Parliamentary Speeches

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, the referenda Russia conducted in Ukraine were a sham. The referenda held in the four eastern oblasts of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia were a sham. First, they were only conducted in parts of those four eastern oblasts because Russian military forces only control parts of those four eastern oblasts. Second, these referenda were held under force and duress. Voters were coe…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from Windsor West, in southwestern Ontario, for his question. We have worked on a number of things in this House together over the years. My colleague is exactly right. It is not just the contributions we have had in building civil society and democratic capacity in Ukraine. It is also contributions we have made in building the capacity of the Ukrainian…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, with respect, I disagree with the government's decision on the gas turbines. To be frank, both the Republic of Germany and Canada were duped by the Russians in being convinced to waive the sanctions to send the gas turbines back to Gazprom. The fact is that since the decision has been taken, Russia has proven the point. NATO has concluded that Russia was behind the sabotage of the Nor…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the government is completely out of touch. Emissions have risen each and every year that the government has been in power, except for the year of the pandemic, when it shut everything down. A third of Atlantic Canadians heat with oil, as do over a million Ontarians and 10% of Canadian households. When will the government do what other G7 governments have done and provide relief on fue…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the weather is getting cool and people are starting to turn on the heat. Millions of Canadians rely on oil and propane to heat their homes. The costs of those fuels, however, have skyrocketed. It now costs upwards of $5,000, $6,000 or even $7,000 a winter to heat their home. The government has now put on top of that a carbon tax that will cost upwards of $400 to $500 a winter. People …

Madam Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise today to reflect, on my part and on behalf of the constituents of Wellington—Halton Hills, on the passing of Her Majesty the Queen. While Queen Elizabeth was our queen and our head of state, she was also a mother, a grandmother and a great-grandmother. My thoughts are with King Charles and with the royal family. During my time as a member of Parl…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I request that it be adopted on division. (Motion agreed to)

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, I present a petition signed by 26 constituents in my riding of Wellington—Halton Hills. My presentation of this petition is no reflection of my support or opposition to the petition, but it simply reflects the ancient duty of members of the House to present petitions on behalf of constituents. The petitioners call on Parliament to take action with respect to a statue on Parliament Hil…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the public safety minister is putting the government in a very difficult position. He has said the police requested the invocation of the act. Clearly, that is not the case. None of his cabinet colleagues concur with him. Neither does his deputy minister. The minister needs to take some time to reflect on the principle of ministerial accountability and on the integrity of our parliame…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the public safety minister has said repeatedly that law enforcement recommended that the government invoke the Emergencies Act, but yesterday the emergency preparedness minister said at committee, “I am not aware of any recommendation from law enforcement.” Suspending civil liberties is serious; so is misleading the House. I have a simple question for the Prime Minister: Does he belie…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, the little guy is losing his shirt. Where are the regulators? House prices doubled in six years, and now they are crashing. Why did regulators not slow the out-of-control growth in mortgage credit? Why did they not stop banks from mortgaging 95% of the value of an asset that had doubled or tripled? Last year, the New York state attorney general banned Bitfinex and Tether from New York…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, normally the Department of Foreign Affairs has a list of countries whose national days Canadian officials are not to attend. The list is compiled by departmental officials, but the final decision rests with the minister. Last week, Friday, a Canadian official attended the Russian embassy's celebration. On Friday night, the minister's office concurred with the department, but yesterday…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, last week the minister announced yet another delay in the government's Indo-Pacific strategy, announcing the committee to craft this strategy and bypassing the department. Clearly, the government does not think officials are capable of doing this work. Since the department has been cut out of crafting this strategy, which is now in the hands of the government's hand-picked committee, …

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the minister did not answer the question. Suspending civil liberties is serious. That is why the act can only be invoked when there is no law in Canada to deal with the situation. That is why a committee of Parliament and a public inquiry must be established to determine whether or not the threshold for invocation was met. For the committee and the inquiry to do its work, the governme…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the Emergencies Act can only be invoked when there is no other law to deal with the situation. It is not clear that this threshold was met. Members of the law enforcement community have said that the threshold was not met, including Chris Lewis, former commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, Ontario's largest police force. When the public safety minister says that an unnamed po…

Statements by Members

Mr. Speaker, on June 18, the Wellington-Halton District Women's Institute will be joining other women's institutes across Ontario to celebrate 125 years. Established in 1897 in Stoney Creek, Ontario, the Federated Women's Institutes of Ontario offers inclusive and supportive social networking for women, community action and the personal growth of women. Women's institutes offer educational program…

