Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a supplementary report from Conservative members of the committee. The longest ballot committee constitutes a coordinated effort to undermine our elections, undermine confidence in a democratic process and sow confusion among voters. Conservatives support the recommendations in the report to close the loopholes in the Canada Elections Act that the longest ballot comm…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-20, the badly misnamed Build Canada Homes act. Before getting into some of the problems with Build Canada Homes, let me just outline the very real housing crisis that this country faces. After 10 years of the Liberals, housing costs have doubled. In fact, housing costs are now 50% higher than they are in the U.S. Consequently, many young Canadians cannot affo…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, Build Canada Homes would build 5,000 new units at an extraordinary cost. It would be totally inefficient and would not achieve the results that are needed to restore affordability. By the way, it is a concept that is not particularly new. In fact it has been tried and tested, and it failed, as recently as the last few years in New Zealand. The socialist government there put forward Ki…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the past record of the Harper government was a solid one. We did not have a housing crisis in this country at the time. Housing costs were half of what they are today. The idea that a first-time homebuyer would be priced out of the market was not the reality in 2014 or—
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, there is a role for the federal government to play when it comes to working with provinces and municipalities. In that regard, I concur with the hon. member, but at the root of the problem is supply. The reason we have an issue of supply is red tape and bureaucracy due to policies of gatekeepers. We need to get gatekeepers out of the way, cut taxes and reduce barriers in order to incr…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, if it were a matter of building bureaucracies and spending money, we would have more housing and the most affordable housing in the world, because the government has added layer upon layer of bureaucracy. It has spent tens of billions of dollars around so-called affordable housing, but at the end of the day the results are that fewer and fewer Canadians can enter the market. Housing h…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition. The petitioners note that brain cancer research is critically underfunded in Canada and that Canada is years behind the United States in approving new drugs and treatments. Accordingly, the petitioners call on the Government of Canada to increase funding for brain cancer research; work with the provinces and territories to ensure that drugs, medical devic…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned consecutive sentencing. One thing that is completely missing from the bill is consecutive sentencing for murderers who have committed multiple murders. In fact, the Liberals have refused to take any action in the face of the Bissonnette decision, which struck down a reasonable law that gave judges the discretion to apply parole ineligibility periods on a consecu…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have signed on to using $52 billion of taxpayer money to subsidize EVs. However, there is one big problem, and that is that only a single EV model is manufactured in Canada. Consequently, 52 billion taxpayer dollars will be going directly to subsidize foreign EVs and foreign auto workers. This is at a time when thousands of Canadian auto jobs have been lost in the face of…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-16, omnibus legislation brought forward by the government. There are some measures in the bill that are supportable to the extent that they strengthen Canada's criminal justice system and take into account and strengthen the interests of victims. Many of those measures were literally copied and pasted from private members' bills introduced by Conservative m…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am glad that the government copied and pasted the member for Calgary Nose Hill's Bill C-216 into the bill before us with respect to criminalizing non-consensual sexual deepfakes. That is a positive. I do not know what the member is talking about when she says that we are being obstructive. There is such a place called the House of Commons where we actually debate bills. The last t…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it is all talk. This is a prime minister who says one thing and does another. He says that he is all for major projects, yet he has kept on the books anti-development laws, including the “no pipelines” bill, Bill C-69. This week, he voted against a Conservative Canadian sovereignty act, which would reduce barriers and get shovels in the ground. Again, not a single major project has be…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 104 and 114, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, regarding the membership of committees of the House. If the House gives its consent, I move that the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be concurred in.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister broke his promise to “build big, build bold and build now”. His big solution was Bill C-5 to establish the Major Projects Office, yet here we are and not a single major project has been approved, let alone built. This is a clear case of a disconnect between rhetoric and reality. What exactly is the holdup?
