Government Orders
Mr. Chair, it is such an honour to rise on behalf of the people of Kitchener South—Hespeler, thousands of whom work at the largest car plant in Canada, the Toyota factory in Hespeler. We, on this side of the House, have explained time and again how this electric vehicle mandate directly hurts workers right now and how it ends up being a cash transfer to Tesla, which does not make cars in Canada. I…
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Mr. Chair, in 2023, I was a simple Canadian citizen, a physician from Kitchener, Ontario, and I was really concerned that the government signed a $15-billion contract on my behalf, and on behalf of all Canadians, with Stellantis, without showing us that contract. I know that my colleague from Vaughan—Woodbridge is a successful businessman in the steel industry. We now see, as it was disclosed at t…
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Mr. Chair, the debate tonight should not be necessary. The Prime Minister of Canada called an election saying that he needed a mandate to take action to stand up against Trump and to build Canada strong. It has now been nine months, and he has not taken those actions. Many people took the Prime Minister at his word, but we all saw him nodding meekly in the Oval Office while President Trump threate…
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Mr. Chair, I respect the honourable gentleman very much. I am very concerned that he did not listen to a word of my speech. We are in a trade war. I am asking the government to fight the trade war, to take actions on the trade war. We do not win a war by lying down and going to sleep. We do not win a trade war by going to the Oval Office and promising the President $1 trillion of Canadian investme…
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Mr. Chair, Canadians do not want handouts when they lose their jobs; they want their jobs back. The Liberal solution to every single problem is to take tax money and then throw it at the wall. We want our jobs back. We want to work. We do not want EI. It is the opposite of what the Liberals ran on. It is the opposite of what the Prime Minister promised. After 10 years, it is still not going to wor…
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Mr. Chair, I am a simple physician from Kitchener, Ontario. I grew up in Hespeler. I represent the people of Kitchener and Hespeler, and I care about the jobs in Kitchener South—Hespeler and the Toyota plant there. All of my effort is on that plant. There are many members on this side who have met with all of those groups. Those lobby groups know not to bite the hand that feeds them. They are stil…
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Mr. Chair, that is a big question for one minute. The major problem is 10 years of failed Liberal policies that have put us in such a weak position where somebody might want to have a trade war with us. We have more resources per capita than any other country. We have the space. We have the people. We have to let them get to work and get bureaucracy out of the way. The Prime Minister and his budge…
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Mr. Speaker, that member did not answer the question, so I am going to ask it again. The Prime Minister caved on countertariffs, on digital services taxes and on legal disputes about softwood lumber. We thought he was getting nothing for Canadians, but it turns out he was getting lots for his company, Brookfield. Days after he was in the White House, the Americans signed an $80-billion nuclear rea…
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Madam Speaker, I visited the Kitchener food bank. Its CEO told me that visits to the centre have quintupled in the last 10 years. What happened 10 years ago to start all of this? The Liberals came into power, promising to grow the middle class, but after 10 years of their massive spending on nonsense like gender-neutral rice in Vietnam, the middle class in Canada can no longer afford to eat. Some …
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Mr. Speaker, I represent Kitchener South—Hespeler, home to Toyota Canada, the largest car plant in our great nation. I remember when its expansion was announced in 1994. Then, as now, the plant was a source of great community pride. Year after year, it wins awards for the quality of its product and its investments in its people. In 30 years, it has never laid off a full-time employee. It employs m…
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in this House, but I must say I rise today in utter sorrow to speak about Bill C-3 and what could have been. I had the honour of speaking about this bill at second reading, and I poured my heart into that speech. I spoke in French for the first time in the House during my last speech to highlight that Canada is not a postnational state. On the contrary,…
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Mr. Speaker, I am having trouble hearing myself speak over the very co-operative member.
