Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, after the Minister of Foreign Affairs was appointed, I sent a letter asking her to review all the correspondence and names that were submitted by my colleagues and me about human rights abusers, including those who harvest organs from Falun Gong practitioners in China, those responsible in Iran for the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, and those responsible for t…
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Mr. Speaker, one request from the families of the Iranian and Ukrainian communities that lost loved ones in the downing of flight PS752 is that we list the Quds Force and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as terrorist organizations. Why has the minister not listed IRGC as a terrorist organization?
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Mr. Speaker, we all know that Russia is amassing about 175,000 troops on the borders of Ukraine. President Biden had calls and discussions yesterday with President Putin, France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain. Why did he not call Canada?
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, who is someone I am honoured to serve with. As a veteran, he has done numerous missions and tours in Afghanistan and I am looking forward to his comments later. I know that sometimes he can be a little “rough” around the edges, but we are looking forward to his comments. I am glad to be able to speak to the motio…
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Madam Speaker, why would we want to split this work up over three committees, when those three committees can be doing other work? We should be having a special committee, as we have done in the past, such as in the previous Parliament, on Canada-China relations. There have been other committees in the past, like the special committee on the war in Afghanistan, which operated through Parliament th…
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Madam Speaker, the member from the NDP seems to forget that our Afghan interpreter refugee program was fully subscribed. People used it, and at the end it was just a trickle that was coming in. People who came here were proud to be coming to Canada. They became citizens and they sponsored their families to get to Canada as well. I am very proud of that program. I am proud of our forces and the job…
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Madam Speaker, I could go on forever. If there had been leadership from the Liberals, the minister of defence, the minister of citizenship and immigration and refugees, the minister of foreign affairs and especially the Prime Minister himself, we would not be in this situation today. If we had not had that unnecessary and expensive election that was all about the Prime Minister's hubris, we would …
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Madam Speaker, we concur and accept the amendment.
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Mr. Speaker, it was reported that the Government of Canada was considering putting in more troops and moving frigates into the Black Sea, as well as moving our CF-18 fighter jets from Romania into Ukraine. Will the minister put military equipment and troops into the situation in Ukraine? Will they provide Ukraine with lethal military weapons?
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Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I will be directing all my questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. In 2018, Parliament unanimously passed a bill that I brought forward on Magnitsky sanctions, holding gross human rights violators who are foreign officials to account. Unfortunately, the government has not used it since 2018. Last week, the parliament the European Union actually did a report and scolded the Gover…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was a member of Parliament back in 2018 when she voted in favour of the Magnitsky sanctions. It was good enough to pass then, but was she just virtue signalling to the diaspora communities here in Canada and in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and to the people who we are standing up for human rights and democracy around the world?…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
It'll take you 20 years to get there.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I can tell the Prime Minister that Canada's veterans have stepped up and done more than their share to protect their Afghan friends who were left behind. They set up safe houses to protect hundreds of Afghan interpreters and their families, but when these veteran-operated safe houses came to the government and asked for $5 million, the Liberals said no. Our Afghan friends were forced …
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Mr. Speaker, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban earlier this year, thousands of Afghans who worked alongside our troops were led to believe by the Prime Minister that Canada would keep them safe. National Defence has received over 23,000 applications from Afghan interpreters and support staff who served with us, yet Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is only processing 14,500 applicati…
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Mr. Speaker, our veterans and all of those non-governmental organizations had to step up because this government did not. Our Afghan interpreters and support staff have been left behind to face the brutality of the Taliban who are hunting them down as we speak. Our veterans are doing everything in their power to get people out of harm's way, including chartering their own planes to take them to sa…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Pursuant to Standing Order 43(2)(a) I would like to indicate that for all remaining replies by members of the Conservative caucus to the Speech from the Throne, speaking slots will be divided in two.
