Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, that is exactly why we are working to protect jobs, to create jobs, and to keep and attract the best talent here in Canada. We have a number of responses. We have the strategic response fund that is working across sectors. We are building major projects with Canadian steel and Canadian lumber. Our Build Canada Homes project is bringing tens of thousands of homes across Canada, using C…
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Mr. Speaker, we were elected to protect jobs, to create jobs and to foster the best job-creating situation in the G7, and that is exactly what we are doing. We have to defend ourselves in the United States, but meanwhile, we are working hard with Build Canada Homes, using Canadian steel and Canadian lumber, with the most aggressive buy-Canadian procurement policy this country has ever seen. There …
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Mr. Speaker, in this crisis we are in, it is so important to work hard to protect jobs, to create jobs and to bring the talent we need to this country.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Industry and other ministers are fighting for workers, particularly in the softwood lumber industry. For example, in the case of Kap Paper in northeastern Ontario, meetings are being held with management. We have the backing and support of the strategic response fund. We are providing a great deal of support to workers at these companies. We will always work on behalf …
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Mr. Speaker, it is for this exact reason that we are doing the work of going around the world to attract new investment and to do these major deals. We are always going to stand on the side of Canadian workers and Canadian employers. That is why we put together one of the most comprehensive response funds with a strategic response fund of $5 billion. We will always be there for Canadian workers an…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to the motion. I appreciate the concern that is underlying it. Like a lot of members on both sides of the House, I tend to do grocery shopping with or for my family on weekends when the House is sitting. Recently I shopped at the No Frills in Bloor West Village at the corner of Bloor and Runnymede on Saturday night, and I met some of my const…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question. We are working with the Bloc Québécois critic in committee to address this challenge. The Competition Bureau now has more resources to do that work, and I look forward to working with the Competition Bureau and the department.
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Mr. Speaker, in my last speech, I am on the record saying that I will be opposing this motion because we have these affordability measures that we have already brought in. Unfortunately, the party opposite has rejected a number of the most recent ones. I do not believe any Canadians, including the residents of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park, want to sacrifice climate objectives. I believe they thin…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, who is also the chair of the industry committee. He is absolutely right: We strive to that future where we do not need these kinds of programs. Right now, this is a vital program, and it is a direct benefit to the kids. I am so appreciative of knowing that the hon. member worked in that system. He has stories in his riding, and I invi…
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Mr. Speaker, like a number of new MPs, climate action is one of the reasons I decided to stand with this party and this Prime Minister in the last election. I am confident we are going to have a plan and updates to the plans that have already been tabled, including action on methane, all while ensuring we can meet our affordability challenges.
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Mr. Speaker, the party opposite is not calling for, in this motion, the abolition of the school food program, although its members did not vote for the program. Instead, they are compounding the issue by saying that they not only do not like the school food program, but they also want to abandon our climate targets. If the money is going to kids for food, then I think it is a good program.
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Mr. Speaker, in the member for Guelph we have a great champion for both climate action and affordability, as well as strong manufacturing and agricultural sectors. It is a “yes, and” answer, in that we can tackle both issues at once in a context of unprecedented global change where our trading markets, our trading routes, are being disrupted in a fashion we have not seen in decades. I agree with h…
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Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, work has been done, and it was accomplished with the collaboration of several parties in the House. We now have the necessary structures and processes in place to ensure that this debate is resolved. The large grocery chains now have a relationship with the department and the Competition Bureau. I hope that the situation will improve thanks to the work that has b…
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Marc-Aurèle-Fortin is chomping at the bit. His economics background is bursting through, and I cannot wait to hear from him in this debate. I will say in the meantime that the national school food program is providing money for kids in the Toronto Catholic District School Board that Don Walker is attending to every day. Don is a volunteer. It is not a big government …
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Pardon me, Mr. Speaker. I want to pay tribute to the late Ken Dryden and the member for University—Rosedale for their work, transformative social policy work that was decades in the making and is having an impact right now. It is helping with families' changing their lives for the better. The Canada dental care plan is another example of an affordability initiative that in fact continues to grow u…
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Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in this debate. I will be sharing my time with the member for Ajax. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak to this Bloc Québécois motion. I will talk a bit about my history as a child of the charter. In our caucus, several newly elected members are children of the charter. I believe that is also the case across the way. I was born to immigrant p…
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Mr. Speaker, when one stands for rights, one has to stand for them when it is unpopular. One has to stand for rights when no one else is looking. It may be the case that the residents of the hon. member's riding are not plugged into this issue, and that may be the case for the residents of most of the ridings on this side of the aisle as well. The question is, are we going to be defending those ri…
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member for Joliette's comments. I think my opinion is consistent with the notice and factum that the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada submitted. We need to know what constitutes reasonable limits for the notwithstanding clause. The notwithstanding clause is in the charter. It is in the Constitution. I think the appropriate question is, what are the a…
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Mr. Speaker, that is exactly how it is used on a daily basis. We have seen this in all democracies. When we try to limit rights in a way that stops being exceptional, that is when real concerns about what is happening to democracy are likely.