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I think he is just trying to co-operate very hard, as promised. Mr. Speaker, I also know that Liberal voters, the ones who did not vote for me, the ones who were enamoured by the new Prime Minister's promise of change, would find these to be eminently sensible amendments that are necessary. Therefore, I am shocked. I cannot understand why the Liberal House leadership has signalled that the Liberal…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for continuing to engage so co-operatively. However, I did not catch a question, so I will take it as a comment. There are Liberals, Bloc members and Conservatives on the committee. The member suggested that we take the bill to committee and all work together. Two parties did, but one did not, and one party seeks to undo the work of the committee now. I am not sure …
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Mr. Speaker, I too am perplexed, like the hon. member who made the comment. Probably the best thing for me to do is to sit down, because I am still dying to hear from Liberal members. I have not yet heard which of these amendments they are planning to vote against and why. Is it the case that they are planning to vote against? All I heard in the questions so far from the Liberal member was denigra…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for the question. It allows me to reprise the core theme of my first speech on the bill, which is that Canadian citizenship has value insofar as Canadian citizens contribute value. We put money into the pot, and then when we need our health care system, it is there for us. However, to say that 100,000 individuals who have never been to Canada, but whose grandparents…
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have this opportunity to speak to Bill C-12. This is the fourth time I am speaking to a piece of government legislation in this Parliament. For the first time, I think it is the story of the bill rather than its content that I find most interesting. I apologize to those following at home if it seems a little bit like inside baseball, but in every Parliament, the …
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Mr. Speaker, I am so surprised to receive that question. I think I explained it to the member during my last two speeches on government legislation. The Liberals violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when they imposed the Emergencies Act, sections 2 and 8. That is not me, but Justice Mosley of the Federal Court who found that. I would love to hear the member apologize for that violation. Bil…
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Mr. Speaker, I am heartened, I suppose, that the member opposite heard and understood the question. I am terribly disheartened that she decided not to answer the question. I take it as a tacit admission that she does not support this legislation. As for my leader's comments, it is my job here to criticize the appointments the government makes. Criticizing their appointments is well within what we …
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Mr. Speaker, what Canadians care about is the cost of living, and the more the Liberals deficit spend, the more it costs Canadians at the grocery store. New inflation data today confirms this. All three core inflation measures are above target. Rent is up 5% over the year, and groceries are up 4% over the year. After 10 years of the Liberals' deficits, the cost of living in this country cannot tak…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are breaking their campaign promise to stand up for auto workers and to stand up against tariffs. This week, we all saw the Prime Minister sit down in the Oval Office, meekly nodding while President Trump threatened to steal more of our auto workers' jobs. I did not see any elbows go up. I saw a promise to send another $1 trillion of Canadian investment over to the U.S.A.…
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Mr. Speaker, none of those words provide material support to the 8,000 of my neighbours in my hometown who work at the largest car plant in Canada. They depend on those jobs to put food on the table this Thanksgiving. They depend on those jobs to pay their rent at the end of the month. Let me be clear: This plant cannot survive the current tariff regime, and Trump officials said that the regime is…
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Mr. Speaker, I am totally confused. The member opposite said the Conservative government did not strengthen the economy. Would the member acknowledge that GDP per capita in Canada has not gone up but has flatlined over the last 10 years that the Liberals have been in government?
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to hear the member opposite, who is a very gifted speaker. I always hear the Liberals say they are working hard and that they understand there is an affordability crisis, but I never hear any analysis of why this affordability crisis developed during their time in power. Over the last 10 years, in Kitchener and Waterloo, food bank usage has quintupled. The Libe…
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I think you would agree with me that it is terribly unparliamentary to accuse the party opposite of lying to Canadians. That is not the case.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals continually say they are going to build Canada strong and build a great economy. They have had 10 years to do it, and it has not happened. Canada's GDP per capita growth over the last 10 years was the lowest in the G7. I am begging the hon. member opposite merely to acknowledge that economic fact and, upon acknowledging it, reflect on what about the Liberals' plan did not…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to create jobs in Canada, but since he became Prime Minister, we have lost 86,000 jobs, which is a promise broken. He promised to increase investment in Canada, but since he became Prime Minister, we lost $54 billion of investment to the United States, which is another promise broken. Yesterday, we all watched in shock as he promised another $1 trillion of …
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Mr. Speaker, my learned friend from Haldimand—Norfolk's speech was terrific. She is a very tough act to follow. When I read the bill for the first time, my jaw hit the floor. As I have previously discussed in the House, my motivation for signing up to become a politician was the violation of basic charter rights that the Liberals perpetrated in the last Parliament. Even with that background in min…
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Mr. Speaker, I wish this were a conspiracy. I wish the Liberals had the shame to keep it secret. It is open and it is in the bill. Multiple civil society groups have written letters asking them to change this. They are sounding the alarm. The member said I think it is a conspiracy that the Liberals might freeze bank accounts. They already did that; the federal court said it was a violation of char…
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I am serious. I do not know why you are laughing.
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Mr. Speaker, my learned colleague is a lawyer. He understands the balance. His whole work has been in the tension in this balance, and I respect very much what he has to say about it. It is a centuries-old problem, the tension between rights and security, and we have centuries-old solutions to the problem. We have solutions like warrants, judicial review, open trial, open evidence and the right to…
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Mr. Speaker, yes, Conservatives will work day and night to fix the bill to improve our cybersecurity, in the committee, in every committee and in the chamber. We are committed to improving cybersecurity. We are committed to not violating charter rights.
