Government Orders
Mr. Chair, the member is talking about solutions again. That is what we need more of tonight. It is good to see my colleague from Kootenay—Columbia bringing forward that approach as well. Let us talk about how we could move forward. What we have had for most of the night is partisan bickering about the 42 years of failed negotiations with the United States. Tonight we have this take-note debate. W…
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Mr. Chair, the NDP has always been there, pushing the governments of the day to negotiate fair trade agreements, as opposed to free trade agreements that disadvantage Canadian workers and Canadian resources. When it comes to the softwood lumber agreement and the renewal of this agreement, successive Liberal and Conservative governments have failed to get the job done. Earlier, I spoke of solutions…
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Mr. Chair, in British Columbia, we know that we have fibre supply issues that are impacting our mills. What did the B.C. NDP Premier David Eby do? He created a new minister of state for fibre supply. Andrew Mercier got the appointment, and it is an entirely new portfolio, the first time in the history of British Columbia. He already delivered a report, on March 31, to start implementing action to …
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Madam Chair, one thing I really want to thank my colleague for is talking about the importance of indigenous-led forestry companies and the role they play. There is a new forestry company that just launched last week called Iskum, which is basically a consortium of over 20 first nations in coastal British Columbia. It is led by Chief John Jack of the Huu-ay-aht Nation and the former elected chief,…
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Mr. Chair, 42 years of finger pointing is not getting us anywhere. We can see that tonight. I want to talk about solutions. I have been working closely with Catalyst paper in Port Alberni. This is a mill that has a ton of history. My grandfather worked in that mill. It is so proud of what it is doing. It has retooled its machines so it can do food-grade paper. It has also brought forward an innova…
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Mr. Chair, one thing we have not talked a lot about tonight is rail service. We need to ensure that a rail service in and out of mills from coast to coast is dealt with. It is a huge deal, actually. We often find ourselves at the whim of our shippers, whether it is CN or CP, and we have no other options to get our product to market. Does my colleague agree that the federal government needs to deve…
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Madam Chair, I was just reading a quote from the release for Iskum Investments, the new consortium of indigenous companies on the coast of B.C. I was reading a quote from waamiiš Ken Watts. He is the elected chief councillor of Tseshaht Nation. He said: As First Nations decision-makers and leaders, it is our responsibility to help find positive and productive solutions and be proactive in our eff…
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Madam Chair, we know the Conservatives say that the Liberals have not made the softwood lumber agreement a priority, but I can tell members that the Conservatives have made partisan politics a priority. I want to talk about solutions. I will read from a letter I sent to the minister calling for the federal government to support the biomass proposal that it did put in the fall economic statement. I…
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Madam Chair, I too sat on the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans with my colleague, and I really appreciated her fighting for rural Canada. Whether it be her in Quebec or me in British Columbia, we work well together. I was reading a quote that was sent to the Standing Committee on Finance. It was in a pre-budget consultation submission put forward by Paper Excellence. The company wrote: G…
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Madam Speaker, I think we need to talk about going well beyond subsidies. We know that in Great Britain they had an excess profit tax on oil and gas; that is the Conservatives in Britain. We cannot even get Liberals to do that. Right now, the Liberals have ended the Canada greener homes loan program. I have constituents who want to access that program. I have contractors saying they are going to h…
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Madam Speaker, in June I asked the Parliamentary Budget Officer what would happen if we did away with the carbon tax and went toward subsidies and regulations, or what would happen if we did nothing. The U.S. has made it clear there would be a border carbon adjustment, and I asked what the impact would be on those eight in 10 Canadians. He said that it depends exactly what is done in place of the …
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Mr. Speaker, I find it comical when I come in here and hear my Conservative colleague talk about people working hard, like my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, for whom it takes 12 and a half hours, as it does for me, and three flights, on average, to get here. Members know we will be here tonight in late Adjournment Proceedings, dragging the Speaker and the government here. It is not a questio…
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Madam Speaker, I just want some clarity here in terms of identifying people who we know are voting virtually, which is seen by the public, and people who are voting in the House. When two-thirds of the Conservatives voted virtually to end virtual Parliament, for example, people saw that Conservatives were voting virtually against something that they want to use. They were against using the app, bu…
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start with this: It was actually the Conservative government that cut IT staff in the public service. We saw outsourcing go up with the big six companies; it doubled under the Conservatives. We saw it quadruple under the current Liberal government. It has become unequivocally clear that the corporate-controlled parties, both Liberal and Conservative, are continuing to go to …
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present this petition today. It is supported by the Canadian Farmers' Markets association. I also want to thank all farmers and farmers' markets from coast to coast to coast. The petitioners who have signed this petition are calling on the Government of Canada to support Motion No. 66 and initiate a national program for all provincial farmers' market nutrition coupo…
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Mr. Speaker, we saw outsourcing to highly paid consultants double under the Conservatives, including GC Strategies owners, who were formerly operating under another company. We saw the Conservatives bring in the Phoenix pay system. It was supposed to save $80 million, but it has cost $3.5 billion. Therefore, we cannot give credit to the Conservatives that they are going to lead the path with respe…