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, today I rise to recognize Kunsang Kyirong and the cast and crew of her debut feature film, 100 Sunset. The movie premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won honourable mention for the Best Canadian Discovery Award. 100 Sunset is set in a pair of apartment buildings in the Parkdale neighbourhood in our riding. It is brought to life by non-professional Tibetan Canadian …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, again, I continue to share the concern of the member for Calgary Centre and appreciate some of his points. I will just observe that in our provinces and our country, we have some really great assets to be proud of. A number of my colleagues in the Ontario caucus and I went recently to visit Canada's warehouse capital, so to speak, in southwestern Ontario, in the Windsor-Leamington are…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Calgary Centre for the intervention and for his concern with respect to some of these matters. I am happy to respond with some of the actions our government is taking to stabilize food prices and help Canadians with the cost of living. We recognize that food affordability continues to be a critical issue that all Canadians are faced with. The hon. member ac…
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Mr. Speaker, I think the five criteria that are in the bill, and I commend them, but I am not going to read them back into the record right now, are really what nation building is all about. If we get these five criteria right, not only for the portfolio of projects that arise from the bill and that are directly nominated through the bill, but also those that are more generally the kind of economi…
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Mr. Speaker, I think there are lots of projects that are going to be potentially covered by this piece of legislation. What is important is what is an investable project. This bill would provide a framework for all kinds of investable projects, including perhaps the ones that the member mentioned.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 32(2) and in accordance with the policy on tabling of treaties in Parliament, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the treaty entitled “Final Acts of the World Radiocommunication Conference of the International Telecommunication Union”, done at Dubai on December 15, 2023.
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Mr. Speaker, I recognize the concerns and challenges raised by my colleague. I believe this bill is essential and is a big part of our response to the tariff war, although it is not the only response. What union leaders and employers are telling us is that this bill will encourage the use of aluminum and the work these individuals do. I think that is why the Liberal members from Quebec support thi…
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Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to participate in this debate on the one Canadian economy act. We are here with this bill on these timelines because the government was given a mandate to unite, protect and build Canada. I do not think we expected to be in this place with this bill, but necessity is the mother of invention, and this crisis has created an opportunity for us to find an…
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Mr. Speaker, I worked in provincial government for many years and my interpretation of both the question and these programs is that the programs are best coming from the ground up with the professions, which are working hard to put down some of their more parochial concerns, and have provinces and governments that are behind them. Therefore, I believe this legislation would create that framework a…
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Mr. Speaker, the member shared her family's story in the context of this bill. Does she have any other stories she could share, perhaps in a different context, but still related to this bill?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, we are in a trade war against these unjust and illegal tariffs. That is what we are fighting every day. That is what the Prime Minister is taking on in Kananaskis. We are fighting for workers and their investments. Let us remember on this day, when we just remembered Buzz Hargrove in this House, what he would be fighting for. Let us fight together for the things that will keep us toge…
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Mr. Speaker, we are fighting these illegal and unjustified tariffs every day. They are hurting workers on both sides of the border, including Canadian workers and Canadian companies. The government will not be bullied. We are going to fight against these tariffs, defending every job and every business in Hamilton, in the Soo and across Canada.
