Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I request that the motion be carried on division. (Motion agreed to)
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I ask that it be carried on division. (Motion agreed to)
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, earlier in the chamber, we had a member accuse one of our members of misinformation. This is a continuing trend we are seeing from the Liberals. Conservatives bring facts to the debate. If the Liberals do not believe us, all they need to do is open a newspaper, read the news on their phone or watch TV, because that is how we get a lot of our facts and information, as well as from al…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of the great people of southwest and west central Saskatchewan. I want to commend my colleague from Kamloops—Thompson—Nicola on this fantastic bill. It is our job as members of Parliament to take issues from our local communities and find ways to advocate for or work on them to make a better Canada. I firmly bel…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and privilege to rise on behalf of the great people of southwest and west central Saskatchewan. This weekend, we got to experience the first real blast of winter back home. It was down to the mid minus 20s. We had a bit of snow on the ground. I think we are fully into the grips of winter here now. To everybody who is out driving on the roads, or out working in t…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, as I told the member, this bill has some Conservative values and Conservative principles in it. The Liberals are starting to run out of ideas. This is Bill C-4. It is only the fourth piece of legislation that this place has seen, and already, they are trying to plagiarize Conservative ideas and principles. Of course, we are all for tax breaks for Canadians. We would like to see the go…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I just want to pick up on a thread one of my colleagues was talking about earlier, with regard to Bill C-4 and the rebate on new housing. We know that most first-time homebuyers do not purchase newly built homes. There is a phrase, “starter home”, that usually means an older house, smaller in square footage but more cost-friendly to purchase. This is what first-time homebuyers are loo…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, the Prime Minister left his position at Brookfield Asset Management as head of ESG and impact fund investing. He claims to have put all his assets in a blind trust and disclosed his investments to the Ethics Commissioner. With the conflict of interest screen in place, everyone is supposed to just trust the process, after the head of Canada's government left working …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member is right. The forestry sector is one of the breadwinners for Canada, or at least it has been historically. The government has completely abandoned and neglected it. I would have liked to see more measures to support economic growth, because that is what the forestry sector brings. Unfortunately, the member's riding has been decimated by bad Liberal policy, again ignoring ge…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, while there is little income tax relief in this bill, the cost of inflation and the cost of food continue to go up. I keep track of the price of butter, for example, and in just the last year, it has gone up $2 at my local grocery store. There was an article by Policy Options magazine, entitled “Ten million Canadians live in food-insecure households. The federal budget doesn’t help th…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I was reading in the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report about the tax break the Liberals are supposedly giving to people. For a couple with a child, if they are both in the first income tax bracket, it would amount to only about $20 a month in savings for that family. When I look at the cost of groceries, I see that the cost of butter alone is up two dollars. If people are using bu…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member talked in her speech about how a family could save up to $840 with the Liberals' tax break, but at the end of the day, a couple with children making about $75,000 a year would realize only about $20 in savings with this tax cut. In fact, a single parent making $50,000 would realize only about $140 or $150 in savings with this tax cut. I am wondering how the Liberals can squ…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member opposite publicly supported defunding the police. I did not hear him say that.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, what I will say to the member opposite is that he was sort of getting on the right track because I think the point he was trying to make was that natural resource development is the jurisdiction of the province. It is not the federal government's jurisdiction to be in natural resource development. When I look at the Major Project Office, most of the projects it is developing are proje…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member has talked a lot about climate change, its effects and the impact it has, but there are a couple of things that the budget does not talk about and does not deal with, and I was hoping the member would have addressed it in his speech. There have been 30 sawmill closures in the province of B.C. There have been multiple sawmill closures in Quebec. We have seen a decimation of …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I want to get my friend and colleague's thoughts on an important sector we share in this country: agriculture. In the budget, the government is sending over $300 million to farmers in other parts of the world, yet our farmers are dealing with punishing tariffs here in Canada. Also, we have had many years of drought and of not being able to grow the crops the way we normally would like…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, if we want to talk about ways that we can save money, for example, Conservatives proposed that we would cut funding to the CBC. That is a pretty simple and easy one there. There is the $742-million gun buyback program, which I mentioned already. The $10-a-day child care system is not working the way the Liberals said it would work. There have been day care closures. There have been al…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, that was a fantastic question. There are several things they could have taken out of the budget that would have helped the next generation. The industrial carbon tax is a huge one. It is largely a hidden tax. We cannot see it on line items, but it is baked into a lot of things. Any of the large emitters that have