Routine Proceedings

Mr. Speaker, I would like to comment on the supplement to the report of the Special Committee on Afghanistan. Our supplementary report adds the following evidence and observations not included in the main report. While all NATO allies scrambled in the withdrawal and evacuation last August from Afghanistan, Canada performed particularly poorly. The war in Afghanistan was Canada's longest war. Canad…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I am not making a quorum call. I am just making the point that the Constitution Act, 1867, section 48, requires the presence of 20 members. I count the presence, including yourself, of 17 members. Surely, the government would want to ensure that if the process by which this bill were to be adopted in this House were ever to be challenged in court, it would be upheld. That is the sim…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, section 48 of the Constitution Act, 1867, requires the presence of 20 members in this House, including the Speaker, in order for business to be conducted.

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I am open to eliminating Friday sittings. There are approximately 27 Friday sittings, so if we were to add five or six weeks to the parliamentary calendar to sit until the end of July or even the middle of August, I would very supportive of that. If we sit Monday to Thursday for, let us say, 32 or 33 weeks of the year, I would be very supportive of it. Whatever changes we make, we hav…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, currently, the Prime Minister appoints the Clerk and the Sergeant‑at‑Arms of the House of Commons. Clearly, the Prime Minister is more partisan than the Speaker of the House of Commons. If the Speaker of the House were granted this power, then I am sure that it would enhance the neutrality of these two roles on Parliament Hill.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, there are three reforms to the Standing Orders and procedure of the House and its committees that the House should consider. First, the Speaker's right of recognition should be restored. The Speaker has effectively lost the right of recognition during many proceedings of this House: during debate, during Oral Questions and during other proceedings of the House. That right of recogni…

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, on the first part of the question, which had to do with a secondary chamber, I support the idea of the creation of a secondary chamber. I know in the Palace of Westminster they have Westminster Hall, which is often used for parallel debates that cannot take place in the main chamber. With respect to the House schedule over the year, I do not support reducing the number of days this pl…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I think the government needs to manage Canada's relationship with Turkey better than it has been. This government has made a lot of mistakes in managing our relationship with Turkey. It made mistakes with export permits for drone technology, for example. I think it needs to improve its relationship with Turkey. It needs to make it clear to Turkey that we are interested in bringing F…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, Russia's war in Ukraine has actualized something that was once only theoretical. An authoritarian state led by an autocrat has attacked a democracy: It has demonstrated that it is willing and able to attack a democracy. It has made clear that democracies that stand alone and are not part of military alliances are most vulnerable. That is why it has become necessary to bring both Swe…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. I am in support of concurring in the fourth report of the Standing Committee of the Public Safety and National Security, which expresses its strong support for Finland's accession and Sweden's accession to the NATO alliance, and which calls on all NATO members to approve their application for NATO member…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I think that democracies need to work more closely together not just on diplomacy or the military, but also on economic issues. An example of that is precisely in Sweden and Finland. Finland is a global leader in telecommunications technologies. The Scandinavian countries have long produced telecommunications giants, such as Nokia and others, that could help us develop 5G and 6G tec…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I would point out that I have been quite critical in recent years of the government's spending on official development assistance. I noted that in the period from 2016 to 2021, the Government of Canada actually reduced official development assistance by 10% compared with the previous government. Ambassador Bob Rae noted that in the report he did for the government that was posted in…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, I have two quick questions for the Prime Minister. First, the World Health Assembly will be meeting next week. Does Canada support Taiwan's participation at next week's meeting? Second, the International Civil Aviation Organization's upcoming triennial assembly will be taking place in September. Does Canada support Taiwan's inclusion at that upcoming triennial assembly?

Statements By Members

Mr. Speaker, the past few years have been difficult for many organizations in Wellington—Halton Hills, especially ones that organize local events and fairs. The goods news is that festivals and fairs, markets and shows are coming back this summer, events like the Georgetown Highland Games, which is taking place on June 11. It was established in 1975 and is one of the largest, single-day Highland g…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, as vice-chair of the committee, I will respond. Parliament—