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Madam Speaker, again, under the Conservative government, the outsourcing to highly paid consulting firms doubled. Under the Liberal government, it has gone up fourfold. The ArriveCAN fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have been calling for the government, and for the government operations committee, to investigate the big six consulting firms. We saw Deloitte with over $100 million in contr…
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Madam Speaker, I hear the Liberals continue to talk about the surge from COVID. The reality is that the Liberals had $8.4 billion in outsourcing the first year they were in government that they inherited from the Conservatives. Now they are at $21.4 billion. In terms of the big six consulting firms, the government had $119 million, pre-COVID; now it is $470 million just to the big six. The argumen…
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Madam Speaker, I am going to raise it again. The ArriveCAN scandal fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have watched companies like Deloitte go from $11 million to $275 million a year. These are highly paid consulting firms, and the NDP put forward a motion to expand the investigation to look at all outsourcing, including these big corporations. I have asked Conservatives all day long why the…
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Mr. Speaker, while we are hearing Conservatives and Liberals fight over who started with which highly paid consultant and who spent more, we actually need to get to fixing the problem and have that conversation. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what is going on at CBSA and ArriveCAN. This is not just deeply concerning, as my colleague talked about. This is outrageous. We saw Deloit…
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Mr. Speaker, we know that what is happening with ArriveCAN and at CBSA is just the tip of the iceberg. At the government operations committee, I put forward a motion to expand the study to include the big six highly paid consulting firms. When I put forward that motion, members should have seen the room. Everybody in the corporate control parties ran to their phones, saying to hold on. They were c…
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Madam Speaker, what is embarrassing is that I just outlined that the Conservatives are making sure that we are not putting their former—
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Madam Speaker, as I was going to say, what is embarrassing is that the Conservatives continue to protect their friends at Deloitte, including their former leadership candidate, Peter MacKay, and, just like the Liberals, they do not want to talk about it. They are both corporate-controlled parties. They are trying to mislead us again. Those votes were about allocating $4.6 billion for COVID rapid t…
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Madam Speaker, we need a mechanism and tool to do a full investigation. Right now, the Conservatives are focused on ArriveCAN because it is a “gotcha” campaign. They are not actually trying to fix the overall problem with outsourcing. My colleague talked about an increase in outsourcing, but like I said, Deloitte went from $11 million in 2015 to $275 million, and I can assure my colleague that the…
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Madam Speaker, I will say it. They are hypocrites. Let us face it. Conservatives started the outsourcing and the out-of-control situation that we are in. They cut public service. They outsourced IT. They started the Phoenix debacle that was supposed to save $80 million but cost us $3.5 billion. It is absolutely outrageous. What we are trying to do, and I will say that we have been working really w…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise in support of this motion today. I am going to speak to the broader issue of outsourcing and what New Democrats have been trying to do from the beginning in terms of revealing and bringing an end to the rampant outsourcing to highly paid, external, for-profit consulting firms that are making money hand over fist. Earlier I talked about how, unde…
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Mr. Speaker, for almost three years, the Liberals have let a ship-breaking company in Union Bay bend the rules, and it is putting locals at risk. A boat filled with asbestos is being broken apart in sensitive fish and shellfish habitats, which could cause irrevocable harm and cost 500 people their jobs. The B.C. government, local first nations and residents say that the Liberals are failing to pro…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on the unceded lands of Tseshaht and Hupacasath on Vancouver Island in Nuu-chah-nulth territory to speak to Bill C-62, which is calling for the extension of the temporary exclusion of eligibility for medical assistance in dying for persons suffering solely from a mental illness by three years, until March 17, 2027. Clearly, without an intervention by Parl…
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Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, we want to ensure that we have a system of care in place to ensure that E.F. can actually get access to supports if she is suffering. However, that is not in place anywhere in the country, not in all 10 provinces and three territories. We know that. We are falling far below our OECD partners. Provinces and territories spend between 5% and 7% of their health care bu…
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Mr. Speaker, a lot of discussions needs to take place at the AMAD committee, to look at the existing legislation. However, right now, we are dealing with a timely situation, and I am going to speak to that. This is around the Liberal government's ill-advised decision to accept the Senate amendment to Bill C-7 in the 43rd Parliament. That is what has gotten us here today. This is why we are having …
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague has done incredible work at the health committee and the AMAD committee. I really appreciate him for that. I hope that some day we will have an opportunity so that those with the sole underlying medical condition of mental disorder will have the ability to make that decision. However, we are so far away from parity, given that consecutive Liberal and Conservative federal …
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Mr. Speaker, in just two days, Belleville has seen 23 drug poisonings. It has declared a state of emergency. The mayor says that emergency services and funding are stretched too thin. The toxic drug crisis keeps getting worse, while the Liberals take a patchwork approach. Then there are Conservatives, who spread harmful disinformation instead of offering real solutions. There are 42,000 people who…
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Mr. Speaker, you will not be surprised that I am tabling another petition in support of volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel from coast to coast to coast. Over 165 communities have sent in petitions, representing every single party and rural riding in this House. They are calling for the firefighter tax credit to be increased from $3,000 to $10,000. It is the least the government…