it include the steel producers. The Prime Minister, when he was running …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in the House of Commons and speak on behalf of the great people of southwest and west-central Saskatchewan. It was a nice weekend back home, but it looks as though, this week, winter is going to be settling in for the long haul. Unfortunately, there is some snow on the forecast, so I just want to wish everyone well back home as we get rea…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I thank the members across the way and my colleagues here as well; I appreciate that. I also just want to give a quick shout-out to the Saskatchewan Roughriders for winning the Grey Cup championship. Obviously, it is a long season with lots of games. It is a gruelling schedule, but they are the ones who came out on top through hard work and great teamwork, so I congratulate the Saskat…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I happened to notice that, throughout the member's speech, a lot of the things she was talking about fall within either provincial or municipal jurisdiction. It seems like a lot of what the federal government is trying to do with the budget circumvents the provinces or works above the municipalities, instead of working through the proper channels, the way the federation is supposed to…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the member talked a bit about the mill closures that happened in her community. I have been a member of Parliament for six years now, and one of the more common headlines I have seen in the news is that mill closures are happening all across Canada. There has been no new softwood lumber deal with the United States for over 10 years. We hear a lot about housing in the House of Common…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, we know the Prime Minister was quick to abandon one of the fiscal anchors he campaigned on. In the last Parliament, the member belonged to a government that said one of its fiscal anchors was that the deficit would never go over $42 billion, yet here he is, poised to vote in favour of a budget that is going to put Canada $78 billion in the hole this fiscal year. Will the finance minis…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I saw the announcement on the funds that were being allocated. As the member will most likely know, AgriStability is actually a cost-shared program with the provincial governments. It is nice for the Liberals to say they have upped it from 80% to 90% and increased the threshold from $3 million to $6 million, but can the member confirm here today that the provincial governments are in …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, before I begin, I would just like to put this on the public record: I want to wish my wife a happy anniversary. Last week, on November 10, we celebrated 18 years of being married. I thank her for putting up with me for 18 years and for being by my side throughout this political journey. It has been quite the ride.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I believe the member insinuated in her question that the Conservative Party was lying to Canadians. We know that is not true, and it is unparliamentary to insinuate it.
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I previously had the opportunity to question the minister on the performance of the CRA after the Auditor General had released a report on her findings on the performance standards at the CRA. I think it is important to start this off by reading a couple of fine points from her findings. She starts off with a line about how “The Taxpayer Bill of Rights states that callers have the rig…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, if the target accuracy rate was 94%, the Auditor General would not have gone through the whole process of auditing the department. She has found the complete opposite when it comes to service standards. I find it a little rich for the government member to stand up and say there is a 94% success rate when that was clearly not the case. It would be nice if the member would get up to exp…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, last night, I had the privilege of co-hosting the annual MS Canada reception. Some 90,000 Canadians struggle with multiple sclerosis. Thanks to medical innovation, they are increasingly able to live normal, fulfilling lives. They come from all backgrounds and professions, from hairdressers to researchers, teachers, Hill staffers and former MPs. Nearly three-quarters of them are women.…
Read full speech →Oral questions
Mr. Speaker, the minister is not even meeting with his counterparts on his trip, and he is proving to be as ineffective as his predecessor. Harvest on the Prairies is coming to an end, and Canadian farmers are still enduring tariffs imposed by China on canola and pulse products. Exports of these crops to China have halted. They need relief, but the government is slow to act. Ahead of a meeting wit…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise on behalf of the great people of Swift Current—Grasslands—Kindersley. I want to take a few moments here as I begin my speech to say happy birthday to my daughter Kenzie. She turned 11 today. Happy birthday, sweetie. I love her very much. I am really proud of the great young girl she is growing up to be, and I look forward to seeing the gr…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General report shows that the CRA had a huge increase in deflected calls, from one million to eight million in one year. People in the southwest wait hours, sometimes days, to reach a service agent, and then they have to deal with huge delays in resolving their file, even if the CRA made the mistake. The CRA fails to meet its own service standards after already lowering th…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I could not help but notice that, although we are debating the border bill today, the government already tabled a bill earlier in the current Parliament and has already had to basically withdraw it and present a new bill because it messed up the first one so badly. I know that my colleague is newer to Parliament. I wonder how he feels so far about his own government's messing up so ba…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, there is an old proverb that says that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Canadian workers are getting sick and tired of the Prime Minister's good intentions. The best predictor of the future is the past, so let us take a look at the Prime Minister's record. His last act as the chair of Brookfield was to move the company headquarters out of Canada and into the United Stat…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in the House of