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, we have a government that has put the rights of criminals ahead of the rights of victims. The government is now touting bail reform, but it had weakened Canada's bail laws, which has resulted in a massive crime wave. This is a government that, according to the parliamentary secretary, supports mandatory minimums, while the bill it has brought before us eviscerates them. This is a go…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I suppose the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader ignored or did not listen to my resuscitation of pronouncements of the Supreme Court as it pertains to mandatory minimums and their constitutionality. If the government saw the need to bring forward an escape valve, then it ought to have done it in a careful and tailored fashion. However, it has not done that. The …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition with respect to the approval and accessibility of brain cancer treatment and therapies. The petitioners observe that an estimated 27 Canadians are diagnosed with a brain tumour each day. Canada is years behind the United States in approving new drugs and treatments, and even when new brain cancer therapies are approved, they are not always made equally acc…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that the Prime Minister set up three multi-billion dollar investment funds in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, and it is a fact that he stands to make tens of millions of dollars in future bonus pay from one of those funds. Those are facts, not a conspiracy theory, as the member across the way suggested. It is typical of the Liberals, who have nothing but contempt for the …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is a total and complete hypocrite. During the recent federal election campaign, he presented himself as Captain Canada. He wrapped himself in the Canadian flag with his elbows up. He wove a story of having resigned as chair of the multi-billion dollar investment firm Brookfield to come to Canada's rescue at a time of crisis. Of course, this self-serving narrative is…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it speaks to the misplaced spending priorities of the government. Simply put, never has a government spent so much and delivered so little for Canadians. By the way, speaking of spending, the Prime Minister said he would spend less, but spending has in fact gone up by 7.2%, when he promised to bring it down by 7.5%. I would just add that as another promise made and broken by the Prime…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is just more of the same with the government. It is part of the failed economic legacy of the government, which has seen declining productivity, flatlined growth, unacceptably high unemployment and Canada falling further and further behind peer countries. I think the numbers today, having regard for that record, are not surprising, but they are concerning.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, if Canadians were to listen to the member for Kingston and the Islands, they would be led to believe that they have never had it so good. He talks about job numbers. How many of those jobs are part-time jobs? The youth unemployment rate is over 13%. That is hardly a figure to celebrate. Is the member for Kingston and the Islands celebrating the fact that two million Canadians, a recor…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-15, the budget implementation act. The best that can be said of this budget is that it is not as advertised. The finance minister advertised the budget as a generational shift. The Prime Minister advertised the budget as bold. This budget does not represent a generational shift, and it most certainly is not bold. If anything, it is completely underwhelming. I…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, as usual, the Liberals call an inconvenient truth a personal attack. It is a fact that the Prime Minister was chair of Canada's biggest tax-dodger through its use of offshore tax havens. It is a fact that the Prime Minister set up an investment fund in the offshore tax haven of Bermuda. It is a fact that the Prime Minister stands to make tens of millions of dollars from that fund, fro…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to follow up on a question that I posed to the government: How much does the Prime Minister have in offshore tax havens? After all, the Prime Minister has a notorious track record of using offshore tax havens to avoid paying taxes in Canada. Before he ran for the Liberal leadership earlier this year, the Prime Minister served as chair of Brookfield. Brookfield happens to be Can…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister has vast conflicts of interest with Brookfield. That is why the Ethics Commissioner specifically told him not to meet with Brookfield. Despite this, the Prime Minister secretly met with the chief operating officer of Brookfield in October. I have a simple question. Why did the Prime Minister violate the clear direction of the Ethics Commissioner?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, this is not a conspiracy theory. The Ethics Commissioner told the Prime Minister not to meet with Brookfield and then he did so. This is a Prime Minister who was the chair of Brookfield and who stands to make tens of millions of dollars in future bonus pay and from stock options. Not only did the Prime Minister clearly violate the direction of the Ethics Commissioner, but he attempt…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, as the seconder of the bill, I rise to speak in strong support of Bill C-235, the respecting families of murdered and brutalized persons act, introduced by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I want to thank the member for his leadership in bringing the bill forward. It is legislation that would help spare the families of murder victims from being retraumatized with frequent p…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, the bill narrowly targets some of the most sadistic murderers; they are murderers who rape, brutalize and abduct their victims. The Library of Parliament looked into how many murderers who fall into this category received parole. The answer is that it could not find a single instance in which the Parole Board granted full parole, and there were very rare circumstances in which tempo…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, it has been reported that the government's MOU with Alberta includes a multi-billion dollar investment in carbon capture with Pathways Alliance. The premier carbon capture company connected with Pathways Alliance is none other than Entropy, which is owned by none other than Brookfield. Is the reason it has taken the government so long to get a deal with Alberta that the Prime Minister…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the very Brookfield fund that the Prime Minister stands to make millions of dollars from in future bonus pay invested $300 million in Entropy. In the face of that, can the government provide the assurance that the deal negotiated by the Prime Minister will in no way benefit Entropy and, by extension, the Prime Minister's financial portfolio?