Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, as the member mentioned, I also heard the port directors say that their perspective was not included in the bill. I hope that the government will listen to the private sector and the port directors at committee stage so that we can improve the bill and promote our economy.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I do believe that we need to hear about the challenges that the Nunavummiut face with respect to port access, and that is a very legitimate concern that I think should be addressed in the legislation. Canada is an Arctic nation, and I hope that we give it the attention it deserves at the committee stage.
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Mr. Speaker, until the major issues are unstuck, as the report from the national task force clearly outlines, I do not think the bill can be supported. The minister had an opportunity when he tabled this legislation to rely upon the expert advice he sought in the first place. It would be irresponsible for me to support this legislation in its current format, because the minister himself did not ta…
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek. One of the most defining moments since I was elected was when the rail lines in my riding, both the CN and CP rail lines, were washed out. There were over 30 wash-outs in the Fraser Canyon. In fact, one day in November two years ago, I was in a meeting with the minister of emergency preparedness. I walked out o…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, petitioners in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon who paid into the U.K. social security regime are asking the Government of Canada, in any negotiations related to a Canada-U.K. free trade agreement, to address the discriminatory practice of freezing U.K. pensions in Canada. These citizens paid into the U.K. pension and are asking the Government of Canada to address this discrepancy on a s…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, after eight years, everything feels broken in Canada. Under the NDP-Liberal government, Canada is unaffordable, unsafe and more divided. The Liberals have vastly expanded the size of the federal government while driving participation in the entrepreneurial economy to record lows. The Prime Minister is just not worth the cost, but we can put the pieces back together by giving Canadians…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the passion from the member for Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook. However, I do have a real question related to the bill despite all the rhetoric we heard about the former member of Parliament. It is related to the new licensing regime for exploration, which is capped at 25 years. Part of the bill talks a lot about empowering indigenous Canadians or using the consultative pr…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, over the summer, I heard from a large number of constituents in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon who are concerned about the trafficking of individuals, namely of foreign students. Foreign students come to Canada to start a new life, get an education and play a part in Canadian society, yet over the last number of years, we have seen an increasing number of foreign students, namely women…
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Madam Speaker, across British Columbia this summer, and in other regions of Canada, we experienced a record number of wildfires. Many of those were in the riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon. Petitioners in my riding are still suffering from the 2021 fires and subsequent floods that damaged critical infrastructure across our province. The petitioners are calling upon the government to do what …
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With regard to the Black Entrepreneurship Program (BEP): (a) how many applicants applied to the BEP Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, since the program was launched; (b) of the $160 million allocated to the Black Entrepreneurship Loan Fund, (i) how much has been delivered to the successful applicants, (ii) what is the average loan amount; and (c) under the $92 million approved funding for the Ecos…
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With regard to the Women Entrepreneurship Strategy (WES): (a) how many applicants applied to the WES Inclusive Women Venture Capital Initiative; (b) of the $15 million allocated to the Inclusive Women Venture Capital Initiative in budget 2021, how much of the funding has been delivered to successful applicants; (c) how many women entrepreneurs have accessed capital under the Women Entrepreneurship…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, it has been outlined in the debate thus far that some provinces are further ahead than others. We have learned that the Province of Quebec has moved forward and enacted a registry. This measure will help fight money laundering, which is a good thing. As well, British Columbia has moved forward with implementing a registry. I believe almost all provinces in Canada, save Alberta, have…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. We are not here to debate Bill C-18; we are here to debate Bill C-42. The member was asking about Facebook.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am going to be speaking on Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. Before I begin, I seek unanimous consent from the House to split my time with the hon. member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley.
