Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, we do know the government stands on the side of those Canadians who work for McKinsey. However, on this side of the House we speak for the vast majority of Canadians who are concerned about $100 million in contracts and the public service not knowing what work was done. After eight years, more Canadians than ever are suffering because of the opioid crisis, but the government continues…
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Mr. Speaker, McKinsey's involvement in the opioid crisis is not a conspiracy theory. It is in The New York Times. The Prime Minister should read the stories about how, under Dominic Barton, McKinsey incredibly advised Purdue Pharma on a scheme to pay pharmacists for overdoses. I asked a specification question of the Prime Minister about his conversations with Dominic Barton, and I think families d…
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Mr. Speaker, today the Prime Minister's friend Dominic Barton will appear before the government operations committee. Over the last eight years, Canadians have been struggling, but Dominic Barton's former company has cashed at least $100 million worth of government cheques for consulting services. I will be asking Dominic Barton about his involvement in the opioid crisis. While Mr. Barton was advi…
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Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions I want to present to the House today. The first petition deals with the ongoing national unity crisis. It is a particular concern for my constituents in Alberta. The petitioners note that the government, through rhetoric, policy, action and inaction, has caused a national unity crisis. They call on the government to take responsibility for the national uni…
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Mr. Speaker, we continue to hear complete non-responses from the government. The Globe and Mail has reported that federal government contracts accounted for 10% of McKinsey gross revenues. I think McKinsey puts the gross into gross revenue. When Dominic Barton led McKinsey, they developed a plan to supercharge the opioid crisis that included rewarding pharmacists for overdose deaths. That is despi…
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Mr. Speaker, it is one more sleep until the Prime Minister's good friend Dominic Barton appears before the government operations committee. The Prime Minister has called Dominic Barton an “exceptional individual”. Dominic Barton's company fuelled the opioid crisis, advised Saudi autocrats on dissident crackdowns and helped Chinese state-owned companies build militarized islands in the South China …
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition highlights the plight of Falun Gong practitioners in China and the human rights abuses they face. This persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China has now been going on for decades. The petitioners note a number of actions that could be taken, including measures to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The House passed legislation on that already at th…
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Mr. Speaker, the final petition I am tabling today highlights the conflict that occurred in Ethiopia. The petition was submitted prior to the signing of the latest peace deal. The petitioners want to see the Canadian Parliament and the government remain seized with those ongoing challenges. No doubt, they hope for the effective implementation of a peace deal that allows people to live together in …
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Mr. Speaker, the next two petitions that I will be tabling deal with the human rights situation of minorities inside Afghanistan. The first one specifically deals with the situation of the Hazaras. The petitioners note a history, going back to the 19th century, of the Hazara people being subject to genocide. They note that these waves of genocidal violence have continued, and they continue up to t…
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Mr. Speaker, next I am tabling a petition from people who are concerned about a Liberal proposal in the Liberals Party's last election platform to politicize the charitable status determination. The Liberal proposal was to withdraw charitable status from organizations where the people involved had views on abortion that the Liberal Party disagreed with. This proposal would jeopardize, the petition…
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Mr. Speaker, the third petition I am tabling is similar to a petition tabled by a number of my colleagues. It relates to a proposal made by Louis Roy of the Collège des médecins du Québec recommending the expansion of euthanasia to “babies from birth to one year of age”. This proposal from such an association is deeply disturbing to Canadians. Canadians generally recognize that killing children is…
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling speaks to the ongoing detention of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian of Uighur origin and human rights activist who is detained currently in China, and has been for well over a decade, for his action in support of the political and religious rights of Uighurs. Mr. Celil is a Canadian citizen who was taken from Uzbekistan into China, and he has been detained sinc…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, here are the facts. The Prime Minister has more than doubled the national debt in his eight years in office. The Prime Minister has run up more debt in these eight years than all of the previous prime ministers had up until that point. That is the reality of the legacy of the Prime Minister. That is causing inflation. It is causing Canadians to suffer. Of course, some other countries …
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Mr. Speaker, over the course of the parliamentary break, we have all had an opportunity to talk to people in our communities and across the country, and it is clear that, after eight years of the Prime Minister's economic and social policies, many people are hurting. There are many people who are struggling in various ways, especially under the profound weight of inflation, and they are asking for…
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With regard to Export Development Canada's (EDC) forgiveness of loans worth $822,161,848 in the 2021-22 fiscal year: (a) how many businesses received loan forgiveness; (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by province or territory; (c) what were the names of the businesses that received loan forgiveness; (d) what was the total value of loan forgiveness that each business received; (e) which of these bu…
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With regard to a list submitted to the government in September 2021, containing 650 names of Afghan Ahmadi Muslims on the Taliban’s hit list: (a) has the government allowed any of these people on the list to come to Canada under special immigration measures implemented for Afghanistan, and, if so, how many; (b) does the government intend to allow all or some of these people to come to Canada under…
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With regard to the government’s efforts to measure and reduce greenhouse gas emissions: (a) what levels of greenhouse gas emissions were produced as a result of (i) the Prime Minister’s travel and work, (ii) publicly funded travel or official engagements by members of the Prime Minister’s family, (iii) the travel and work of staff in the Office of the Prime Minister, to date this year and in each …