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians spend over a billion dollars out of their own pockets on mental health services every year. With the cost of everything only going up, Canadians are making a difficult choice. Do they put food on the table or get the therapy they need? The Liberals promised $4.5 billion in mental health funding, but they are still well over a billion dollars short, even with the bilateral ag…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a huge honour to rise today to table petition e-4568, which was signed by over 677 constituents from Vancouver Island. They cite that recreation and wellness centres provide opportunities for communities to gather, to connect and to stay healthy through physical activity. The research shows that recreation and wellness centres promote personal health and well-being among users, …
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague did not answer the question. The Conservatives, when they were in government, cut $600 million to the RCMP. They got rid of the RCMP recruitment fund. They cut over 1,100 jobs at the CBSA, and we are still feeling the effects of that today. In fact, the NDP brought forward amendments today, common-sense proposals, which I would think the Conservatives would support, inclu…
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives come forward today saying that one car stolen should equal a year in jail. That is not a policy. That is straight out of the books from a Texas governor, who failed in their policies in Texas. We know the Conservatives cut 1,100 jobs at the Canada Border Services Agency, in terms of officers on the front line. According to Mark Weber, the president of the Customs and…
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Mr. Speaker, the Nuu-chah-nulth people have suffered enormous loss throughout their 200-year history of colonization, not the least of which has been the devastating loss of language and culture. Today, Nuu-chah-nulth elders, educators and learners are making tremendous progress towards revitalizing their indigenous language, in spite of the uncertainty of federal funding from one year to the next…
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With regard to the electoral district of Courtenay—Alberni, since fiscal year 2005-06: what are all the federal infrastructure investments (including direct transfers to municipalities, regional district associations or First Nations, national parks, highways, etc.), broken down by fiscal year?
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With regard to Health Canada’s Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP), and broken down by fiscal year since 2021-22: (a) what are the details of all requests for funding from community-led and not-for-profit organizations, including the (i) date of the request, (ii) requester name, (iii) amount of funding requested, (iv) amount of funding approved; (b) what is the total amount of funding that…
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With regard to the communities which comprise the federal electoral district of Courtenay-Alberni, between the 2005-06 and current year fiscal year: (a) what are the federal infrastructure investments, including direct transfers to the municipalities and First Nations, for the communities of (i) Tofino, (ii) Ucluelet, (iii) Port Alberni, (iv) Parksville, (v) Qualicum Beach, (vi) Cumberland, (vii) …
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Madam Speaker, we are talking about relevance. The member is deep into OGGO and ArriveCAN. He is going through a list of “gotchas” instead of talking about relevant debate that is happening here in the House. That is exactly what is happening here.
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Madam Speaker, it is a great honour for me to table petition e-4594, which was signed by 16,724 people from coast to coast to coast in support of Canada's volunteer firefighters and search and rescue volunteers. Petitioners are asking the government to increase the tax credit from $3,000 to $10,000 to help with recruitment and to help deal with the cost of inflation, but most importantly, to let t…
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With regard to economic development funding for the communities which comprise the federal electoral district of Courtenay-Alberni, between the 2005-06 and current year fiscal year: (a) what are the federal investments in all economic development spending, including direct transfers to the municipalities and First Nations, for the communities of (i) Tofino, (ii) Ucluelet, (iii) Port Alberni, (iv) …
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising for the first time since the former leader of the NDP, Ed Broadbent, passed. I want to send my condolences to his family and everybody across Canada who loved Ed, especially those in Oshawa and Ottawa. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has been seized with this serious issue. We know this mistake was not just made by the current Speaker. When the member…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the health care workers who supported the member through her difficult journey last month. The member talked about where this debate should take place. We know PROC has been seized with this issue. Here we are with another concurrence motion. I am not saying that this is not an important issue, but I am wondering where the debate should take place. We had concurrence…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talked a bit earlier about the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who also was a Speaker and broke the rules but who is now coming forward in the House, which is the height of hypocrisy. My colleague from Hamilton stated that earlier as he moved a motion at the ethics committee to have the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle come and testify, because that member also broke the rule…
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Mr. Speaker, why are we having this concurrence debate? We know why. It is because the Conservatives do not want us to be debating anti-scab legislation. They say they are here for workers; they are not here for workers. They moved this concurrence motion so we could not talk about protecting workers' rights. That is exactly why we are having this concurrence debate. While we are here, let us talk…
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Mr. Speaker, just on a similar point of order, the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs has requested that I table this petition today. I am going to ask if you could canvass the House and allow some of us to table petitions on behalf of the volunteer firefighters who put their lives at risk to protect everybody in our communities, especially in rural Canada. I am hoping that you will get unanimous…
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Mr. Speaker, even though small businesses are dealing with a cost of living crisis, the Liberals are forcing them to pay back the Canada emergency business account loan within the next few weeks or risk losing up to $20,000. While the Liberals put small businesses in jeopardy, they are handing out $21.6 billion to their rich consultant friends. Reducing this out-of-control outsourcing by just 4% m…
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