Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I have to say that on an MP's salary, you might have a hard time affording a mortgage in the community I live in today. When we talk about the $8-billion budget overrun, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, people in Abbotsford say, “We produce a large portion of all the chicken, eggs, dairy, fruit and vegetables that are consumed in British Columbia. They are grown down t…
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Madam Speaker, I wish the member for Winnipeg North would review the Speaker's ruling where he found a prima facie case of privilege. Had the government and cabinet listened to the orders of Parliament months ago, we could have either been into a carbon tax election today or gotten to the bottom of their very corruption.
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I was on the industry committee, so I heard the testimony of Annette Verschuren. She refused to answer any basic questions. I also heard the testimony of former industry minister Mr. Bains, who, I believe, now works for Rogers Communications. They were indifferent about the cost of living crisis that is impacting Canada. The government seems to only care about one thing: protecting …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, there are some key things the Conservative Party must do to see more homes built in Canada. First and foremost, we must do what economist Mike Moffatt said is the single-biggest thing we can do for middle-class homes, which is to incentivize more construction through the elimination of the GST on homes under a million dollars. Second, we must ensure there is densification around trans…
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Mr. Speaker, let me be very clear that many of my Conservative colleagues and I are blessed to go to Diwali celebrations all across Canada. The statement made by the member opposite is misdirected. Conservatives celebrate Diwali, and I celebrate that part of Canadian heritage with thousands of my constituents, who use the opportunity to ensure that light conquers darkness.
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Mr. Speaker, I do not have an exact number on immigration at hand, but as the member for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, I believe that immigration should be tied to Canada's ability to integrate newcomers. It should be tied to our ability to have hospitals that can serve our population and schools that can serve our population. Immigration needs to be done in a responsible way. What is so scary is…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, in a rapidly evolving technological environment, it is important, more than ever, that we ensure children are protected. The report tabled by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, entitled “Facial Recognition Technology and the Growing Power of Artificial Intelligence”, looks at the benefits and risks of facial recognition and use in specific contexts,…
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Madam Speaker, we all are aware that, when a privilege motion comes before the House of Commons and the Speaker of the House of Commons rules that there has been a breach of Parliament's powers, no other business can come before the House of Commons. If, indeed, the member was so concerned about the passage of Bill C-63 through the House of Commons, the government would do what Canadians want and …
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, I would agree with my colleague from Calgary Nose Hill that indeed we need an election right now. With regard to the attempt by the government to update our laws with respect to personal privacy and its application with all forms of technology, the government has been very irresponsible with respect to the legislation in its attempt to update our laws. In fact, this is about the thi…
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Mr. Speaker, a few years ago I sat beside a new veteran on a flight to Ottawa. During the flight, she shared with me both the rewards and challenges of being a member of the Royal Canadian Navy. I had an opportunity to reconnect with this brave veteran a few weeks ago, and I was upset to hear that she is still working to obtain the services she is entitled to. As we approach Remembrance Day, it is…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, I think it begins with putting in law the best interests of children. That is a significant part because it assumes that the interests of children will always supersede commercial interests. I think that needs to be at the forefront of legislation regulating the use of technology and our datasets in Canada. Children always have to come first and technology second.
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With regard to budget 2024 which stated that the changes to capital gains taxes would increase federal revenues by $19.4 billion over five years starting in 2024-25: (a) how did the government arrive at this figure; and (b) what data sources were used?
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, in fact, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, who just spoke, has a private member's bill that is before the House as well, Bill C-412 which would do a better job of amending the Criminal Code to go after child predators. What the Liberals are trying to do in Bill C-63 is create a new bureaucracy that would not be accountable to Canadians. From what we have seen with Bill C-27, I do no…
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With regard to the National Trade Corridors Fund (NTCF): (a) under the “National Call to Address Capacity Constraints” first call for proposals in July 2017, how many projects were approved for British Columbia; (b) under the “Continuous call for Trade Diversification” launched on January 15, 2019, how many projects were approved for British Columbia; (c) under the “Increasing the Fluidity of Cana…
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition I would like to present today is on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners in Canada. Petitioners are calling for the Government of Canada to pass a resolution to establish measures to stop the Chinese Communist regime from systematically imprisoning practitioners.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to stand up on behalf of British Columbians and, in fact, all Canadians, when tackling the important issue of housing. Right before I came into this chamber, as I prepared my notes for this speech, one of the interns in my office said the Liberal government's approach to housing sort of reminded them of a famous quote by former United States President Ronald Rea…
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With regard to changes in capital gains taxes as announced in budget 2024: after removing capital gains income from the calculation of total personal income, what is the share of capital gains tax revenue collected from those earning (i) equal or less than $50,000, (ii) between $50,001 and $100,000, (iii) between $100,001 and $150,000, (iv) over $150,000?
