Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we often hear from the other side that Canada is the only country that does not have this type of law, but what they sometimes forget to talk about are the damages and deleterious effects that have come from creating these back doors or front doors. Does the member have any examples of bad things happening, either by government abuse or by hackers and bad actors?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the short answer is no. I do not see that as being a robust portion of part 2 of the bill, in part because much of what the minister would do and the regulations that would be made would be done in secret. Moreover, the provision of sending ministerial orders to the Information Commissioner is, in my view, somewhat misguided. The Information Commissioner deals with national security i…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, of course, the opposition is always open to considering all reasonable amendments to the bill. At the very least, I would like to hear what the Privacy Commissioner's view is on the bill. Whether the Privacy Commissioner could provide that via testimony in committee or via a public letter to members of the House of Commons, I would welcome those comments.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it is just two weeks away from the tax deadline, and we had better cross our t's and dot our i's, because we all know that the CRA gives no quarter to ordinary Canadians, but there is a good chance a fraudster might walk away with a couple million dollars. In fact it was reported this week that the CRA once again paid out millions of dollars to a fraudulent claim. This is not new. It …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, if anything that was said were true, this would not be happening, but it has been happening for six years and continues to happen. This tax season will be particularly tough for young Canadians, because 20% of them, one in five, say they cannot pay a tax bill and would have to go into debt to do it. Liberal policies are unfairly burdening young Canadians, the next generation, driving …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I think we all share the genuine desire to ensure that law enforcement has the appropriate tools to deal with crime and criminals in the digital age. That Canada is behind its peers, who are doing this, is really an indictment of the government. The Liberals have been in power 10 years and they have chosen not to address this issue until now. That said, just because we are in the digi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I know that my colleague shares this side of the House's desire to equip police officers with tools for the 21st century. He also shares our concern, and it is clear that the other side does not, based on those members' actions, for the protection of civil liberties, including the privacy of Canadians. Of course, Bill C-22 raises severe concerns with respect to the invasion of the pri…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge was in the manufacturing industry himself, and he knows a thing or two about keeping a budget and keeping costs. He also knows a thing or two about principle. I have come to know him, and he is a man of principle, unlike some of the others who were formerly in our caucus. On this side of the House, our principle is about providing relief to Canadia…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his concern for those who can least afford government taxes. He will know, and I know he will agree, that things such as the industrial carbon tax and the clean fuel regulation are sometimes the most pernicious of taxes because they put the burden on people who can least afford to pay more. Those are the lower-income people who have no choice but to pay more t…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I guess we simply have a disagreement on this. I think it is common sense that if we tax businesses in the production of their goods or services, they will pass that cost on to the consumer who buys their goods or services. If a farmer has to pay an additional cost to buy fertilizer or to buy a piece of equipment, that will find its way into the products we buy at the grocery store. T…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I got up this morning and called home, as I do each day I am here in Ottawa away from my family, as I am sure many do. I asked, “What's the price of gasoline this morning? What's the price of diesel?” In my part of Ontario, just north of the GTA, it is ranging anywhere from about 165.9 to 175.9 for regular to around two dollars for diesel fuel. That is in Uxbridge, Port Perry, Canning…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is not magic; it is just mathematics. When taxes are removed, it lowers the price of things in this country. This is why our plans, all four of them, were estimated to lower the price of gasoline by about 25¢. It is not magic. The Liberals just need add up the numbers and remove the taxes to get a better outcome for Canadians. I do not disagree with some of the things they have don…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am rising to follow up on a question on housing that I asked the government just a few short weeks ago. It has become trite in this country to say the obvious, which is that the average salary no longer buys the average home. In fact, in my part of Ontario, the price-to-income ratio is about 10 times. That means it takes 10 times the average salary to purchase the average home in my…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, when I recently asked the Minister of Housing about the growing and persistent housing unaffordability crisis in Canada, he responded to say that it was not his fault, not the government's fault and not the Liberals' fault, despite their being in power for 10 years. Do members know whose fault he said it was? He said it was Iran's fault, the fault of the war in Iran, that houses are e…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the question was about business investment. I will try again. C.D. Howe says that investment per worker has declined 25% since the Liberals took office. Weak investment yesterday and today means lower wages and lower productivity tomorrow. Two years ago, the Bank of Canada said we had to break glass on this issue. A year later, C.D. Howe said it was a four-alarm emergency, but here we…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised the best economy in the G7, and he is delivering precisely the opposite: the highest household debt, the highest food inflation and an economy literally shrinking under the weight of his policies. What is particularly concerning is the decline in foreign and domestic investment. C.D. Howe called it “Canada's investment crisis”. Adjusted for growth and labou…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today, again, on Bill C-9. I may sound like a broken record here, but some truths just bear repeating. Petitioners in my community are calling on the government to reverse course and not remove long-standing protections from the Criminal Code that protect people of faith, Canadians of faith, reading sacred texts like the Bible, the Torah and the Quran. The p…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I know the parliamentary secretary has been working on this very closely on the justice committee. However, we heard the Minister of Identity and Culture say that the Bible and certain books of the Torah contain categorical hatred and that there should be discretion for prosecutors to press charges. I would ask her very simply whether she agrees with the minister or not.