Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I hope it was worth it. Under the Liberal Prime Minister, Canada is losing jobs at speeds not seen in a generation. Over 100,000 full-time jobs were lost in one month alone, and close to 50,000 youth jobs were lost. In the G7, we have the only shrinking economy, the second-highest unemployment, the highest household debt and the highest food inflation. The Liberal rhetoric simply does…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, we released a detailed jobs plan in the fall. The Liberals' approach is clearly failing. Over 100,000 jobs have been lost. They talk about major projects, but they have not approved a single major project. Canadians at home are experiencing the catastrophic impact of Liberal policies. The Liberals promised a trade win. They have not delivered it. The industrial carbon tax remains in p…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there may have been a problem with the translation when he was reading the previous quote, so I wonder if he could read it again to make sure that all members heard it in both official languages.
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the latest job numbers show that jobs are, figuratively, falling off a cliff, with 108,000 full-time jobs lost in one month and 47,000, almost 50,000, youth jobs lost in the same period. Under this Prime Minister, we are losing jobs at speeds not seen in a generation, and that is quite literally true. Outside of the COVID period, the last time we had a single drop in jobs in one month…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, as a response to the question that was asked, that was breathtakingly absurd. Is the government not aware of the job numbers? We had a four-minute response that pretends to ignore the existence of the massive drop in full-time employment. Over 100,000 full-time jobs were lost in the last month alone, yet the parliamentary secretary wants us to believe that we are about to have never h…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, 108,000 full-time jobs were lost in the last month alone. We are losing jobs at speeds not seen in a generation. We have the only shrinking economy, the second-highest unemployment, the highest household debt and the highest food inflation in the G7. The Minister of AI blamed job numbers on the war in Iran. The Prime Minister says that they are not so bad. People have had enough Liber…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Conservatives share our condolences as well. On the issue of jobs, 108,000 full-time jobs and almost 50,000 youth jobs were lost in one month alone. The Liberal Prime Minister is responsible for generational deficits and generational job losses. Development is blocked, and not a single major project is approved. This fall, I announced the Conservative jobs plan: unleashing the economy…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, actually, at that committee, Liberals are opposing our efforts to study food inflation, which is more than double what it is in other jurisdictions, and their budget is weakening training by defunding career colleges. We have put constructive proposals on the table to unleash the economy, to fix immigration, to fix training and to build homes where the jobs are. Liberals could simply …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, young people in Canada today are worse off than their parents' generation. They cannot find jobs, and they cannot afford homes. The pain that young people face is leading to delayed family formation and to increasing hopelessness. An RBC poll out today shows that two-thirds of millennials are anxious about their financial future, and more than half are concerned about current cash flo…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, we are discussing this important piece of human rights legislation on the fourth anniversary of the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Four years ago at this time, in my household, we were celebrating the arrival of my now four-year-old son, Augustine. Three days after his birth, we began to see the terrible images and hear stories of carnage, death and widespread d…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, before I get into my remarks about youth unemployment, the subject of my question, I want to share with members of the House that I am dressed for our victory at Adwa celebrations happening right now on the Hill. I invite all members from all parties, including the Speaker, to come join us for some great Ethiopian food and community spirit after the House adjourns. The Adwa Victory Da…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the government is always keen to blame events beyond their control and say, “Well, bad things keep happening to us. That is why we cannot control these outcomes.” Of course, Canada, like other countries, is subject to events beyond our control, but there are many things we can control. During our study on youth unemployment, we heard many concerns about the business environment, taxat…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his excellent work on this important issue. I will go to the people affected by these policies. I speak often to young people, and I know the member does as well. Comparing their concerns today with where we were 10 years ago, many young people fear they will be worse off than their parents, and their top concerns are access to jobs and access to homes. Those …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I can confirm that housing affordability is a major concern for young people. I have spent a lot of time over the last eight months speaking to young people on university campuses, many of whom fear that their life will be worse than that of their parents, owing largely to concerns about accessing homes and jobs. One of the big issues, we know, in housing construction over the last …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I truly have no idea what that member is focused on, but my question was about the results of their policies. Now, let us talk about the results: 52,000 private sector job losses, 28,000 in manufacturing alone. That is just in the last month. He talked about the price of food. We have food inflation in this country that is more than double the food inflation in the United States. If t…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been disappointed to see that the Prime Minister is not delivering on his promises. He promised the strongest economy in the G7, but we lost 52,000 private sector jobs last month. He promised to build at speeds unseen in generations. We are actually losing jobs at speeds unseen in generations. Conservatives have offered solutions like the Canadian sovereignty act and th…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, St. Thomas More was