker, there is a phrase that I live by: Work smarter, not harder. Many of the things that we have seen from the government are the opposite of that. Money was given to dead people. If we look at the cross-section of who got the most money, it was the wealthier families that got it. It was not the lower-income families. There were many things, in the way these programs were set up, that were…
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Mr. Speaker, I am hearing the same thing. I have talked to many seniors who are upset with many different aspects of what the government is doing. I believe that seniors built our country, seniors are the foundation upon which we live and it is because of seniors that I am standing here today. We all stand on the shoulders of our seniors, so they are very important. We need to provide for seniors.…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today and speak to the budget. I actually did not think I would get the opportunity to do this. I did not think I would see a budget from the government, so I am pleased to speak to it today. I want to put this into the context of COVID-19. Last March, the government shut down the economy because of the pandemic, and we Conservatives co-operated with a lot of…
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Mr. Speaker, I absolutely think we will. I can speak to that because I lived through that. I lived through the 1990s. Like I said, my first mortgage had a 13% interest rate and I worry that my children and my future grandchildren, if I have any, will have to deal with this. They will have high interest rates that they simply will not be able to afford. When we talk about housing affordability bein…
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Madam Speaker, I can speak to my own position on this. In my former work, I was involved with different organizations working in the inner areas of Saskatoon. Housing has always been a priority to me. Housing has been important to me all through my life. I have worked hard to help people get good housing. I have worked with organizations in Saskatoon to help those who are vulnerable and who do not…
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Madam Speaker, the cost of construction these days is really unfortunate. That is part of why I am talking about the building codes. We have to make sure that what we are implementing for building codes is reasonable given the costs that are associated with them. Many factors come into play when it comes to costs. We have to have a strong labour force. That is achievable. We need to have a good tr…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the parliamentary secretary's comments and I do appreciate the work that he is doing on behalf of Saskatoon. Hopefully, we will see some money flow eventually to Saskatoon. Regarding the building codes, he is right. The Saskatchewan government does adopt the building codes, but my point was not that we need to gut them; my point was that we need to be careful when we cr…
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Port Moody—Coquitlam. It is my privilege to rise in the House to speak today. Housing is an issue that was important to me before becoming an MP, because in my previous job I owned a small home-building business and we built about 60 homes in the space of 10 years. Today I want to share some of the knowledge I gained over the years of …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, today I am pleased to rise and present this petition from 543 petitioners in Saskatoon. They spoke passionately to me about the military coup in Myanmar, where tens of thousands of people were protesting, but the military and police had cracked down on them. They also mention that more than 540 people have been arrested, and some people were even shot by the police. Petitioners ask …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal-Bloc coalition cutting off debate on its Internet-censorship bill is an act of cowardice by this government. It is doing this because it is afraid of the public backlash against going down in history as the government that trampled over Pierre Trudeau's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In my riding of Saskatoon West, constituents have made it clear that they do not want thi…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, yesterday the Liberal-NDP coalition rammed through the House the Prime Minister’s billion-dollar-deficit budget. This budget is a massive letdown to all Canadians who were looking to the federal government to deliver us out of the worst economic times this country has faced in a century. Instead, Canadians got costly spending piled upon costly spending. Under this Liberal-NDP coalit…
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Mr. Speaker, not to give any secrets away, but I suspect my colleague is of a similar vintage as me. I remember when my first mortgage, for example, was 13%. The interest costs in this budget are admittedly quite low, and we are in a low interest rate time, but they will go up. I would like the member's comments on the impacts of higher inflation and interest rates and whether there is significant…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, Saskatoon recently lost a stalwart of the Conservative movement. As a long-time EDA board member and staff member, Al Chant was a dedicated and caring person who loved helping others. Whether to a constituent, a party member or even an MP, Al was not afraid to speak up, and he always said what was on his mind. I am sure even Prime Minister Harper got an earful or two from Al. Honesty …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to meetings between ministers or ministerial exempt staff and federal ombudsmen since January 1, 2016: what are the details of all such meetings, including (i) individuals in attendance, (ii) the date, (iii) agenda items or topics discussed?