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, forgive me if I do not take advice from the former finance minister of Ontario. For a decade before his current job, he watched Ontario's auto sector decline, so it has been two decades of decline with this member. Here is my question to the hon. member: Part of their supposed strategy is exports to non-U.S. destinations. I have seen no evidence from the government that this is a real…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I have to warn us today that I may reference and read from a very dangerous book, a book so dangerous that the government is moving to criminalize the very utterance of its words in public spaces, a book so dangerous that at least some Liberal members say it is full of hate, and a book so dangerous and so full of hate, the government says that it is seeking, through Bill C-9, to strip…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there are several parts of Bill C-9 that we were willing to work with the government on, and I am glad to see that we did find some common ground. Putting back the Attorney General's consent to invoking prosecutions was a positive that we supported. Increasing back to the Supreme Court jurisprudence the definition of hatred was a change we supported. Unfortunately, all of these change…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the unanimous voice of Conservatives, non-Conservatives, Canadians of a faith and Canadians of no faith has been that this bill would harm free expression and would derogate from Canadians' right to freely express their religious beliefs. I am sorry, but I disagree with that supporter.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, let me just start by saying it is not just my opinion that this bill is horrible. The Liberal government has unanimously gotten Canadians to oppose this bill. Christian organizations, Muslim organizations, Hindu organizations, non-religious organizations, constitutional foundations and civil liberties groups have all unanimously opposed the bill because they see the danger in opening …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I will give my colleague a genuine answer to his genuine question. As I said in my speech, calls to violence are not protected under the Criminal Code or by free expression. That was true before Bill C-9 and it will be true after Bill C-9. I must disagree with the hon. member when he suggests a revision or an update is needed to deal with Mr. Charkaoui. That is not the case. He called…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition on behalf of Canadians concerned with Bill C-9, the Liberal censorship bill, including Canadians who joined us yesterday on Parliament Hill to rally against it. The petitioners are particularly concerned that the Liberals and Bloc have passed an amendment that would remove long-standing protections for the good-faith expression of religious belief and the go…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of residents in my community on Liberal Bill C-9, in particular the Liberal and Bloc amendment to Bill C-9 passed at the justice committee that would remove long-standing protections for the good-faith expression of religious beliefs and the citing of religious texts. That amendment would subject people who read the Bible, the Torah or other …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, CMHC's spring housing report is out, and the headlines are concerning. Here it is: Condo sales have collapsed, inventory of all types of housing has surged and financial conditions have worsened for homebuyers. However, here is the most concerning thing about that report. It says Canadians are delaying starting a family because of housing and affordability. They are delaying marriage …
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, there is an excuse for every problem, but this is a new one: The war in Iran is the cause of our housing crisis. Wow. I do not know how the Liberals figure that, or square that circle. The minister boasts about 9,000 new homes. He promised 500,000 new homes. That is not even 2% of his target. Guess what. CMHC says that only 259,000 were built last year, which is only half of the targe…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, on August 11, just one month after the ethics screen was put in place, the Prime Minister was seen speaking with and taking photos with, again, none other than Mr. Pollock, who is, as I mentioned, a part of Brookfield Infrastructure. Then, on October 3 of last year, the Prime Minister met again with the CEO of Brookfield, Justin Beber. All of these things taken individually may be und…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to follow up on a question I asked about ethics, in particular, the Prime Minister's ethics. I think all members of the House would agree that all Canadians expect the highest level of ethics and transparency from the highest leader in the land. Unfortunately, there continue to be instances where that does not seem to be the case. I will give some examples that I thi…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed and saddened by the member's response. Not once did I impugn the Prime Minister. Not once did I cast aspersions on his character. I simply asked questions about his ethics screen, which is applicable to him as the Prime Minister. That is a fair question. Justice must be done and must be seen to be done. The member can protest all he wants. He can yell all he wants, b…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I have to disagree with her with respect to investor-state dispute resolution. I know that she believes in the rule of law, so surely she must agree that when the Canadian government violates the rule of law, treats companies in a discriminatory fashion or expropriates their property or investments, there should be recourse. There is through these ISDS provisions. They are not secret.…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the federal government should incentivize municipalities to speed up permitting, cut down red tape and get more shovels in the ground. I think that is the same for Quebec as it is for any province in this country. We need the same rules for everybody.