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Mr. Speaker, I can say that my wife, who is a nurse, is scheduled to have her third shot of Pfizer. In Manitoba, I will have the opportunity in the new year to get my third short of Moderna. There are great opportunities for all of us. We could administer some of those vaccinations here in Parliament. In the past, we have offered the flu shot in Parliament to all members. All we had to do was walk…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, this Saturday marks the 88th anniversary of the Holodomor genocide. In 1932-33, Joseph Stalin's brutal Soviet regime used food as a weapon to exterminate upwards of 10 million Ukrainian men, women and children. At its height, Stalin's starvation edict killed 28,000 Ukrainians per day in 1933. To illustrate the extent of the Holodomor genocide in modern times, imagine if in Western Can…
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No, not anymore, because the Prime Minister, who definitely does not like coming here, and it is debatable whether he even likes his job anymore, is trying to avoid listening to all the voices in the chamber rather than just who sits at the cabinet table. It is so disheartening to see the New Democrats being the enablers. If NDP members are going to sit here and take their orders from the Liberal …
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Mr. Speaker, the Westminster parliamentary system has survived for centuries. It has survived here with in-person sittings through pandemics, like the Spanish flu and SARS. Even if we have a situation where members of Parliament and cabinet ministers become ill, there is an age-old tradition called pairing that we could implement. We have parliamentary secretaries who can answer on behalf of minis…
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Mr. Speaker, we know for a fact that the people of Glasgow were quite concerned that not all countries required participants to be double vaccinated. They may have been testing daily with rapid tests, which is something we could do here quite easily, even for those of us who are vaccinated, but there is no reason we need to be doing things differently here. If people can show up in the thousands i…
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise for the first time in the 44th Parliament. I want to congratulate you for your ascension to such a great chair and presiding over these important meetings. I also want to thank all the voters back in Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman for putting their trust in me for the seventh time. I thank my family and, of course, all the great volunteers who worked tirelessly on o…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence is under fire again. This time, the military ombudsman, Gregory Lick, who reports directly to the minister, had this to say about the minister’s failure to act on military sexual misconduct: “When leaders turn a blind eye to our recommendations and concerns in order to advance political interests and their own self-preservation or career advancement, i…
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Mr. Speaker, we know there have been two military ombudsmen who have said the defence minister has failed, and the defence minister refuses to acknowledge the anger of the victims, military members and his own ombudsman. The ombudsman was clear about the defence minister’s role in fanning the flames of the current crisis. He said: …the actions of the Minister of National Defence, senior government…
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Madam Speaker, last night, the majority of the House of Commons voted to censure the Minister of National Defence for his litany of failures. The most egregious thing he has been condemned for is allowing the crisis of sexual misconduct to fester in the military. Referring to the victims of military sexual traumas, Stephanie Carvin, associate professor at the Norman Paterson School of Internationa…
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Madam Speaker, a scathing Toronto Star editorial said, “One of the minor mysteries of Ottawa in the spring of 2021 is why on earth [the defence minister] is still Canada’s minister of national defence. [His] credibility has been so thoroughly shredded by the sexual misconduct scandals paralyzing the Canadian Forces”. Sexual misconduct expert Megan MacKenzie from Simon Fraser University said the de…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, if the member really wants to help victims of sexual misconduct in the military, she would quit obstructing the national defence committee's work. There is a growing wave of consensus that the Minister of National Defence is ill suited to implement the changes needed to end sexual misconduct since he has already failed to protect our women and men in uniform. Military sexual assault…
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Mr. Speaker, I hope this is the final time I will have to address the House virtually. I look forward to being in Ottawa next week and hope very much that we will be back to normal sessions come the fall. I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. I just have to say that this is a rare measure that we are requesting of all members of the House of Commons to c…
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Madam Speaker, I just want to say how much I enjoyed the speech from the member for Lac-Saint-Jean and that I enjoyed working with him on the national defence committee, as he is the critic for the Bloc Québécois on national defence. The member talked about the minister needing to resign, and I appreciate his support of our motion today to censure the minister because of this constant misleading o…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the small business owners in my riding and across the country who have been working so hard to stay afloat throughout the pandemic. Our communities are better and stronger places to live because of their tenacity and commitment to weathering this storm. That said, on behalf of Manitoba business owners, I want to express their disappointment and frustration over how the…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her service in uniform to this country and for her leadership in Parliament. She has been doing incredible work on this issue at the status of women and national defence committees in trying to right the ship and change the culture. My hon. colleague has served, so she has witnessed first-hand the culture within the Canadian Armed Forces, which was d…