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With regard to communications, public relations or consulting contracts signed by the government or ministers' offices since January 1, 2018, in relation to goods or services provided to ministers offices: what are the details of all such contracts, including (i) the start and end date, (ii) the amount, (iii) the vendor, (iv) the description of goods or services provided, (v) whether the contract …
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With regard to the relationship between the government and Canada 2020 since January 1, 2016: (a) what is the total amount of expenditures provided to Canada 2020, broken down by year, for (i) ticket purchases, (ii) sponsorships, (iii) conference fees, (iv) other expenditures; and (b) what is the total number of (i) days, (ii) hours, government officials have spent providing support to Canada 2020…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, today we are celebrating Earth Day. All Conservatives know how important the health of our planet is. The leader of our Conservative Party recently announced our plan to secure the environment. This comprehensive plan would achieve about the same emissions reductions by 2030 as the government's current plan. However, our plan would create jobs and grow the economy, as compared to the …
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Madam Speaker, I want to clarify my remarks. In no way am I saying that we should not be trying to reduce greenhouse gases. I am just saying that we have to look at it a little differently. We cannot compare ourselves to Bermuda, or India or wherever. We need to create a made-in-Canada solution that not only reduces greenhouse gases, but is able to help the world.
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Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member refers to not leaving things to the future. When I look at the legislation before us, when does it start? When is the first review? When are the first requirements required? Are they even going to be impacted by the member opposite? Is he even going to still be in the House? If we look at the legislation, those requirements are way in the future…
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak to this issue in the House and I want to start by going back through a bit of history. I want to go back to the eighties, when I was growing up. In the eighties, the big issue was the ozone layer. There was talk about the fact that it was thinning, that there were holes in it and that the sun's rays were causing damage. Prime Minister Brian Mulro…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would remind my colleague that he may want to split his time.
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Madam Speaker, I listened with great interest to the parliamentary secretary's recount of history and I almost expected a soundtrack of music to show up at the last minute. He was speaking of the past which made me think of the past. We have an airport in Saskatoon, which I have been flying out of for 35 years. It has taken many years to build up the flights that come into that airport. I remember…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, at the end of February, I was able to host an online town hall in my riding of Saskatoon West on the issue of affordable housing. The town hall was attended by our shadow minister for housing, along with a panel of local experts and a good number of constituents from all backgrounds. Through my previous work as a home builder, and my wife's involvement with the Bridge on 20th Fellowsh…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition today on behalf of Canadians about the recent news of coordinated Uighur birth suppression as well as their concern about the mounting evidence that Uighurs are being subjected to arbitrary detention, separation of children from their families, forced labour, forced organ harvesting and more. The petitioners therefore call on the House of Commons t…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister seems to be very smug these days, patting himself on the back for new vaccine deliveries. Without any sense of irony, he congratulates himself. Does he know that Canadians have been waiting for months to get vaccinated because of the government's failure to get vaccines delivered to Canada? Now with a limited supply entering the country, the Prime Minister claims …
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour today of presenting another petition on the Uighur situation in China. Petitioners are calling on the government to formally recognize that Uighurs in China are being subjected to genocide and to impose Magnitsky sanctions. The world was slow to react in Rwanda when there was a genocide there, and now the situation of the Uighurs meets most, if not all, of the criter…
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With regard to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions at Environment and Climate Change Canada, Transport Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Department of Finance Canada, and the Privy Council Office: what is the government’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the heavy trucking sector (specifically operators and manufacturers of class 8 vehicles) at Environment and Climate Change Cana…
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With regard to consultations on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions since October 20, 2019, at Environment and Climate Change Canada, Transport Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Department of Finance Canada, and the Privy Council Office: (a) what, if any, consultations have occurred with the heavy trucking sector (specifically operators and manufacturers of class 8 vehicles) with regard to t…
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