Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling responds to grave concerns that I have heard from many of my constituents about changes that the government has made around the regulation and costs of natural health products. The petitioners say that Liberals are threatening access to natural health products through new rules that will mean higher costs and fewer products available on store shelves. …
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Madam Speaker, the second petition that I am tabling raises concern about cuts that the government is making to women's shelters. The petitioners note that women's shelters are, sadly, seeing increased demand. The high cost of living and the housing crisis have made it harder for women and children fleeing a violent home to find a safe place to live. They note that at a time when the Liberal gover…
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Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions to present to the House today. The first is in support of my private member's bill, Bill C-257. The petitioners raise concern about the problem of political discrimination in Canada. They note that Canadians can face discrimination on the basis of their political beliefs and that this limits free debate and exchange of ideas. Bill C-257 would add politic…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. In light of recent events, we have sought agreement from other parties, and I hope you will find unanimous consent for the following motion: That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, Bill C-350, the combatting torture and terrorism act, be deemed read a second time and referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and …
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Madam Speaker, my colleague made an important distinction in the Conservative approach to housing: We are not going to dictate municipal decisions around zoning and around the mechanics of where housing goes, but we are going to set targets and clear expectations. I think this is consistent with both the urgency of the housing crisis we see and the important principle of subsidiarity, which is tha…
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Madam Speaker, the fourth and final petition I will table for today is from petitioners who are deeply concerned about proposals to legalize the killing of children under the rubric of so-called medical assistance in dying. The petitioners find these proposals deeply disturbing, and they call on the Government of Canada to block any attempt to allow the killing of children in Canada.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that the member for Winnipeg North is concerned about the politicization of the House of Commons. We certainly would not want to see that happening. The petitioners say that the government has previously used a values test to discriminate against worthy applicants to the Canada summer jobs program, denying funding to any organization that was not willing to check a box …
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Madam Speaker, the third petition I am presenting deals with proposals for the politicization of charitable status determinations. The petitioners note a past Liberal Party platform commitment aimed at politicizing charitable status and denying charitable status to organizations that happen to reflect a set of values that is different from that of the Liberal Party. The petitioners note that this …
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I would like to present is regarding the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. The petitioners note that Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that consists of meditation, exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, tolerance and compassion. The petitioners reflect on the horrific campaign of persecu…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present a number of petitions to the House today. The first petition is in support of an excellent private member's bill, Bill C-257. This bill seeks to protect Canadians from discrimination on the basis of political views or activity. It would add political belief and activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination within the Canadian Human Rights Act. The bill rec…
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Madam Speaker, the final petition that I am tabling for today deals with the government's so-called feminist international policy. Petitioners note that the Muskoka Initiative, launched by the previous Conservative government, involved historic investments in the well-being of women and girls around the world. This initiative emphasized value for money but also ensured that investments were in mad…
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Madam Speaker, the next petition deals with the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Petitioners note 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. Petitioners describe the campaign of persecution that has been targeting Falun Gong practitioners …
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Madam Speaker, the second petition notes the elevated risk of violence that pregnant women face, the absence of specific targeted protections for women in this situation and the fact that the current law does not recognize the impact if an active assault results in the death of the preborn child. Petitioners call on the House to legislate that the abuse of a pregnant woman or the infliction of har…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to table a number of petitions in the House today. The first petition is in support of private member's bill, Bill C-257, a bill that I put forward, along with a parallel bill, Bill S-257, that has been presented in the Senate by Senator Ataullahjan. This bill would add political belief and activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination in the Canadian…
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Mr. Speaker, on May 29, the Liberal-NDP coalition voted against a Conservative motion to sue the companies responsible for the opioid crisis for all damages and devote the money received to prevention, treatment and recovery. Liberals sided with McKinsey and big pharma against the victims of the opioid crisis. However, McKinsey just agreed to pay another $230 million in damages in the U.S. While A…
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Madam Speaker, I have one petition to table, which is in support of my private member's bill, Bill C-257.