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of the residents in my community on Bill C-9 and the proposal by the Liberal and Bloc members of the House to remove long-standing safeguards that protect religious freedom and religious expression, including religious expression based on sacred texts. The petitioners share the desire to combat hate and acts that propagate hate, but note that…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of promises from the other side, going back years and years. There was a housing accelerator fund, and there were promises of hundreds of thousands of new homes. I would like to get my colleague's opinion on whether this new promise, dressed up in old trappings, is going to achieve any of the results we hope it will.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague provided her perspective as a member of the Inuit from northern Canada. I thank her for that, but I wonder how she is not angry. How is she not seething mad that under the present government, conditions have become so bad in Canada's north? The Auditor General, several years ago, concluded the same. Nunavut's own housing agency cannot keep up with it. In fact, the wait-li…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the kids are not all right. I believe that idiom originates from an older song, perhaps known by some of our older members, by a good rock band from the 1960s, The Who. It said, “the kids are alright”. Over time, those lyrics were inverted, and they are as relevant today and as pointed today as they were when they were inverted. The kids are simply not all right when it comes to housi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North can laugh. I will give him another number that is not so funny. It is, in fact, sad. The minister, in his own speech when introducing the bill, said that he maybe had agreements for 9,000 homes this year. I will remind the member for Winnipeg North what the target was. It was 500,000 new homes a year, so is the target nine, 5,200 or even, at best, 9,000? …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I would have confidence in any government that can show results, but we do not have that. We have the CEO of Build Canada Homes saying that we built nine, the Parliamentary Budget Office saying that maybe we will build 5,200 and the minister himself, in his own speech, saying maybe we will build 9,000. The government's target is 500,000. That is the Prime Minister's target. I believe …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am a positive person. I believe in Canada. I believe in the next generation. I do not think this is a laughing matter. It is a serious matter for the next generation, who struggle day after day, week after week, dreaming of home ownership and having that dream ripped away from them by a Liberal government that is presiding over the worst housing crisis in a generation.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I gladly take that opportunity. The first thing I want to say to the next generation, if they are listening, is that we are on their team. We hear their complaints, their struggle, and we will fight every day in the House to make housing affordable and accessible to them. Some of the suggestions we have are to remove the GST on all homes, get rid of federal lands that are useless, inc…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, in short, to answer the member's question, the government does not need this. It had all the tools before it, but instead it has created a new, shiny object to put in the window to distract from its failure. Also, the government does not even have a target. The Prime Minister says 500,000 new homes and Build Canada Homes says that it actually does not have a target, so who knows what …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned tax fairness in his most recent response. I am increasingly concerned with the tax unfairness being brought on by the Liberal budget. Canadians in the next generation will have to pay for every dollar that is borrowed. Does the member think it is fair for the next generation to be saddled with the debts of this generation for their entire lives?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, a new report from CIBC confirms what young Canadians already know: The dream of home ownership is slipping away. In fact, the bank says prices are too high to buy and that the average down payment in Ontario is now nearly $300,000. That is an impossible number. Behind that number is a young family who cannot buy a home, start a family or build a life. The bank says that, unless we cut…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, day by day, year by year, the dream of home ownership is fading away for young Canadians. The Prime Minister's promise was for 500,000 new homes, but CMHC reported this week that he will actually build only 216,000 and that homebuilding will decline every year to 2028. Does the Prime Minister dispute the CMHC's findings, and if he does not, will he admit that he made a promise he knew…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, where are the homes? They keep talking about building, but we see no action. In fact, not only will homebuilding decrease; CMHC says that home prices will rise. We will have less supply, more demand and higher prices. That is a nightmare scenario for young Canadians. It appears to me that the Prime Minister's lofty political promise was nothing more than Romeo's lie when he swore his …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition today on behalf of Canadians concerned with two serious measures that the Liberals have brought forward. The first is the power in the budget implementation act to secretly exempt individuals or companies from any federal law, which was never disclosed in the budget discussion. The second is to adjust how Canada budgets for itself, moving away from our long-…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the government proudly announced recently that it was removing its failed EV mandate and replacing it with a shiny new emissions standard, but, as Shakespeare warned us: Look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under't. The surface appears to have changed. The explicit sales quota is gone, but beneath it seem to lurk the same coercive rules. The old mandate aimed for 100% zer…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the member doth protest, but he does not answer my question. I have another one, about the new EV industrial strategy, as it is called. I am not one for subsidizing companies, but if they are going to subsidize companies, as the Liberals are proposing, with a new subsidy for the purchase of American-made electric vehicles, should it not at least be available to all Canadians on an equ…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, last year, I thought being elected would be the most important accomplishment of my life, but I was wrong. Just six months later, I became a father with the birth of my first daughter, Rose Mantle. This Monday is Family Day across much of Canada, and I am honoured to celebrate Family Day for the first time as a father. In fact, I am hosting a free community skate in Uxbridge all Monda…
Read full speech →