the Lord Chancellor of England, and he was imprisoned and executed because he refused to violate his conscience. Today, watching the sentencing of Jimmy Lai, it is impossible not to see the parallels between More and this modern champion of truth and justice. Jimmy Lai fled mainland China and arrived in Hong Kong as a penniless refugee at the age of 12. He went on …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, over the last few months, I have been visiting university campuses and talking to young people across this country. I was at Carleton earlier this week. I spent some time there talking to students and debating against the member for Winnipeg North. We had a great time. I certainly did, anyway. The question I have been asking students is whether they are better or worse off than thei…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is completely wrong about the figures. He says that the youth unemployment rate is moving in a good direction, but actually in the previous month it was 12.8%. In the latest numbers we have up until today, it was 13.3%. There is an increase in the youth unemployment rate, which we have seen in the month-over-month numbers, and it is quite a significant in…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, last night I was out with the member for Winnipeg North at Carleton University. We were debating in front of some students at a great event. I know that many members probably watched it on livestream while it was happening. During that debate, my colleague across the way was so eager to tell the students about how many programs the government has put in place, yet what the students re…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, obviously, the price of groceries is very high because of Liberal policies. It is higher than in other countries. In our opinion, the industrial carbon tax has contributed significantly to the increase in grocery prices. I would like to hear my colleague's opinion on this tax. Does the Bloc Québécois support our position that this tax should be eliminated?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the government and the Prime Minister would like to create a false choice between our values and our interests. I would say this. When the Prime Minister ignores our fundamental values and fails to address critical issues of human rights, and when he allows strategic domination of key sectors by a strategic adversary, then we leave ourselves vulnerable in the long term. We undermine o…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I generally agree with the proposals of my Bloc Québécois colleague. As we said, we will support this bill so that it can be studied in committee. I hope the committee will be able to look at the important issues of human rights and forced labour. In general, the current government has not brought these issues to the forefront. We continue to have a huge problem with products coming i…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time. Today, the House is debating a trade deal between Canada and Indonesia. It is a deal that Conservatives support advancing to the next stage of consideration. In the context of this agreement, I would like to offer a few observations about the state of the world that have bearing on how and with whom we make international agreements. Over the course of my tim…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I continue to believe that the world faces a situation akin to a kind of second cold war, an intensifying conflict between the democratic world and the authoritarian revisionist world. In that context, our engagement with democracies in the global south and with other states that are sort of the swing states in this new cold war, which have legitimate strategic concerns with the actio…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague referenced some of the human rights violations committed by the CCP. I want to mention to the House that I had the honour this afternoon of meeting with members of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile, who are here in Canada. Part of what they are doing is highlighting the case of the 11th Panchen Lama, who was detained and disappeared by the CCP more than 30 years ago. His wh…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I have been thinking a lot about this line from the Prime Minister when he was in China, when he said we should take the world as it is, not how we wish it would be. I think the problem with that line and aspects of his discourse is that it ignores the capacity that we have to create the world we want, the power that our government should have to imagine a world that is not one in w…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I just want to pick up on one thing the member said about the most sensitive waters in the world in his defence of Liberal Bill C-48, which blocked energy pipelines to the west coast. Does the member acknowledge that foreign oil tankers are in the same ocean and in the same areas? Does he acknowledge that preventing exports from Canada does not prevent the presence of exactly the sa…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, there are many different parts of that response that I could pick up on, but let us talk about what is in the budget, very concretely. Page 217 of the budget states: Budget 2025 announces the government’s intention to propose legislative and regulatory amendments to address integrity issues related to private educational institutions by generally limiting access to the Canada Student …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be back in the House. I missed all my colleagues. I trust that feeling is mutual. It is good to be back here to address the business of the nation. I want to offer my condolences to the family of Kirsty Duncan, with whom many of us served. I also want to take this opportunity to express my solidarity with the brave people of Iran, who have endured unspeakable viole…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I will table today highlights the condition of the Hazara people in Afghanistan. The Hazaras are an ethnic minority, indigenous people of Afghanistan, generally also a religious minority. They come from the Shia Muslim community. They faced significant challenges even prior to the Taliban takeover, but their situation is that much more dire now. The petitioners also …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling draws the attention of the House to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. The petitioners highlight that Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that consists of meditation, exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. They describe, in some detail in this petition, the persecuti…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I will table draws the attention of the House to many Ukrainians who have come here under a CUAET visa and have questions about the government's policy with respect to next steps for them. They want to see the government provide Ukrainians who are currently in Canada temporary emergency measures with—
