Government Orders
Mr. Chair, I am going to split my time with the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills. I stand in this debate with sadness and anger as a Canadian, as a member of the House and as a Jew. Jewish Canadians are not only mourning; they feel that they are under threat. It is our duty here to provide reassurance and protection to those who feel vulnerable, whether within the Jewish community, among th…
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Mr. Chair, Vivian Silver, alongside Judih Weinstein and the daughter, Tiferet Lapidot, of Canadians, the three hostages we know of, should be the government's primary priority right now. We must secure the release of those hostages, not only to ensure that Canadians come home safely from the grips of Hamas, who have terrorized the region as a whole, terrorized Israelis and terrorized Palestinians,…
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Mr. Chair, we will have the opportunity to speak to that bill. Hostage diplomacy is becoming all too common in this world. We have seen it before with Canadians; we see it now with Canadians; we will likely see it in the future with Canadians. It is incumbent on the government to make sure that hostages have an open line of communication with family by establishing a liaison and, more importantly,…
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Mr. Chair, we have said in this House before that Israel absolutely has the right to defend itself. Vengeance would mean that Israel does proportionately exactly the same thing as what was done to Israel. That would never happen, because that was done by the monsters in Hamas. That would mean that Israelis would engage in rape, decapitation and complete humiliation of their victims. That is not wh…
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Mr. Speaker, during question period today, the member for Fleetwood—Port Kells used his public social media platform to compare questions from this side of the House, from Conservatives, to one of the most prolific Nazis in the history of the world, one of the most virulent anti-Semites in the history of the world. I am happy to provide you, Mr. Speaker, with screenshots of all of that. I think th…
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Mr. Speaker, in September, the Prime Minister held a photo op, a stunt with grocery CEOs of all of the major chains. He said to Canadians, and this was a promise, that they wanted something that would be felt by Canadians by Thanksgiving. He was talking about lowering the price of Thanksgiving dinner. We have not heard anything from the Prime Minister on that commitment to Canadians. The Prime Min…
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Mr. Speaker, I am here to present a petition on behalf of the Iranian community, which is still grieving from the hurt and pain caused by the brutal attack on flight PS752. The victims of flight 752, their families and thousands of brave protesters in Iran, who continue to fight for freedom from the oppressive grip of the Iranian regime, deserve answers. It has been over three years now, and it is…
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Mr. Speaker, this is the minister who misled Canadians when she said that interest rates would stay low for a long time, and now homeowners are bracing for the shock of when they have to renew their mortgages. That is what the Canadian banks are saying. Now there is another former bank governor raising alarm bells. David Dodge warns that the burden of past debts are catching up. Governments cannot…
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Mr. Speaker, “Interest rates are at historic lows”. That was what the Prime Minister said just three years ago. He told people to keep borrowing, while his government kept spending. Now the number of Canadians saying they are facing financial stress has jumped 20% in a single year. The National Payroll Institute found that 63% of working Canadians said they had nothing left at the end of the month…
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Madam Speaker, homebuilding is down. Just because the Liberals have a fancy program or a new acronym every month, it does not mean that any of this is working. The government had a plan in 2015 to build housing on surplus land. Do members know how many homes it has built since 2015? Thirteen. That is fewer than two a year. Liberal MPs have flipped more houses than that since 2015. It has been eigh…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals have spent almost $90 billion to double the price of a home, to double the price of rent and to double the price of a mortgage. In Toronto, it now takes 80% of what Canadians take home to keep a roof over their heads. More Liberal spending equals higher inflation, which leads to higher interest rates, which leads to higher mortgages. How many Canadians have to be in jeo…
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister said that it is not his job to control the inflationary spending, the out-of-control cost of living or the sky-high interest rates that he has caused. He said that it is not his job to bring down the price of gas, groceries or home heating. Instead, he is raising the carbon tax. He said it is not his job to take personal responsibility for our diplomatic relations…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, who speaks for Canada? Today our nation’s reputation on the world stage is clouded by the story of a tribute to a Nazi instead of support for our allies. When people think of Canada, when they open a newspaper, when they go on social media, when they hear about what happened here, that is all they know. There is silence from a Prime Minister in hiding. This is his shame to bear, not o…
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Mr. Speaker, there were days of silence from the Prime Minister in the face of an international diplomatic crisis that has brought shame on this entire country: an actual Nazi honoured in this place. Instead of taking personal responsibility, he blamed the Speaker, went into hiding and waited three days to even call for his resignation. The Prime Minister instructed his MPs to try to wipe the parl…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has never been shy to use the Nazi label against his opponents, against Canadians. That he is not able to bring himself to take responsibility for an actual Nazi is something that Canadians will not forget. The Prime Minister could have prevented this. He should have prevented it. He needs to fix it. The world knows that, under the Prime Minister, a Nazi was honoure…
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Mr. Speaker, after the solemn Yom Kippur holiday yesterday, as a Jewish parliamentarian and one who represents the largest Jewish riding in the country, before I speak to the matter today, I will address what happened in this place last Friday: a full-blown international embarrassment for our Parliament and for our country. A Nazi was invited to this House, welcomed and celebrated as a hero. I wil…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not know how many times I am going to have to ask this Prime Minister for an apology in that he has slandered, dishonoured and embarrassed Holocaust survivors, but I think two times is two too many.