Commons to speak on behalf of the great people of southwest and west central Saskatchewan. Before I begin, I would like to give a quick happy birthday shout-out to the member for Cariboo—Prince George, a wonderful member of this House. There are lots of family ties between people in southwest Saskatchewan and people in his…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it absolutely is creating an emergency for Canadian workers, because we lost 86,000 jobs over the last little while. The Prime Minister, again, was openly bragging about sending $1 trillion into the United States if he gets the deal he expects. That investment needs to be in Canada. We are not hearing if it has been reciprocating into Canada. We need that investment in Canada, not the…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, yes, he is absolutely right. The Liberals are not the entire representation of Canada. When we bring up these stories, the Liberals need to listen to us and understand the pain people are feeling because of their bad policies, and have the humility to do what is right.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, certainly we agree that moving the trials to the civilian courts would provide victims with, hopefully, a little more certainty that the proceedings could go ahead. However, there is a concern, because I do not see anywhere in the bill the Liberals' trying to address the lack of judges and the lack of courtroom space. I would hate for somebody to run up against a situation where they …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if my colleague can elaborate a bit on what the situation would look like for someone who committed an offence here in Canada but also committed the same offence overseas. I am wondering what that would look like and how this bill and the court system would handle it. Would it create a weird two-tier system that could be problematic for victims trying to receive proper …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I would like to say I will be splitting my time with the member for Acadie—Annapolis. It is always an honour to speak on behalf of the great people in southwest and west central Saskatchewan. I would like to take a quick moment here to acknowledge that this is an exceptional week, because on Monday, the 22nd, it was my daughter Jada's 13th birthday. We had a grea…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, as the member knows, agriculture is very much a trade-exposed, global market-driven industry. To resolve the tariffs, the Prime Minister has to get involved. Beyond that, as I was alluding to in my speech, the cost of everything at the farm gate has gone up, and it is innovations by farmers that have largely driven progress in agriculture, whether it is on the manufacturing side or in…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I heard the member talk in her speech about how the Liberals are working alongside industry. What we have seen from the government, as a result of the policy direction it has taken us in over the last 10 years, is that $63 billion in investment has left Canada so far this year. I am just wondering what the member's plan is to try to bring that $63 billion back. I am wondering which ba…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it did not take long for Canadians to see the public safety minister fail multiple times at his job. In just four months, we found out that he needs to recuse himself from certain discussions on border security and that he is playing politics with the firearms confiscation program that he admitted will not work. Now he has lost 600 foreign nationals with criminal records in Canada who…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the problem the member is ignoring is that Quebec does not produce every single thing it needs within the province. Quebec, like Canada, has to import goods. If goods coming from European countries have an industrial carbon tax or if things coming from elsewhere in Canada are impacted by the industrial carbon tax, people are going to pay it. It may not show on the invoice, but it is b…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate this question from the most notorious member in the House of Commons. He is a great friend, and he is a terrific MP for his region. We had a terrible problem of municipalities not being able to get that money back. We know the feds are not going to do it because they have a rabid ideology that is going to prevent that from happening. They want to see these municipa…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, since 2015, police-reported hate crimes are up 258% across Canada, anti-Semitic hate crimes are up 416%, and hate crimes against south Asians are up 377%. We have also seen well over 100 churches burned down. It would seem to me that there has been a general lack of enforcing the law but also making sure that people who commit these crimes actually go to jail and stay in jail. Does th…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, Kevin Hursh, who is a producer from southwest Saskatchewan, writes for The Western Producer on a regular basis. The latest article he wrote was regarding net farm profitability. The whole point of the article is to show, with current prices, input costs and the way things are, what the most profitable and what the biggest-loss crops are. Right at the very bottom of that list is yellow…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, before I get the chance to follow up on the ag minister's non-answer to my previous question, I would like to say that this month, my home province of Saskatchewan celebrates its 120th anniversary of joining the Confederation. From humble beginnings out on the wild frontier, we have seen a lot of growth since then. Farmers have played an essential part in that every step of the way. W…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be able to rise in the chamber for the first time since we returned from the summer break. We had a great summer in southwest Saskatchewan and in the western part of the province. Farmers have been working really hard. I want to give a quick shout-out to all the farmers and producers who are bringing the harvest in. It has been another interesting growing season. So…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, as the member was finishing her remarks, she talked about AgriStability. One of the largest complaints that I get in my office from producers, besides the government's inactivity on trade, is the AgriStability program and how it just does not ever trigger when they need it to trigger. Particularly out in the Prairies, with how much larger our farms are getting, and particularly compar…
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