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Mr. Chair, I am pleased to speak to the Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada estimates. I will put some questions to the minister at the end. I am glad to have a group of colleagues here who are from ridings outside of Toronto. I want to tell them about my riding and the housing experiences and challenges we have and engage in a bit of dialogue and exploration around how the items in the…
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Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to speak to this committee of the whole today. I would especially like to speak to some of the spending measures outlined in these main estimates, which aim to support Canadians during a time of significant economic volatility while preparing for the opportunities that lie ahead. I want to maybe focus a bit more specifically on budgets and estimates being…
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Mr. Speaker, these documents, these estimates, are statements of values. These are moral documents. They are statements of values and principles, and they are right in front of us today. I want to talk, in particular, about some of the initiatives in here that speak to the fundamental things a federal government does, and it is really around national unity. What I was hearing a lot about in the re…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, exactly 100 years ago less a day, 468 Presbyterians, Methodists and Congregationalists in west Toronto put aside their differences to worship together for the first time. They gathered at a church at 432 Runnymede Road, a church they had just disassembled together and reassembled six blocks away. They were part of a national movement sweeping farming communities, small towns and citie…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, 36 years ago this week, the world watched in horror as peaceful democracy activists in Tiananmen Square were met with tanks and gunfire. Less known, but deeply remembered by many of my constituents, is that Tibetans have, for decades, been met with brutal repression as they assert their basic rights to freedom and dignity. Today that includes a more recent horror: colonial-style boa…
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Mr. Chair, I will be speaking for about 10 minutes and will be addressing my questions to the Minister of Transport and Internal Trade. A lot of us have just been through a very energetic campaign. I do not think a year ago we would have been talking about internal trade in this chamber. I do not know if we would have been talking about national unity in the way we are in the estimates and in the …
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Mr. Chair, we heard in the minister's remarks, which I referred to a bit, the many kinds of partnerships that already exist and the many kinds of efforts that have been made over the years to reduce internal trade barriers. I wonder, in her opinion, what she sees as the most exciting opportunities in her portfolio, or what the most egregious internal trade barrier is that she really wants to tackl…
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Mr. Chair, in the minister's portfolio, one of the main ways of binding people, again, is transportation. I know that passenger rail is also under the minister's portfolio. Could she share what the plans and estimates are to help support passenger rail, which connects people across the country?
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Mr. Chair, I will pick up on that remark from the minister. Trucking is one of the top employment sectors in Canada. We know that the sector is going through lots of change, as technology is changing fast, the working conditions that truckers experience are changing rapidly, and the manifest of what they are doing is changing fast because the economy is changing so rapidly. We also know from the M…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, we heard a lot about different kinds of housing challenges in the member's riding and across Canada, and the pressures that private sector and other players have in that. Is the ideal housing market, as a well-functioning housing market, one that has a multiplicity of operators, or is it one where it is just the public sector providing housing?
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Mr. Speaker, we are a new Parliament. Part of being a new Parliament means bringing in new voices. In my past life at a think tank at the Dais at Toronto Metropolitan University, we worked a lot on this issue, and I am looking forward to working with the member on this issue if she is interested.
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, as I pointed out, we have already had a lot of success with the rapid housing initiative, which delivered results for the citizens of Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park with Dunn House. A second project will be developed on the former LCBO site on Brock Avenue. As members of Parliament, we represent our communities, and it is good to see ambitious programs being implemented. We need to loo…
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Mr. Speaker, I was not at that particular event, so I cannot comment on it specifically. However, I can tell the member that in this caucus, as he will see in the platform, we need to do a lot at the same time. We need to act with speed and with urgency. The commitment around defence spending is robust and has a lot of elements to it, and we are going to work very hard towards that. I look forward…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Mr. Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to rise in this House for the first time as the newly elected member for Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park. We come here representing different regions and communities; having different ethnic, religious or sexual identities; and carrying different ideologies and styles. However, I believe, in this Parliament, we come here for a common purpose: a stronger…
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Mr. Speaker, there is more poverty in my riding than in other ridings. Even a small reduction in the cost of living is good for taxpayers. That measure is set to take effect in July, and it will have an immediate impact. Many people in Taiaiako'n—Parkdale—High Park are living on the margins. Every effort we make to recognize that and make life a little more affordable will bring immediate relief.
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