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Mr. Speaker, what I should have said is that the government House leader is a disgrace.
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Madam Speaker, the action is not supporting this Liberal government every single day on the floor of the House of Commons. They used to be in opposition, and I am sure that the people in the riding of that member would love to see us axe the carbon tax. In fact, they have been saying so. That is one action that he can support us on today instead of voting to increase it every single time that vote…
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Madam Speaker, it is called “the building homes and not bureaucracy act”, and it would incentivize municipalities to hit and exceed their building targets with more federal funding. The member is right, we probably will not get to 3.5 million homes, but we are going to do a lot better than the zero homes built by their accelerator.
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Mr. Speaker, the minister who is now whispering was louder when she also painted Canadians as Nazis, and she cannot bring herself to apologize for an actual Nazi the government vetted. Worse even, she tried to strike it from the historical record of this House as if it never happened. A descendant of Holocaust survivors distorting the Holocaust. You should be ashamed of yourself. I do not know how…
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Mr. Speaker, the Speaker of the House of Commons took the fall, and the Prime Minister continues to blame everyone else. It a full-blown international embarrassment for our country, for our allies and for everything this nation did to defeat the Nazis. An actual Nazi was invited to the House of Commons, welcomed and celebrated as a hero. The government vetted everyone here. The Prime Minister has …
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Madam Speaker, for a brief moment there I thought that the Liberals actually recognized the problem this summer. I thought that they had an epiphany and were going to do something about housing. In fact, we hear the same refrain that we heard from the last housing minister who left this country with an op-ed blaming everybody else except for themselves: municipalities, provinces and all of that. T…
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Madam Speaker, I think the member might want to bring that question to the Ontario legislature. The plan is to sell off 15% of land. We have 37,000 federal buildings in this country. We actually have an example in Winnipeg where there are two office towers next to each other and both are 50% full. Now, it might not take a genius to figure out what we can do if both towers are 50% full. Maybe we ca…
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Mr. Speaker, eight years of the Prime Minister has punished Canadians with an NDP-Liberal government that spent billions of dollars to double the price of a home, to double the rent and double the mortgage payment, all because of the Liberals' inflationary spending. They are building fewer homes this month than they did last month. Inflation is up; homebuilding is down. When will the housing minis…
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Mr. Speaker, the cost of a home has doubled in this country. The minister who made international students sleep on the streets and lost track of a million people is now in charge of building homes in this country. How does one lose a million people? He is recycling broken campaign promises from eight years ago that will not fix the fact that buying a castle in Europe is now cheaper than buying a f…
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-353, an act to provide for the imposition of restrictive measures against foreign hostage takers and those who practice arbitrary detention in state-to-state relations and to make related amendments to the Proceeds of Crime (money laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to have this fir…
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's intervention, but today we are talking about provisions in the federal Criminal Code, which can be changed to make things better. I will make a plea to those who are watching in my own riding. I have never in my entire life growing up in my community, in the city of Toronto, taking transit, been afraid until this year. I have rattled off the incidents and I…
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Prime Minister and his coalition with the NDP are not worth the cost. Housing is worse than ever and worse than anywhere; after years of inflationary deficit, Canadians are getting crushed with housing costs. Mortgage payments are up 151%. That is more than 3,500 bucks a month. In Toronto, it used to take 25 years to pay off a mortgage; now it takes 25 years to …
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Mr. Speaker, let us play back the tape. In 2015, the Liberal Prime Minister said that Canada needs “real change” and “affordable housing.” Eight years after he created this housing hell, he says that he is not responsible for housing. Housing prices have doubled. Rents have doubled. Higher taxes and more government spending equals higher inflation and higher interest rates. Canadians can see it. W…
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With regard to polling conducted by or on behalf of the Privy Council Office since January 1, 2021: what are the details of all such polls, including, for each, (i) who conducted the poll, (ii) the format, (iii) the date the poll was conducted, (iv) the topic, (v) the questions asked, (vi) the results, (vii) the value of the polling contract?