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Mr. Speaker, the fifth and final petition I will be tabling today is on the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the PRC. Petitioners explain 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 note that since 1999, the Communist Party has launch…
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Mr. Speaker, the fourth petition I will table today is about proposals for the legalization of euthanasia for children. The petitioners find these proposals deeply disturbing and call on the Government of Canada to block and oppose any attempt to legalize the killing of children in such cases in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, the third petition I am tabling raises concern about proposals the government has put forward to apply a values test to charitable status determination, another prospective instance of political discrimination. The petitioners want to see the government protect and preserve the application of charitable status rules on a politically and ideologically neutral basis, without discriminat…
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition I am tabling deals with immigration from Hong Kong. In particular, it concerns people who have offences against them in association with their work for the democracy movement, who essentially have been charged by Hong Kong's politicized judiciary simply as a political tool for silencing them. Those charges could lead to their ability to immigrate or otherwise come …
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Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to present a number of petitions to the House today on behalf of my constituents. The first is in support of an excellent private member's bill, Bill C-257, which I have proposed. The bill would seek to add political belief and activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Petitioners note the ongoing and growin…
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Mr. Speaker, we would like to have a recorded division on this.
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Mr. Speaker, as we come to the end of the debate, it is important to underline the importance of this topic and the importance of responding to what various experts have called a genocide, according to the international definition, recognizing Canada's obligations to respond, and also the importance of not brushing off international aggression. I asked the foreign affairs minister earlier what Can…
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Mr. Speaker, the procedural aspects of this debate are way at the bottom of the list, but I want to briefly mention them in the context of a comment. It is my understanding that other parties in this case were informed of our intention to move this concurrence debate. Respectfully, there have been instances in the past where other parties have been informed that there was a problem with the inform…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister has asserted the importance of the principle of non-aggression. Of course, we have seen significant aggression from the Azerbaijani government. I wonder what the minister thinks the appropriate response to that aggression is from the international community. Of course, we need to talk about human rights protection and humanitarian issues, but in terms of how we respond to…
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Mr. Speaker, the member did not answer the last question that was asked. The fact is, during the second Nagorno-Karabakh war, drone technology was vital to enabling the Azerbaijani aggression. That drone technology came from Canada. At the time, concerns were dismissed by the then foreign affairs minister, who said, “we're [just] talking about a few cameras”. He said they were just a few old Polar…
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Madam Speaker, I was not really expecting much in response, but it is good for him to hear and we will give this a shot. This is an extremely important issue. We are talking about the lives and security of people in a different part of the world, but a commitment to universal human solidarity and the international rules-based order should motivate us to be concerned about them. We have had extensi…
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Madam Speaker, it is an absurd spectacle we have just seen, of a government member asking the permission of the House to table a document that has already been tabled in a desperate effort to fill 20 minutes on a subject he clearly knows absolutely nothing about. Of course, I read the government's response and, unfortunately, it suggested a weakening of the tone compared to the tone the minister h…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Though broad, there still are parameters of relevance. I am sure there are members who want to speak—
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Madam Speaker, I think members who follow this know that there is a lot of debate within Armenia about the approach that the Armenian government has taken. We hope for peace. We hope for negotiation. We hope for understanding, but that discussion needs to also include the people in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and it needs to include a human rights lens. Regardless of the political discussions tha…
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Madam Speaker, going back to the last Parliament, we had very effective co-operation on the foreign affairs committee among Conservatives, the Bloc and New Democrats in trying to get to the bottom of why there was the export of this technology to Turkey that ended up going to Azerbaijan. That transfer could likely have been predicted. The effect of this was that this technology was used and deploy…
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Madam Speaker, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, in the last Parliament, at the time following the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, studied the issue of arms exports, because in a very curious fashion, the Liberal government lifted the prohibition on arms exports to Turkey. There were the exports of some critical technology that was used as part of drones that man…
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Madam Speaker, I would be happy to, and we regularly do, address the affordability issues, the crisis in Canada that has been created by the policies of the Liberal government. However, I do think there is a place for the people's House to address critical foreign policy crises, including issues of peace, security and aggression around the world. It is disappointing to hear the member dismiss thos…
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, presented on Friday, February 17, be concurred in. I am grateful for this opportunity to address the House today on an urgent question of foreign policy. After people have enjoyed more than three decades of political independence with their own self-governing democratic institutions…