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With regard to the report in the Public Accounts of Canada 2022 that Global Affairs Canada lost $82,902 due to a single instance of fraudulent activity: (a) what was the nature of the fraudulent activity; (b) were the individuals involved in this fraudulent activity identified, and, if so, (i) what were their names, (ii) what organizations or businesses were they affiliated with, (iii) were they p…
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition I am tabling highlights the ongoing detention of Huseyin Celil, a Canadian citizen detained in China for over a decade and a half. The Chinese government has refused to accept Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and continues to deny access to lawyers, family members and Canadian officials. We must continue to be persistent in highlighting this case and calling for hi…
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Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is currently undertaking an important study on the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, or Artsakh, and the blockade of the Lachin corridor. I am tabling a petition about the situation in that region. It was a petition signed prior to the start of the blockade, but it does have a number of asks that are relevant to that…
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Mr. Speaker, perhaps I can assist the minister in getting to the bottom of the circumstances around these contracts. The Prime Minister is a very close personal friend of Dominic Barton, who is the managing partner of McKinsey. Under Dominic Barton, McKinsey monitored dissident social media accounts for the Saudi government, had a corporate retreat down the road from a concentration camp in China …
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Prime Minister, Canadians have never had it so bad while Liberal insiders like Dominic Barton have never had it so good. Dominic Barton was running a government advisory body while at the same time his company was collecting over $100 million in contracts on the side. Barton and his cronies at McKinsey had privileged access to the Prime Minister and were using…
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Madam Speaker, one of the trends we are seeing, which has really been accelerated by the pandemic, is flexible work. People are working from home and looking to be able to combine family life with work in different ways. Therefore, they are still very much needing child care, but they are looking for more creative options, which may be in their neighbourhood, may be at odd hours and may reflect th…
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be tabling 104 petitions in the House today. Members will be pleased to know that I will not be offering a unique description of each one. They are all on the same subject. I have, for some time in the House, been tabling petitions related to forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Every single one of these petitions follows immense work done by community members wh…
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the second report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, presented on Tuesday, May 10, be concurred in. It is always an honour to rise and speak in the Canadian House of Commons on behalf of my constituents, and also as a free Canadian speaking of my own convictions. Debate in the House expresses the freedom we have and the blessing we …
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member could have done a bit more research regarding the record of the previous government when it came supporting Tibet. Many important steps were taken in regard to engagement with and support for Tibet. One of them was the former prime minister hosting and meeting with the Dalai Lama. In a constructive spirit, if the current Prime Minister of Canada would be prepared to …
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Madam Speaker, I have observed over the last few years that the last two Canadian minority Parliaments have been able to play a significant leadership role in the world, when it comes to confronting human rights abuses being perpetrated by the Chinese Communist Party. While Canada's Parliament has led in the world, though, the Government of Canada has been a laggard. Canada's Parliament was the fi…
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Madam Speaker, if the member wants to take it in a partisan direction, as he clearly does, I will just say that for this Prime Minister, who clearly loves photo ops, this would be a case where a meeting and a photo would actually be quite meaningful. I would encourage the Prime Minister to take that opportunity, which is one that, as far as I know, he has not taken at any point during his premiers…
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Madam Speaker, the member's point that sometimes we maybe focus on certain human rights issues and not others for a variety of reasons that may not have pure motives is important to reflect on. Sometimes we have been particularly reluctant to criticize violations of human rights by the Chinese Communist Party because clearly the Chinese Communist Party is very powerful relative to other smaller en…
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Madam Speaker, with the greatest respect for my colleague, her implication that this concurrence debate is interfering with the business of the House seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding of the fact that there was extensive dialogue among party House leaders about negotiating the ending period of this week and how we would wrap up before Christmas, in particular how this concurrence debate…
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Madam Speaker, I think it is important to identify one distinction, and that is the distinction between speaking of human rights issues in Tibet and speaking of the political status of Tibet. These are both important questions, and they are distinct questions. We should speak about religious freedom and human rights for Tibetans, but we should also discuss the reality that Tibet was taken over thr…
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Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member could also talk about the specific concern we are hearing from the Tibetan-Canadian community about how the Chinese Communist Party seeks to threaten and intimidate the Tibetan diaspora outside of Tibet. It has been well documented in various reports that this is a strategy of the Chinese Communist Party. We have had the case of Chemi Lhamo here in Canada and …
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Madam Speaker, my colleague spoke about many important issues, including reciprocal access, human rights, the middle way approach, the whereabouts of the Panchen Lama and other human rights abuses and language and cultural rights. I am pleased that in the Parliamentary Friends of Tibet group we have been able to work collaboratively and talk about many of these important issues. One important piec…
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Madam Speaker, I always appreciate my colleague's sincerity. I do not always agree with the particulars he notes, but I think highly of his motivations and intentions. I want to ask a question about this particular concurrence debate. This concurrence debate came up at this time as a result of conversation and negotiation among House leaders. It seems that some members were not fully briefed on th…
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Madam Speaker, we request a recorded vote and seek the unanimous consent of the House to defer the vote to tomorrow following question period.