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, that is exactly it. We have to look very closely at Bill C-27 to update Canada's privacy laws to account for the revolutionary technological advancements that are taking place before our eyes today. Make no mistake, the period that we are living in right now and the technological advancements that were clearly articulated to the industry committee here in Parliament are equivalent t…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, let me begin by acknowledging that I agree that racialized people, especially vulnerable children and women, are impacted by artificial intelligence the most. That is a fact; I believe that. The best way to protect these people is not to amend the human rights report, as per the committee's recommendation, but to enshrine the protections in Bill C-27, which is at committee right now…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition on behalf of Canadians who are concerned with the limitations in accessing emergency services, such as 911. People in crisis and their family members should be able to access help, regardless of their location or means of communication. Presently, only the province of Nova Scotia and the cities of Ottawa, Waterloo and Calgary have the capabilities to trans…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on behalf of residents of Seabird Island First Nation. On June 23, 2022, Bill C-28 received royal assent; it allowed for extreme intoxication to be used as a defence for violent crimes, such as sexual assault, where a reasonable person would not have foreseen the risk of a violent loss of control. Residents are concerned about the impact this will ha…
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition I would like to present today is on behalf of British Columbians who are concerned about human trafficking in Canada. The U.S. State Department's 20th “Trafficking in Persons Report” indicates that Canada meets the minimum standards for the elimination of human trafficking. The report also highlights that the range, quality and timely delivery of trafficking-specif…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. This weekend in Surrey, over 15,000 people attended Ugly Potato Day, an initiative that invites residents to get imperfect produce for free from farmers. Over 250,000 pounds of produce was donated. Food insecurity is so harsh that residents were willing to wait in line, in one of the worst st…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. The Auditor General reported 186 conflicts of interest and over $400 million in misspent funds that went to Liberal insiders. The Minister of Environment's former employer, Cycle Capital, received $250 million from the green slush fund, all while over half of Canadian small businesses were losing…
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Mr. Speaker, Canada lost 9,037 businesses from May to June 2024, and 6,331 declared insolvency year over year. The closures we are witnessing right now have not been this large since the pandemic, when the entire country was shut down. While Canadian entrepreneurs and workers are struggling, business is still booming for Liberal insiders. Why is the Prime Minister hiding behind the green slush fun…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, I will reiterate the point I made to the member for Edmonton Griesbach. Under a Conservative government, we would have put in place effective due diligence measures established by the Treasury Board to ensure that those purchasing federal lands would do so in a way that would serve the broader public interests. In respect to the difference between a Conservative government and New D…
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Madam Speaker, indeed, I am baffled that the Liberal-NDP government did not vote in favour of some of the measures in here because, now, after our leader tabled the bill, it is trying to steal some of his policy measures and take credit for them, namely that cities must increase the number of houses built by 15% each year and have that compounded. In addition to the comments by my colleague from S…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, we are into our fourth week here in Ottawa since the summer recess of this chamber. Over the summer, like many people here, I spent a large amount of my time door knocking. I reconnected with my constituents and, indeed, British Columbians across the province. Irrespective of where I went in British Columbia over the summer, two issues came up every single time: First, people cannot…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, I will push back and say that the government allocated approximately $100 billion to make housing more affordable, but despite these record investments, we did not see the homes built that Canadians need. Government does indeed have a role to play. The leading reasons why homes are not being built are, number one, red tape and permitting processes; number two, access to workers to b…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I agree that the NDP-Liberal coalition, which just fell apart, has made Parliament very dysfunctional. That is a fact. The Auditor General report clearly outlined the immensity of the corruption we are dealing with here today. It is not every day that the Auditor General finds a prima facie case where the ethics laws of Canada were violated, up to $173 million. That is what we have be…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, with respect to the future objectives of a Conservative government, we can do a lot more to see housing starts improve drastically in Canada without actually spending any additional dollars. That would take leadership, and it would take a federal government that is willing to incent municipalities to improve processing times to get more homes built quickly and then tie housing start…
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Mr. Speaker, what is disgraceful is that the Liberal Party of Canada does not understand that Parliament, with its power to investigate any matter whatsoever, however embarrassing an inquiry may be to individuals or the government of the day, is the ruling authority of this country. Parliament rules supreme, and it is not for the government to predetermine how documents should be used when Parliam…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member from Windsor for his question related to appointments. Indeed, irrespective of government, I think there can be more transparency in the way we appoint individuals to boards that are funded by the Government of Canada. That is a very fair question. The New Democratic Party has a very serious decision to make today. Will it stand with the government and support its o…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for those kind words. I think he is raising a very important question. If Parliament cannot fulfill its constitutional obligation to demand papers and receive such papers, Canadians will lose trust in the House of Commons. A lot of Canadians across the country are feeling disillusioned by our institutions. That is because this institution is bei…