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Mr. Speaker, the member said that, in my comments, I am throwing all these things out there and really trying to connect the dots to establish that there is corruption in the government. It is actually not very difficult to establish that there is corruption in the government. The youngest of my children could connect that dots that are available. The fact is that all one has to do is consult with…
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Mr. Speaker, we see clearly how, across the board, the government fails to take responsibility for its failures. When things go wrong, it is always somebody else who is responsible. It is always somebody else's fault. We could talk, for example, about inflation, about grocery prices, about how everything is more expensive under the government, especially so many household essentials that people re…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague and look forward to working with him on the government operations committee with the revisions that have been made to committee memberships. When it comes to indigenous engagement, I think it is important for that engagement to happen and for it to be driven by the particulars of the circumstances in terms of where the port is. Just because …
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Mr. Speaker, the government right now, through this bill, is asking for more power. It is saying it wants to be able to exercise greater influence over ports, and particularly over the process of appointments. It wants to take over what has historically been the role of the board itself, to select its chair. The government wants to appoint that chair itself. The government is coming to Parliament …
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Mr. Speaker, that question was a target-rich environment, so I will try to get through it as much as I can. The member began by saying that the bill is about looking at having local committees providing input. No, it is not. The bill is about mandating particular structures around consultation committees, structures that may well be appropriate in many cases, but not in every case. The member says…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the House today on Bill C-33. I hope members had productive summers in their ridings. It is good to be back to reconnect with my colleagues on all sides of the House. Bill C-33, on the face of it, deals with the technical subject matter of port and railway systems in Canada, but I think this bill also exposes a philosophical gulf that exists b…
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Mr. Speaker, the final petition highlights the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. It lays out the history of that persecution; the nature of the Falun Gong movement as a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that consists of meditation, exercise and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance; and the ongoing issue of forced organ har…
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition is from those who are concerned about proposals to legalize euthanasia, or MAID, for children. The petitioners are asking the House to oppose any attempts to legalize the killing of children in Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be brief this morning. I have only three petitions to share with the House today. I would say to my colleagues that I will do better in the future. The first petition is from petitioners who are very fond of a particular private member's bill, which happens to be one that I have put forward in this House. Bill C-257 is aimed at combatting the growing problem of political discri…
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Mr. Speaker, the final petition today concerns the discrimination against and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the People's Republic of China. The petitioners note that Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline that consists of meditation, exercise and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. The petitioners go on to explain a deca…
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Mr. Speaker, the third petition deals, similarly, with an issue involving discrimination on the basis of political views. It references a 2021 platform commitment from the Liberal Party of Canada to politicize charitable status determination, that is, to deny charitable status for certain pro-life organizations. The petitioners note this would jeopardize the charitable status of hospitals, houses …
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from constituents concerned about proposals to legalize the killing of children in Canada under the so-called MAID regime. They note in particular that one of the witnesses at a previous committee was calling for the legalization of euthanasia for babies. The petitioners call on the government and the House to strongly oppose any effort to legalize the killing o…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to table a number of petitions on behalf of my constituents and other concerned Canadians. The first petition deals with the issue of political discrimination and the growing fear some Canadians have that they will face discrimination in the workplace, including, perhaps, bullying, risk of employment consequences, etc., on the basis of their political view…
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Mr. Speaker, it is hard to take this member seriously. In one breath he says that we should not engage in petty politics; in another, he says that people who disagree with him are flat-earthers. Listening to this member speak, it is also clear that he is more interested in holding Danielle Smith accountable than in holding the Prime Minister of Canada accountable in this chamber. That is because N…
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Madam Speaker, I will start with a brief comment on breaking news. I know that many people are horrified and have been contacting me about the aggression we are seeing by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh. It appears it is launching an aggressive war of choice, calling it a “military operation” and taking a page out of Russia's playbook in the process. I hope Canada takes a firm stand for peace …
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Madam Speaker, the final petition that I am presenting today refers to comments made by Louis Roy from the Quebec College of Physicians recommending the expansion of euthanasia to “babies from birth to one year of age who come into the world with severe deformities and very serious syndromes”. The petitioners believe that this proposal for the legalized killing of infants in Canada is deeply distu…
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