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Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to present today. The first petition is in support of Bill S-223, which is a bill to prohibit forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent. It would also create a mechanism by which a person could be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they are involved in for…
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Madam Speaker, the second petition I am tabling raises concerns about calls by Louis Roy of the Collège des médecins du Québec to legalize infanticide in certain cases. People who signed this petition were horrified that someone from that college would openly, before a parliamentary committee, call for legal changes that would allow the killing of children, the killing of innocents. The petitioner…
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Madam Speaker, on Tuesday last week, the Auditor General released an absolutely damning report on the government's COVID-19 programs. This is report 10 from the Auditor General. This report chronicled mismanagement, waste and a lack of focus leading to tens of billions of dollars in government waste. Let us be very clear: We are not talking about the policy of the COVID support programs. This was …
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Madam Speaker, the member is trying to constantly shift this into a debate about whether or not the emergency benefits were a good policy. As he pointed out, all parties supported providing emergency supports during COVID. However, the question is not whether these emergency benefits were required and were valuable. The question is whether the government was right to pay tens of billions of dollar…
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Mr. Speaker, I have one petition to present today from Canadians who are in solidarity with the Hazara community and the violence it has experienced in Afghanistan over decades. The petitioners call on the government to formally recognize the 1891-93 ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Hazaras as a genocide and to designate September 25 as Hazara genocide memorial day.
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Madam Speaker, I think the member thought he was answering a different question. I, of course, spoke about the government's carbon tax, but primarily about the ArriveCAN app, about the hypocrisy we have seen from the Prime Minister and about the Prime Minister's spending. There was no response whatsoever on any of those issues. Clearly, the government cannot explain why it spent $54 million on a g…
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Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions I want to present. The first is similar to that presented by my colleague. The petitioners highlight, with horror, proposals from the Quebec college of physicians to legalize euthanasia for babies. They find this proposal deeply disturbing. Infants cannot consent. Killing children is always wrong. Infanticide is always wrong. There is no justification fo…
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling is in support of Bill S-223, a private member's bill seeking to ban forced organ harvesting and trafficking. This bill proceeds to its second hour of debate at third reading stage tomorrow and a final vote next week. The petitioners want to see this bill passed, making it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without c…
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling responds to recommendations from the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination that published its final report earlier this year. The petitioners are concerned about the fact that this report calls for the exclusion of chaplains on the basis of the views of their faith community on issues of gender and sexualit…
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Madam Speaker, the next petition I am tabling highlights the horrific human rights abuses that have been inflicted on the Hazara community in Afghanistan over generations. They are abuses that have been ongoing but have significantly worsened since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. The petitioners call on the government to recognize the violence and the genocide the Hazaras have faced, and to d…
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Finally, Madam Speaker, I am tabling a petition from people who are concerned about the government's intention to bring in another values test associated with charitable status, to use charitable status determinations to discriminate against organizations that hold different views from the government on the issue of abortion. The petitioners call on the government to preserve and protect the appli…
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Madam Speaker, while today the government is asking the House to expedite its spending, we have the Auditor General revealing tens of billions of dollars in inflationary waste associated with the government's past spending. Tens of billions of dollars went out the door to people with clearly identified risk factors for not actually being eligible for the programs they were receiving money for: The…
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Madam Speaker, I am rising tonight to call out the hypocrisy of the government. In the way it treats Canadians and the way it treats itself, there is, needless to say, a profound dissonance between those two things. On the one hand, we have a Prime Minister who clearly loves to travel. He went to London this year and he or a member of his entourage spent $6,000 a night on a hotel room. We have act…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is attacking the Auditor General's independence in order to cover up its own incompetence. More than $30 billion went to ineligible recipients; that is, people who did not meet the criteria of the programs. When the Auditor General called this out, the government's response was to criticize the work of a strong, independent professional whom the Liberals, in fact, appoi…
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Mr. Speaker,'Twas the night before Christmas and no one could afford a house. Some people were blaming a fellow named Klaus.The Prime Minister said he would have people's backs. But it turned out his real plan was to triple the tax.The holidays are here. There is a gift shopping tradition. But things are more expensive, thanks to the costly coalition.So instead just rest, stay home and take a nap.…
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