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Madam Speaker, Conservatives are proposing that we amend the motion before the House today, the motion that Bill C-42 be read for a third time, in order to send Bill C-42 back to committee for some important additions, with number one being thresholds. During our study at INDU, the RCMP officials were clear that reducing the threshold for significant control would strengthen the registry and law e…
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Madam Speaker, the only assurances committee members have received regarding provincial participation relate to a letter the minister sent. What is problematic for me, as an opposition MP, and I am learning this the more time I spend going through amendments and clause-by-clause, is that the word of a minister is not enough. I need to see concrete action. The minister did not provide the letter, a…
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Madam Speaker, as I mentioned in the debate yesterday, perfection cannot be the enemy of the good. The Conservative Party will be supporting this bill reluctantly, but my cry tonight, my plea with the government, is to never again during this parliamentary session try to have witnesses the hour before clause-by-clause. In British Columbia, we had the Cullen commission and the Peter German report. …
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague from Nova Scotia is a true historian and parliamentarian in the very best sense of the word. Changing the threshold from 25% to 10% would have done what the RCMP said, in the testimony I shared today from that one hour from witnesses, which is that it would have given law enforcement organizations such as FINTRAC, and the RCMP and its money laundering unit more too…
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Madam Speaker, the official opposition would like to request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the other day I drove through the hon. member's riding for the very first time in almost a decade. I remembered how wonderful the beaches are where he lives. They are quite amazing on the lakes. The member raises an important question about how much further this bill could have gone had we had enough time at committee and not been rushed with hearing from witnesses and automatically g…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, to my knowledge, I am the only member in this chamber who participated in the amendment stage of Bill C-42. I will point out that we worked in good faith with all members of this House of Commons to put forward common-sense amendments to the legislation. The hour before we had clause-by-clause, we had some of the most critical witnesses appear on this bill. They were from Transparency…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we all know very well that we cannot refer to sitting members of this House of Commons by their name. It is the member for Durham.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, June 30 marks the second anniversary of the deadly fire in my riding that decimated Lytton, two years of residents without a home, two years of students unable to reunite with their classmates, two years of entrepreneurs unable to restart their businesses. Lytton entrepreneurs and small businesses are doing everything they can to recover. First hit hard by the pandemic, business owner…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola for his very substantive speech tonight. Can he share with the House how his constituents feel about ending money laundering? What do the great people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola think the government should be doing to provide more transparency and accountability as it relates to money laundering?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to understand the rationale behind lowering the significant threshold from 25% to 10%. Indeed, the New Democratic Party supported this amendment after hearing testimony during the debate at committee on why Canada should be a leader in money laundering to adopt a more progressive threshold, which was outlined by the RCMP.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the second petition I would like to present today is on behalf of the people of Agassiz, who are trying to build a regional aquatic centre. This project was inspired by a progressive approach to reconciliation. All of the local first nations have worked with the District of Kent to get the Lets'emot community and aquatic centre built. So far, the federal government has only committed …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the first petition I would like to present today is on behalf of the village of Lytton, which was decimated by fire on June 30, 2021. We are coming up on the two-year anniversary. When this petition was written, Lytton was still under an evacuation order. That was lifted two days ago. Since the rebuilding has yet to begin, all of the businesses that were destroyed are asking very clea…
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Madam Speaker, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon is Canada's number one riding. I will just note that, during the witness testimony, we heard from Transparency International and the RCMP that the standard practice the government keeps talking about was not actually a standard practice; it was just a norm that became adopted. I fail to see why the government sees such an impediment to decreasing the th…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, indeed, the member raised some important points. I do not believe that any of the security officials who appeared at committee, in their limited time, referenced a correlation between this legislation and the invasion by Russia into Ukraine. I think what is important in this registry, as the lawyers from the Canadian Bar Association outlined in their information to the committee, is…
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Madam Speaker, if we are to compare the way we take information for someone who donates to a political campaign in Canada versus the United States, I think we can rest assured that in Canada, we have a maximum donation of $1,700 for an individual. No corporations are allowed to donate in Canada, and we have a public registry that is updated on a regular basis by Elections Canada. I think, in Canad…
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Madam Speaker, I actually raised the hon. member for Nepean's testimony from the debate we had at second reading during the amendment process. We should do more to ensure that valid government identification is included in the registry, maybe not on the front end that the public can access, but making sure that our law enforcement agents can in fact review that information in a timely manner. Inde…