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With regard to focus groups conducted by or on behalf of the Privy Council Office since January 1, 2021: what are the details of all such focus groups, including, for each, (i) who conducted the focus group, (ii) the date, (iii) the topic, (iv) the questions asked, (v) the results, (vi) the value of the related contract?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am going to split my time with the hon. opposition whip. I know that we are at the point where we are going to pass this legislation, but I must put on the record that we do not believe that this is enough. I will start with this question: How did we get here? After eight years of the Liberal government, we often ask this. The problem is almost always worse, and the answers are ne…
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Madam Speaker, I think the solution is very clear. Violent suspects who break their conditions of bail should be automatically remanded to jail until their court date. It is the jail, not bail solution. It is what is going to keep our communities safe. It is what is going to stop the incidence of repeat violent crime that is a problem in every one of our neighbourhoods, on every transit system, an…
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Madam Speaker, I am actually glad to hear my hon. colleague talk about treatment, because it is often something that is overlooked in what the NDP consistently pushes, which is safe supply. It is not working. There is a 300% increase in overdoses in this country. The member would know that in the city of Vancouver, in his own province, 6,000 crimes are committed by 40 criminals, which on average i…
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure that simple change would change the crux of the bill, because I think the bill fails spectacularly to do what the Liberals intend to do. I would be happy to speak with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, the leader of the Green Party, about how to move forward. I think she is on to something in that the business model has changed. What we have to do is provide certain…
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Madam Speaker, the amendments from the Conservatives were voted down. In fact, the amendment he is talking about to support small and independent media he could have voted for, but instead he decided to support the government and vote against that. Imagine getting 25% on a test; one would fail. That is the kind of legislation we are seeing. We are not going to support something because we agree fu…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety peddled fiction on his rifle hunting ban, he peddled fiction to a judge and he peddled fiction to the families of the victims of a murderer and serial rapist. It is either gross incompetence or a deliberate attempt by his own staff to protect the minister with plausible deniability. Both seem to be a pattern in the government. They do not read emails, the…
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Mr. Speaker, one would think that at this point the minister would stop peddling fiction. The minister knows that he can mandate that offenders like Bernardo be kept in maximum security, not the individual but a class of the most horrific offenders. The Liberals would know that they can step in and do something about the transfer, like the last Conservative government did in 2013. The minister act…
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Madam Speaker, I would also like to give a shout-out to my colleague from Lethbridge for fighting the heavy hand of big, bossy government, which has struck again with this bill. It has almost become a cliché, and its latest offender is this bill, Bill C-18. It is sad to see the Liberal response to an important and relevant modern issue concerning the place where bureaucracies, news providers and d…
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Madam Speaker, when one lives in an echo chamber of legacy media, one starts to believe one's own nonsense, and this is what we are seeing now. Why on earth would Conservatives support a solution that only gives 25% to small and independent journalists, the thing we wanted to solve with this bill? Why on earth would we support something akin to Australia that is not like Australia? The member oppo…
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Mr. Speaker, if he claims he does not read emails, if he claims he does not get briefed by staff, if he claims he does not get briefed by his officials, if he claims he does not tell the Prime Minister anything, what does he actually do here? He told the families of Paul Bernardo's victims that he had no knowledge of the transfer. He pretended that he had no idea. He revictimized the families of t…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Public Safety told Canadians that he relied on the advice of law enforcement to implement the Emergencies Act. That was false. He told Canadians that the Beijing-run police stations in our country were closed, and that was false. Then he told Canadians that he did not know about child rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo’s transfer out of a maximum-security prison. He sto…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am going to close off this debate with the couple of minutes we have left. It is surprising to see, after a government that has been here for eight years, that the price of a house has doubled and the price of an average mortgage payment has doubled. For those who cannot afford a house, the price of rent has also doubled. This is right across the board, not only in the GTA, which …
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Mr. Speaker, let us be clear: Canadians want a public inquiry, and this is the kind of thing we have been seeing for eight months. The party that unequivocally rejected a public inquiry and ignored the will of this Parliament just weeks ago now says one has always been on the table. It should have been the first resort, not the last resort. It is very clear the Liberals have no plan and never inte…
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Mr. Speaker, it has been eight months of denials, foot-dragging and cover-ups from the Liberals when it comes to foreign interference in our election. Here are the numbers: countless promises of protecting our democracy, hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Trudeau Foundation, one special rapporteur, zero answers and zero results. The Prime Minister now gets to go back to the drawing board, whe…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals say everything is fine. They either do not know the number or they will not tell us. It is $4,000 a month for an average mortgage payment. After eight years of the Liberal government, consumer debt is the highest it has ever been. Canadians carry more debt than our entire GDP. The Prime Minister told us that interest rates would stay low. He promised that he would take on…
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Mr. Speaker, it is clear the Liberals do not want to talk about the economy. I understand why. We just learned that David Johnston fired the crisis communication firm he hired for strategic advice. It turns out that the same firm worked for the member for Don Valley North, who was asked to leave the caucus amid allegations of foreign interference. David Johnston exonerated that member without even…
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians learned yesterday that the Bank of Canada is raising interest rates for the ninth time since last year. This comes thanks to the Prime Minister's out-of-control spending, which is driving up the cost of the goods that we buy and the interest that we pay. Half of all mortgage holders were already struggling to make payments and that was before the bank's announcement. The Dep…
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The members opposite in the government do not know what it is like to sit in the front row, but their voices really carry from there, and I cannot hear the member—
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