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Mr. Speaker, I would refer back to the original motion from June, which called for the unredacted documents to be provided to the House of Commons. Those documents have yet to be provided. That is why, at the beginning of my speech, I referenced the gravity of what we are dealing with here today. I was very disturbed by the government House leader, who used the Charter of Rights to move us away fr…
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Mr. Speaker, sitting here and reflecting on the privilege motion before the House of Commons today reminds me of the 40th Parliament from 2008 to 2011. I was privileged to be in the chamber as a graduate student when the former governor general, Michaëlle Jean, gave her Speech from the Throne; and as an observer when papers were thrown in the air. Papers were thrown in the air because the former l…
Read full speech →Concurrence in Committee Reports
Madam Speaker, in the member's earlier comments, he talked about some of the federal programs that rich and wealthy developers were able to benefit from. I do not completely disagree with him, but I am wondering why the New Democratic caucus, along with its Liberal friends, voted for the rental construction financing initiative. This program accounted for over a third of all funds allocated under …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. Two years ago, the sellout leader of the NDP sold out workers and signed on to a costly coalition with the Liberal Prime Minister, who hiked taxes, ballooned food costs, doubled housing costs and unleashed record crime and chaos on our once-safe streets. On top of all that, he voted in favour of …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, every time I hear the member for Winnipeg North speak, I feel a little worse about the state of Canadian democracy and how the Liberals no longer stand up for their constituents on a regular basis. The records clearly indicate that the member accounts for more than half of the debate on government orders. Therefore the fact that the Liberals do not speak to anything happening in the…
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Madam Speaker, would my colleague from South Okanagan—West Kootenay outline for us here in the House whether the federal NDP would adopt the same policy as the provincial NDP, axe the tax and give Canadians some relief by eliminating the federal carbon tax?
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I could not think of a more out-of-touch answer to the very real concerns that I raised, which were backed by Statistics Canada data. In fact, talking about middle-class Canadians, as I outlined in my remarks, the capital gains tax will often only be paid by 63% of Canadians once in their lifetime. Why is that significant? It is because of the 80-year-old farmer in Hatzik Valley, wh…
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Mr. Speaker, today I would like to present a petition in respect to the Lets'emot Regional Recreation and Aquatic Centre. Lets'emot means one heart, one mind in the Halq’eme’ylem language. Local first nations, the District of Kent and the village of Harrison Hot Springs are looking for more support from the federal government. Indigenous Services Canada has told local first nations that when it wa…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, in June I asked the Minister of Small Business how she can support a tax hike on capital gains that will kill jobs and destroy our entrepreneurs. Instead of our hearing from the Minister of Small Business on how she was standing up for entrepreneurs in the face of the massive tax hike, the Minister of Finance rose and did not let her answer the question. In defending the hike, the f…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the bill before us today, Bill C-71, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act to do three things. First, for children not born in Canada but adopted by Canadian parents, it would ensure that they are treated as Canadian-born citizens for the purposes of passing on citizenship if they have children abroad in the future. This is something I support. Second, it would restore citizenship for …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the fact of the matter is that I believe that our citizenship is sacred. It is something all of us, especially in this room, have a responsibility to uphold and to dignify, and I believe that a question of such importance, namely who is able to be granted Canadian citizenship, should not be determined by an Ontario Superior Court of Justice judge. I believe it would have been in the…
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With regard to the Aboriginal Entrepreneurship Program: (a) what is the number of businesses which have applied, as of May 23, 2024, broken down by province or territory, to the (i) Access to Business Opportunities stream, (ii) Access to Capital stream; (b) what is the total number of businesses which have received funding or assistance, broken down by province or territory, through the (i) Access…
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Madam Speaker, right now the Bloc Québécois members have a serious determination to make: Do they stand with the Liberals in centralizing more power in Ottawa and removing the powers of citizenship under Quebec's rules? I do not believe that the 1,095 cumulative days is a good test for determining citizenship.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I will admit I am not an expert on constitutional law like my colleague from Kamloops is, but I do know, like every other Canadian, that intuitively our citizenship is something that is sacred. It is something that needs to be upheld, and a lower court decision should not be the determining factor on a matter of such importance as determining our citizenship. I will note again that …
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Mr. Speaker, petitioners in my riding are calling on the Government of Canada to provide additional funds to support the construction of the Lets'emot Regional Recreation and Aquatic Centre in Agassiz, B.C., which has seen its projected costs skyrocket. The name “Lets'emot” means “one heart, one mind” in the Halq’eme’ylem language. Residents of the District of Kent, Harrison Hot Springs, Seabird I…
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