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's conflicts with Brookfield are everywhere. Yesterday the COO of Brookfield said that when Brookfield does well, the Prime Minister does well, so is it any wonder that the government is helping Brookfield do well, including fast-tracking a Brookfield-owned LNG project and handing half a billion dollars to a foreign space agency partnered with Brookfield? Why will th…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of Bill C-236 as its seconder. Known as McCann's law, it is in memory of the late Lyle and Marie McCann of St. Albert. Lyle and Marie were a happily married, retired couple who had their lives cut short when they were brutally murdered in July 2010. For 15 long years, their remains have not been found. For 15 long years, the murderer has kept the whereabouts o…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, I asked for a date. There is no date, but rest assured: The government has secured meetings with the U.A.E. next year. What we have is an agreement to talk about a possible agreement sometime in the future. This is more jet-setting, more photo ops and more press releases, with no tangible results for Canadian workers. Is this the best we can get from the so-called master negotiator?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is spinning that he negotiated a great deal with the U.A.E. It is such a great deal that the text is nowhere to be found, no details have been provided, and as far as the so-called investment commitments go, there is no timeline. I have a simple question: On what date can we expect to see the first dollar of investment from the U.A.E.? I would like just a date, plea…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, top executives at the Prime Minister's company, Brookfield, are defying an order of the House to testify at committee about his use of offshore tax havens. This is tantamount to contempt of Parliament. Will the Prime Minister pick up the phone and tell his pals at Brookfield to comply with the House order, or is he complicit in the cover-up?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, evidently, the Prime Minister is complicit, because here are the facts: He was chair of the company that is Canada's biggest tax-dodger. Not only that, but he set up investment funds in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands in which he stands to make millions. The Prime Minister has a responsibility to come clean and come clean today. How much cash does he have stashed in offshore tax havens…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, following up on the question posed by the member for Hamilton Mountain, I would note that someone convicted of murder receives an automatic life sentence for good reason. With respect to the statutory review provided for in the bill, it is one that Parliament has already decided upon and is in the Corrections and Conditional Release Act. There is an automatic review every five years. …
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-243, Brian's bill, in honour of the memory of the late Brian Ilesic. On June 12, 2012, Brian, with his colleagues Michelle Shegelski, Eddie Rejano and Matthew Schuman, were working as armoured guards at the University of Alberta's Hub Mall servicing ATM machines. They were, unfortunately, with another co-worker, who, in an act of pure evil, opened fire on t…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister stands to make tens of millions of dollars in future bonus pay from three investment funds that he registered in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. I have a simple question. How many other investments does the Prime Minister have in offshore tax havens?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, expert testimony reveals that the Prime Minister's company Brookfield is the biggest tax dodger in Canada, having avoided paying a staggering $6.5 billion in taxes in just five years. As chair of Brookfield, the Prime Minister registered three investment funds in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands from which he stands to make millions. Again, how much does the Prime Minister have in offsh…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals speak of a stringent and robust regime, yet the Prime Minister's company Brookfield registered multiple funds to a bike shop in Bermuda to avoid paying taxes in Canada. The Prime Minister is dodging a simple question so I will ask it again. How much money does he have in offshore tax havens? I want just a number, please.
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister refuses to come clean about his offshore tax havens. Meanwhile, he lectures young Canadians that they need to sacrifice more. After 10 years of the Liberals, they cannot afford food. They cannot afford rent. They have nothing left to give. When will the Prime Minister park his hypocrisy, come clean and tell us how much cash he has stashed in offshore tax havens?
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister stands to make tens of millions of dollars in future bonus pay from pre-registered investment funds in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Canadians deserve to know the extent to which the Prime Minister is abusing offshore tax havens, so I have a simple question: How many other investments does the Prime Minister have in offshore tax havens? I would just like an answer…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to Bill C-3, an act to amend the Citizenship Act, brought forward by the Liberal government. The bill would eliminate the first-generation limit for the granting of citizenship by descent and would drastically expand the granting of citizenship to persons born abroad who have little to no connection to Canada. In short, the bill is radical and reckless, and it would si…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's company Brookfield has been exposed as Canada's biggest tax dodger. According to expert analysis, Brookfield managed to avoid paying a staggering $6.5 billion in Canadian taxes through the use of offshore tax havens in just five years. As chair of Brookfield, the Prime Minister registered three multi-billion dollar investment funds in Bermuda and the Cayman Island…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, in my response to the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong, I said “process of harmonization”. I meant the process of naturalization. With respect to the question posed by the parliamentary secretary, this is what the Liberals do all the time. They get a lower court decision that they happen to like for ideological reasons. They do not fulfill their responsibility, which is to defend …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I would be curious whether the hon. member across the way supports a basic background check before automatic citizenship is granted to a Canadian born abroad who gains citizenship by descent, because as the Liberal bill was drafted, it would provide automatic citizenship without any kind of security check. Conservatives brought forward an amendment at committee to fix that. What is th…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the solution would be to keep the Conservative amendments, which were adopted at committee, in the bill. That would harmonize the requirements for applicants for citizenship by way of descent with those of applicants who are applying for citizenship through the process of harmonization.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, what the Liberals did not do was respect the ruling because, as the member pointed out, the judge provided for a substantial connection test. That is absent from the bill. What the Liberals did do was create a two-tier system for applying for citizenship. One tier is for those who are applying through naturalization, whereby they have to get a language test, go for a background check …
Read full speech →