Government Orders

moved: That, given that the House recognize that (i) Canadians of Chinese descent have made immeasurable contributions to Canada, (ii) the people of China are part of an ancient civilization that has contributed much to humanity, (iii) the distinction between the people of China and the Chinese state, as embodied by the Communist Party of China and the government of the People's Republic of China,…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs is an appropriate place to study Canada-China relations. The challenge is that that committee is seized with so many other issues. It is seized with the issue of the COVAX facility, for vaccines for developing countries. It is seized with the issue of Ukraine. It is seized with so many other issues. This is the reason why we established the …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. The Canada-China relationship is a broad one. There are many issues between our two countries, particularly with respect to economic matters. There is no question that we must pressure the government to develop a policy on companies such as Huawei. For four years now, the government has been saying it will present a policy on Huaw…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, the issue of Huawei is one that needs attention. Then public safety minister Ralph Goodale, in May 2019, said that the government would be delivering a decision on Huawei before the 2019 election. Then the government changed its mind on it. Several months later, it said the decision would be coming after the 2019 election. We still have no decision. Last September, the Prime Ministe…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, one of the dimensions of the multi-dimensional relationship between Canada and China is justice. One of the things that this special committee could study, if it were to be established, is the issue of justice between Canada and China. Just yesterday, Canadian Denise Ho was arrested in Hong Kong. On the court of appeal of the high court of Hong Kong sit a number of Canadian, Austral…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. However, I want to clarify one thing: I always intended to move this motion. I am moving it now because the House of Commons Administration did not have the resources to add another special committee until now. However, since the Special Committee on Afghanistan will be completing its work on June 8, there is now an opportunity to create a new co…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the government's lawyers are stuck in Afghanistan. There are 28 of them. They worked for the Canadian embassy, and they are being hunted by the Taliban because they worked for Canada. The foreign affairs department passed along their names to the immigration department so they could escape to freedom and to Canada, but the immigration department has yet to process their applications. …

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, the Emergencies Act is only supposed to be used when there is no other law in Canada able to deal with the situation. It is not clear that threshold was met. When emergency powers are used in a democracy, the question that must be answered is this: “Did the government act lawfully in the invocation of those powers?” To answer that question, Justice Rouleau needs cabinet documents. For…

Oral Questions

Mr. Speaker, Canadians need answers about the government's invocation of the Emergencies Act. The key question is whether the invocation of these extraordinary powers met the legal requirements of the act, a question Justice Rouleau and the public inquiry need to answer. In order to do that, Justice Rouleau needs access to documents covered by cabinet confidence. Will the Prime Minister, and will …

Government Orders

Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague's speech with great interest. If I heard her correctly, I think she said that the government is committed to meeting the NATO commitment of spending at least 20% of defence expenditures on equipment, and that would not include NATO modernization or the acquisition of F-35 jets. Could the member tell the House where she thinks the additional equipment sp…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague raises a very good point. When one reads the Secretary General's annual report of 2021 from NATO, one sees that Canada has underspent in equipment for the Canadian Armed Forces. I think part of what Canada needs to do is ensure that our men and women in uniform have the latest and most encrypted and secure military communications available to them, because as Russi…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent. President Putin and the Russian Federation are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine. Reports from Bucha last weekend of dead Ukrainian civilians with their hands bound behind their backs and others buried in makeshift pits have shocked the world, and these war crimes in Bucha are not all …

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I think the world before February 2014 was a very different one. We had the peace dividend as a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many NATO members significantly reduced their defence budgets in the view that Russia no longer presented a threat to the safety and security of Europe. That changed after the Sochi winter Olympics, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Prime Minister Har…

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for her question. She is right. The Canadian Armed Forces has problem with recruitment and needs to recruit more people. That said, according to the NATO report, we also need to increase our military equipment budgets to make sure our military has the tools it needs to do its work here and in Europe.

Government Orders

Madam Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for me to speak to this motion, seeing that I moved the motion but did not speak to it when it was initially moved in the House.

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, quite simply, I think we need to get better. The Government of Canada needs to do better when it comes to operational excellence. The Government of Canada has immense policy capability, but my observation over the past several years is that its ability to execute operationally has been lacklustre. When we look at the government's implementation of various policies over the years, it…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I want to tell my colleague how touched I was by his grandchildren's mural that was put together. Quite simply, I think we need to do both. We need to shorten the time and increase the availability of biometric scans for Ukrainians wanting to come to Canada. Subsequent to that, we also need to shorten the processing time for applications by IRCC to ensure that people get a yes or no…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, I think the reason the government is hesitant to implement visa-free travel probably has to do with the fact that it does not believe it can expeditiously negotiate bilateral or multilateral information-exchanging agreements and implement those agreements quickly enough to ensure that we can weed out any bad actors who might use the cover of a humanitarian crisis to try to sneak int…

Routine Proceedings

Madam Speaker, there are myriad ways in which we need to assist Ukraine and our European allies. The motion in front of us today is one example of what we are calling on the government to do, and is on visa-free travel. The other issue the hon. member has raised is energy. We, as a country, need to understand that our natural gas and oil are not simply important to our economy, but are essential t…