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Mr. Speaker, it has unfortunately been a theme with the current government. It is not just Bill C-8; it is also Bill C-9. It is also Bill C-5 in certain respects. With every problem the Liberals come across, they think the solution is to give themselves more power. They think that if they were to run the telecommunications system, it would be safer. They have been running the Post Office for the l…
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Mr. Speaker, first, as a preamble that really should go without saying, there is no disagreement in any corner of the House about the values that should underlie this legislation. We all value a safe Canada where every single human is free to live their lives as their fullest selves irrespective of their race, religion, ethnicity, language, physical or mental disability, etc. There is no member in…
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Mr. Speaker, yes, that is exactly what I am driving at. We want concrete measures to enforce the laws that already exist. When I was listening to the member's question, I had to wonder if it is his belief that it is provincial attorneys general who are stopping violent criminals from going to jail right now. I do not think it is, and I do not think the member would dare mention a provincial attorn…
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member. I thank him for the point. Hate cannot be tolerated, no matter what justification is given by the former prime minister's former principal secretary. I hope that we all keep that in mind as we approach commentary around the present legislation. I myself was distressed when the Conservative justice shadow critic brought up this problem of church burnings and wa…
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Mr. Speaker, I fear it is not a simple question. It goes to the heart of what I was talking about in the John Stuart Mill quote and philosophical liberalism. What one person means when they say something from a different culture or a different religion can be taken differently. That is why we have to have a bias toward philosophical liberalism that I fear the government is abandoning with the pres…
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Madam Speaker, let me congratulate and express deep gratitude to the hon. member for that excellent speech. I too am terribly concerned by the civil liberties restrictions that this bill would impose. I note that when this bill was in the last Parliament, several civil society organizations, including the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights, pe…
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Madam Speaker, I note that in 2021, the Liberal Party said it was going to combat authoritarianism worldwide. I remark, with horror, I suppose, on the authoritarianism that I detect in this document that they are proposing to get through the House, after the strenuous objections of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. Does the member have any reflections on either the authoritarianism in the …
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Madam Speaker, I would like to inform my colleague opposite that I was not in the last Parliament. I would have had a lot to say about the legislation if I had been. The members on the other side and the deputy government House leader say they want the bill to go to committee so it can be made better. The bill already went to committee. Multiple experts from the Canadian Civil Liberties Associatio…
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Mr. Speaker, I come to the House as a physician. In medicine, if we refuse to treat the underlying cause of a problem, I promise it will get worse. It sounds to me, in the House, that the Liberals want to forever invent new and more complicated programs to treat the symptoms of this problem. The cause of this problem is a matter of first-year economics. To quote a first-year economics textbook, “P…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals put $50 million away to support those who were legitimately injured by COVID vaccines. That money is all spent. The only problem is that 70% of it went to consultants rather than the people who were legitimately injured. What is worse, 1,700 people have not even had their claims processed and have not even heard back. Why is it that every time the Liberals say they are go…
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Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the member for London West gave a speech entirely focused on abstracts. On this side of the House, we are concerned with concrete occurrences. My wife and I have been totally under siege with terrible emotions concerning what happened in Welland, with the rape of a toddler. I tear up to think about it. Let us make things concrete. Would the member agree with me tha…
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Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that the Liberals, for 10 years, have been obsessed with firearm-related violent crimes. I just looked up a Statistics Canada report from 2023. The minority of homicides in our country and the vast minority of violent crimes in our country are associated with firearms. We have seen the terrible events associated with vehicular homicide. If the Liberals' approach to viol…
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Mr. Speaker, my speech today is not merely about Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act. It is, like my last speech, about Canadian values, and more particularly the Canadian value that I fear this bill undermines, the value of Canadian citizenship. I have previously described to this House that my mother came to Canada as a refugee from Yugoslavia. The freedom and opportunity that this cou…
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Mr. Speaker, it is the honour of my life to present my thoughts in representing the people of Kitchener South—Hespeler in this chamber. I have no interest in obstructing any legislation. It seems to me that the Liberals want the Conservatives to give them a pass on not having done their homework. They had all summer. I understand 200 people work in the Prime Minister's Office. They could have cons…
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Mr. Speaker, I think members on this side, back in Stephen Harper's time, indeed recognized Quebec as a nation. I do as well. I think I did in my speech. I thank the member for the consideration in that question.
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Mr. Speaker, I can merely go off the PBO report. That 115,000 people seems like quite a bolus to try to accommodate in one day with the stroke of a pen, when the government itself realizes that total immigration numbers have to go down for the sake of our housing system and our health care system. We do not even know what the deficit is in this country. We are starting to suspect that it is massiv…
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Mr. Speaker, an alarming report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal shows that one in three Canadian children will be overweight or obese on their 18th birthday. This is not a cosmetic concern. Children who are obese on their 18th birthday are tragically three times less likely to live to see their 30th. Obviously, no child chooses to have this disease. Every case is a social and environme…
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Mr. Speaker, contrary to that member's remarks, on my phone right now, I am reading Canada's electric vehicle availability standard, regulated targets for zero-emission vehicles. It is on the government's website. It is regulating and mandating this, while Canadians are not choosing to buy EVs. EV sales are down 45% in our country right now, and that is okay. Living in a liberal democracy means di…
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