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moved: That Bill C-42 be amended by deleting the long title. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise on Bill C-42, an act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act and to make consequential and related amendments to other acts. I outlined the amendment because we really did not study or work on too many other acts. Earlier last week, when we finally had time to debate this bill and study it exte…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, let me just say that, in the 1970s and 1980s, when we had the most purpose-built rentals constructed in our country, it was under a taxation plan that deferred capital gains. That is the only time we have seen the amount of rental construction that we actually need. That was a policy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, I believe. Unfortunately, he quashed that policy. I think we need to look…
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Madam Speaker, with respect to the labour shortage and housing for workers, including housing for people who build homes, the Canadian Home Builders' Association came forward with a very interesting proposal, and it is one I support: removing the GST on new home builds in Canada. Imagine the government did not collect $50,000 to $60,000 on new home construction through taxation. Imagine if we said…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells raises an important point. Development cost charges by our municipalities increase the cost of new builds at an alarming rate. Second, to that point, I do not believe municipalities, irrespective of jurisdiction, have always been transparent about how those development cost charges are used. I know that in some cases they might charge a DCC on a r…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I actually do believe that the private sector has a much bigger role to play in solving the housing crisis we find ourselves in today. I do believe that the private sector could do much more. What we have seen in the last eight years is a government trying to replace the private sector, and all we have seen are disastrous results, higher housing costs, more homelessness and more deb…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am always pleased to rise in the House of Commons and share, hopefully, some insightful words. Before I begin, yesterday you informed me, Madam Speaker, that you were born in Portugal. Yesterday was national day in Portugal. I know there are some celebrations going on in Ottawa, so to all Canadians of Portuguese descent, happy national day, even if I am a day late, and have a grea…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, under the government, Canadian families are in more debt than any other country in the G7. Last week, with the passage of budget 2023, the costly coalition poured another 60 billion dollars' worth of fuel onto the inflationary fire, sparking another interest rate hike from the Bank of Canada. Families with variable-rate mortgages, those who the Prime Minister encouraged to borrow, pro…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the legislative review of the Cannabis Act launched by Health Canada in September 2022 and the related online questionnaire: (a) how was the online questionnaire advertised to the public; (b) over what time period did each of the advertising methods in (a) take place; (c) how many individuals provided feedback through the questionnaire; and (d) what is the breakdown of the responses…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, on the third to last vote, I believe, I stepped out for a moment, and the member for Mississauga East—Cooksville referred to me as a rat. I think the member is an hon. member, and I would ask him to kindly retract his comment.
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Madam Speaker, with respect to means testing, at the end of the day, I chose to put my children in child care and chose to take on the economic and fiscal responsibility of paying for that. However, I believe that early learning and education for children has to be treated a little differently from school-age programs. I am not challenging that the government does or does not have a certain role i…
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Madam Speaker, why I love hearing from my colleague on the opposite side is that we have a Parliament to parler, or to talk and to discuss ideas. If there is agreement between political parties or an idea raised, that is what this chamber is all about. We come here to do exactly that. I do support private corporations that see a need and a way to retain workers by working with their business to pr…
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Madam Speaker, as the member from Winnipeg knows, the agreement signed with British Columbia was different from the agreement signed with Manitoba, where she is from. We have to look at every agreement with the provinces individually. The Province of British Columbia, which has an NDP government, rightly gave some of the day care workers a raise when this program went through to retain some of tho…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise for my second speech tonight. It is democracy in action. When I think about child care, I think of many stressful evenings with my wife trying to figure out where our kids are going to go and how we are going to pay for it. Child care has personally cost me a lot of money In fact, when my son was born January 4, my eldest son Declyn, I remember joking with m…
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Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes. We would support treatment on demand and that is one area where we see some collaboration between two parties in the House of Commons.
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Mr. Speaker, I will not be making any excuses for the Conservative Party. We are here to stand up to the government in order to help Canadians maintain their ability to enjoy a high standard of living. We must oppose this budget because it is not good for Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, let me address the first and third questions to begin with. The reason we have so much foreign direct investment is because of LNG Canada. In fact, much of the manufacturing and investments we are seeing in western Canada are related to pipelines and natural gas development. The natural gas development, which was the largest private sector investment in the history of Canada put forwa…
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Mr. Speaker, it is another great night for democracy. It is always an honour to rise on behalf of Canada's number one riding, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, and share a few words in the people's House of Commons. In this year's budget, Conservatives asked for a couple of things, or three things to be exact: to bring home powerful paycheques, to bring home lower prices on homes and to build more ho…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, it has come to my attention that my second vote on Bill C-281 did not go through correctly. Therefore, I seek the permission of the House to apply my vote as a yea for the previous vote.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, as I previously mentioned, my second vote on Bill C-281 did not go through accordingly on the app. I did not inform you at the appropriate time, but I am seeking permission to apply my vote as a yea.
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