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention today. I appreciate the work he has done at the national defence committee and having to sit through the ongoing, needless filibustering and obstruction by the Liberals. They continue their cheap political grandstanding. It has been very disheartening. It very much undermines the trust of the women and men who serve in uniform in our…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister has consistently denied having any knowledge of that. We are questioning whether he has been misleading Canadians on sexual misconduct and concerning fighter jets and procurement of supply ships, so I guess it is reasonable to also question whether he was aware of what was happening during the transfer of prisoners in Afghanistan. It comes down to the nature and conduct o…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member wholeheartedly. The most egregious thing that has happened under the leadership of this Minister of National Defence is that he has failed to move to protect the women and men who serve in uniform. Therefore, we have this crisis of sexual misconduct. The minister sat for six years on Justice Deschamps' report on how to stomp out sexual misconduct. The minister …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North knows that I am not attacking the minister's service in uniform. As I said in my speech, he had an incredible service, including in Operation Medusa and the intelligence that he collected. What we are talking about is his lack of action and lack of leadership as the Minister of National Defence over the past six years while he has been in the job. Due to …
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moved: That, given that the Minister of National Defence has clearly lost the respect of members of the Canadian Armed Forces, including those at the highest ranks, for, amongst other things, (i) misleading Canadians on the withdrawal of fighter jets in the fight against ISIS, (ii) misleading Canadians about his service record, (iii) presiding over the wrongful accusation and dismissal of Vice-Adm…
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Madam Speaker, it is disheartening to listen to the member for Winnipeg North with his continued Liberal deflection, dithering and delays, which we see all too often from the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defence. We are now seeing it from the parliamentary secretary himself. He would rather sit here and talk about how we have more victims because of the lack of action by the Ministe…
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Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to note that my colleague never once addressed the motion of censuring the Minister of National Defence. I want to join with him and thank all the brave women and men who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces and do such incredible work. Unfortunately, their morale has been severally hurt because of the lack of leadership shown by the Minister of National Defence. The m…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the minister has not learned anything from his own mistakes, so he should actually follow our example. The Canadian Armed Forces is losing senior officers at an alarming rate. Two chiefs of defence staff are under investigation, and the seventh vice chief of defence staff since 2015 just resigned. All of this is happening under the failed leadership of the defence minister and is crea…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence has always had a casual relationship with the truth. He misled Canadians about the protests of Iraqi officials for pulling our CF-18s out of the fight against ISIS. He embellished his service record, saying he was the architect of Operation Medusa. He originally denied he knew about the General Vance allegations in 2018, but was complicit in the cover-…
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Mr. Speaker, the seventh vice-chief of the defence staff since 2015 resigned yesterday because he went golfing with one of the two chiefs of the defence staff who are under investigation for sexual misconduct. This tragic narrative is a direct reflection on the weak leadership of the defence minister. The minister wilfully turned a blind eye to evidence of sexual misconduct against General Vance a…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I would like to point out that the member for Kingston and the Islands continues to challenge your authority as Chair, and I think that is despicable. It should not be allowed. I think you need to admonish that individual for continuing to challenge your role.
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Mr. Speaker, in 2018, Canadian soldiers reported to commanders that they had seen videos of horrible atrocities being committed on the phones of the very Iraqi soldiers they were training, but our troops were ordered to look the other way and keep training these alleged war criminals. Now, we know that a secret memo was given to the former chief of defence staff in 2020, which clearly demonstrates…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, Liberal members on the Standing Committee on National Defence have been shamefully obstructing our committee from completing the study into sexual misconduct allegations in the Canadian Armed Forces. The defence committee has been stuck in the same meeting since May 21 with Liberals speaking ad nauseam and the chair needlessly suspending the meeting. Yesterday, the Liberals even went …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to present two petitions on behalf of the independent travel advisers here in Canada. There are two issues they wish to raise, and of course we know there are tens of thousands of independent travel advisers across Canada and in our small communities. Travel advisers make their living from commissions from people they are providing services for, including airlines. They…
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Mr. Speaker, that is all talk and no action. Justice Fish explicitly calls on the government to implement the Victims Bill of Rights provisions in Bill C-77. It is a bill that was passed by this Parliament two years ago this month and still has not been brought into force. He states that until those victims' rights are put in place, “sexual assaults should not be investigated or prosecuted under t…
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Mr. Speaker, Justice Fish's report on the Liberal government's failure to protect our women and men in uniform was scathing and to the point. He said sexual misconduct in Canada's military is “as rampant in 2021 as in 2015”. This is a direct result of the defence minister's failure to follow the Prime Minister's 2015 mandate letter, which directed him to implement the recommendations of the Descha…
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I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that report will just collect dust on the Prime Minister's desk like the last report. Justice Fish’s explosive report shows that only 25% of regular force members who were victims of sexual assault stated someone in authority found out about the crime, and 57% said no one in authority was even aware. The morale of our women and men in uniform is at an all-time low and their…
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