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I will present a number of petitions today. The first petition draws the attention of the House to the worsening situation of human rights in North Korea, as documented by various commissions. These violations of human rights include prioritization of food distribution to those considered useful to the survival of the current political system; a vast security apparatus that suppresses…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I would like to present to the House deals with the issue of MAID or euthanasia. The petitioners are concerned, in particular, about so-called track 2 MAID that makes people living with disabilities the only group eligible for medical assistance in dying when they are not dying. The petitioners argue that allowing so-called MAID for those with disabilities or chronic…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my friend from Kingston and the Islands has given me the opportunity to highlight the jobs numbers that came out this morning. Zeroing in on the province of Ontario, we saw the loss of about 7,000 full-time jobs. I certainly acknowledge that there was a gain in part-time jobs, but there was a significant loss in full-time jobs and a response in part-time jobs.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member for Kingston and the Islands should recognize the reality. Canadians are poorer, they are struggling, they are desperate for—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I, too, am shocked by the heckling by the member for Kingston and the Islands, and I hope his whip will bring him into line. I wonder if the member can say what he identifies in the fact that full-time jobs are down across the country and, particularly, in Ontario.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I would like to table draws the attention of the House to a quite extreme proposal on euthanasia, or MAID, put forward by Mr. Louis Roy of the Quebec college of physicians. It recommended expanding euthanasia to “babies from birth to one year of age”. This is deeply troubling, but sadly he is not the only person; members of the government have advocated for so-called…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, in that member's province, Quebec, 35,000 full-time jobs were lost. More than 35,000 full-time jobs were lost in Quebec. The minister says that this is an improvement, that this is good news. It is shocking that the government would celebrate a significant decline in full-time work. Canadians are looking for full-time jobs, so that they can provide for their families. When will they s…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, let us look at the actual job numbers the member was trying to reference: 9,400 full-time jobs were lost in the last month. The Liberals want to try to pretend that they are doing better by adding part-time numbers in, but the fact that Canadians are desperate and are turning to part-time work because full-time jobs are not available and they desperately need that part-time work to fe…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling is in support of Bill S-209, although it says Bill S-210 because that was the number used in the last Parliament. Petitioners support this bill to protect young people, children, from accessing explicit sexual material online. Showing sexually explicit material to children is a form of child abuse, yet it happens regularly online. Many children are acces…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to present a number of petitions to the House today. The first petition draws the attention of the House to the ongoing illegal occupation of Cyprus by the Turkish military. Petitioners highlight that the Turkish military invasion in 1974 was illegal and brutal, resulting in the ongoing occupation of 37% of the island and 57% of its coastline; that the occ…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, Canada faces a continuing youth jobs crisis. The government has, unfortunately, with this budget, actually moved in the opposite direction from where we need to go. Before the budget, Conservatives helpfully laid out the Conservative youth jobs plan, which identifies the key things we need to do: unleash the economy, fix immigration, fix training and build homes where the jobs are. Ke…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, we obviously disagree with the Bloc Québécois in this regard, but I would like to ask a question about the Liberal Party's position and the discussions that have taken place between the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party. We learned through the media on Monday, and this was confirmed by a Liberal spokesperson, that the government came to an agreement with the Bloc Québécois to move …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, there is a lot there, but I want to particularly zero in on one thing the member said, which is that he thinks things are generally going well. Fourteen-plus per cent youth unemployment is not things going well. Those are recession levels. This summer, one in five returning students, roughly, was not able to find a job. These are students who rely on the income they earn in the summer…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I just want to remind the member that we are dealing with a particular topic, Bill C-246, which deals with consecutive sentencing. I wonder if you could call on the member to follow the rules and discuss the provisions of the bill that is currently before the House. It is a very important one.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the civil war in Sudan has been devastating, and Canadians have been shocked to learn that weapons made in this country have been used in the conflict by the RSF, the same organization responsible for genocide. This is not the first time a diversion has put weapons in the hands of genocidal actors. Canadian-made weapons have also been used by Russia against Ukraine. At a time when our…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The comments made were clearly unparliamentary. I do not think I need to explain why.
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting. We have the opportunity, with slots for private members' bills, to put forward a bill or a motion. The member has chosen to put forward a motion, not a bill, and the motion is asking the government to consider amending the Income Tax Act. I just want to ask the member, if he has specific recommendations with respect to a program, why he did not just put forward …
Read full speech →