Parliamentary Speeches
935 speeches by Michelle Rempel Garner — Page 5 of 19
Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, we are at a time when I think we need to bring some decorum to this place, and what the minister said undermined the seriousness of the debate. It made light of it, and to my Bloc colleague's point, she did not do her job as the minister, so I would like an apology too.
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Mr. Speaker, the question is for the immigration minister. New housing completions are at record lows, but the Liberals are welcoming unprecedented numbers of people under every immigration stream. On top of this, there are potentially millions of people who have expiring visas, and the Liberals do not even know if they will leave. Why is the immigration minister letting in people faster than the …
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Mr. Speaker, the minister just claimed that there is no problem, that everything is okay. She is spreading misinformation, because the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report says that the Liberal's current immigration plan, the one that she just said is working, leaves a massive housing gap, because the minister is still setting levels way too high. If Canada is to be a place where everyone can suc…
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Mr. Speaker, the question is for the immigration minister. There are a staggering 300,000 people in Canada with pending asylum claims. Many of these will be bogus. New data we obtained today shows the profound cost of this failure. Since 2016, the Liberals have increased the cost of the interim federal health program, which includes support for benefits for people who have likely made bogus claims…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister just said that the Liberals' immigration plan is working. The Liberals are spending at least $800 million this year because they allowed the asylum backlog to mushroom to nearly 300,000 people, many of whom have bogus claims, and allowed them to stay in the country for years. That is why the Liberals had to increase the program to that level. This strains health care, str…
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Mr. Speaker, let me get this straight. The Prime Minister promised to grow the economy, but it is shrinking. He promised he would create jobs, but Canadians are losing them. We are in a health care crisis and a housing crisis, but the Liberals still issued record numbers of TFW permits this summer. They continue to allow the asylum system to be abused, and they still have not removed countless non…
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With regard to the implementation of measures in anticipation of the passage of previous Bill C-63, An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts, from the 44th Parliam…
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With regard to promotional items, for each department, agency and Crown Corporation, since January 1, 2022: (a) what is the total amount spent on promotional items; (b) what types and brands of promotional items were purchased, including, for each, a description; (c) what is the total amount spent on each type or brand of promotional item; (d) what is the total volume purchased of each type of pro…
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With regard to government measures taken in order to protect Canadians from online harms or misinformation: (a) which departments and agencies are responsible for implementing such measures; (b) which measures is each department or agency responsible for implementing; (c) what are the details of each measure, including, for each, the (i) project description and purpose, (ii) number of officials or…
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Madam Speaker, how is it that the bill provides a system for people to obtain citizenship in a way that the government cannot even estimate how many people would be eligible over a set period of time? That is problem one. Problem two is that the bill does not have any language requirements for people who are obtaining citizenship by descent, whereas we do for citizenship by naturalization. The thi…
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Madam Speaker, I want to be very clear that what the deputy government House leader suggested is that the first day back in the House of Commons, after Liberal prorogation, a leadership race and an election, is that somehow we should not be debating a bill on immigration, after the Liberals have broken Canada's immigration system. We know that the Liberals have increased immigration levels to an e…
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Madam Speaker, I want to ask a follow-up question on something my colleague said about the spending of health care dollars and the number of people coming into the country. I am looking at an article from December 12, 2024, that says, “Canadians faced longest ever health-care wait times in 2024, study finds”. We had one colleague get up and say that we are spending all this money on health care, b…
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With regard to the removal of persons by the Canada Border Services Agency, since January 1, 2016: (a) how many persons subject to removal have departed or been removed from Canada, broken down by year; (b) what is the number of 'high-priority foreign nationals' subject to removal orders on grounds of serious inadmissibility, broken down by year and relevant Immigration and Refugee Protection Act …
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Madam Speaker, it is nice to see my colleague again. On the substance of Bill C-3, I know that language rights are very important to him. Does he believe that this bill should reflect the fact that anybody obtaining citizenship through the bill should have to reach the same level, at a minimum, of language proficiency as somebody obtaining citizenship through a different path, that those language …
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Madam Speaker, somebody who is seeking citizenship through naturalization must show proficiency in one of Canada's official languages. Citizenship by descent, which is what is being proposed in this bill, does not require a language proficiency test, so this bill would not require somebody seeking citizenship through citizenship by descent to obtain proficiency in one of Canada's official language…
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister promised to grow the economy, but it is shrinking. Since he took office, tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, but the Liberals are on track this year to bring in the most temporary foreign work permits ever. It is so bad that a former Liberal immigration minister just said that they admitted they let industry become, “addicted to temporary work”, and he is righ…
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Mr. Speaker, the minister spoke about the responsibilities of Canadian citizens, but those responsibilities include paying taxes to pay for services such as health care. The bill goes well beyond closing a loophole for a small group of people, which previous Conservative legislation and Conservatives supported. By contrast, the PBO estimated that the bill would grant citizenship to over 100,000 pe…
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Mr. Speaker, I refuse to accept that in order to litigate and hold the government to account for its endless failures in the immigration system, the House should have to accept a bill that is so deeply flawed as this and that extremely denigrates the value of Canadian citizenship. I agree with my Bloc colleague. I cannot wait to work with his colleague, who is the spokesperson for the immigration …
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Mr. Speaker, it is not fair. If the government was serious about addressing that point, it would have tabled a bill that had some sort of consecutive residency requirement. I do not think that is asking for much, particularly since that is international best practice. I do think that if the government was willing to accept an amendment to that point, it would solve all the problems. It would solve…
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Mr. Speaker, one of the amendments that needs to be made to the bill to prevent endless chain migration, which the bill currently provides for without any sort of consecutive residency requirement, is to ensure that those who the bill applies to spend some sort of substantive length of time in Canada in a consecutive manner. The bill does not apply to that. Right now, ad infinitum, descendants cou…
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order regarding the audio on the English channel.
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Mr. Speaker, they should not table junky legislation. They should go to the immigration minister and say there was literally months and months of testimony that could have been included in this bill. She just pulled it off the shelf and then expected us to take it. This is not acceptable. I will never back down on my responsibility to hold the government to account on behalf of my constituents. I …
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Mr. Speaker, what an embarrassment that comment was. It was actually beneath any person in this place, given the severity of the confidence crisis that people are having in Canada on immigration, which has been perpetuated by the Liberal government. Before the member's question, his colleague asked a salient question about how we can make this place work. I would ask her to ask the question of tha…
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Mr. Speaker, I wish I could answer that with data that showed how many people would come in under this. Would that not be nice? However, the government does not have that information. How can it go to the provinces and say that it is going to cost them x amount of dollars in health care over x period of time, that it is going to cost them x amount in social services benefits or other types of soci…
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Mr. Speaker, regardless of political stripe, I am so glad and blessed that I get to work with people who chose Canada and came to Canada and migrated to Canada and that we have a diversity of perspectives in the House, but the value of Canadian citizenship should not be debased with bills like this. Did members know that the government eliminated the need for in-person citizenship ceremonies? One …
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Mr. Speaker, we are here debating a bill today that the Liberals have proposed, which would give endless chain migration, the ability to pass down citizenship ad infinitum, to anybody. We just heard a speech, for those who are tuning in, that shows why this bill is so poorly designed. A member from the Liberal Party stood up and, over and over again in questions and answers, which will be interest…
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Mr. Speaker, the Ontario Superior Court ruling that ostensibly was the genesis of this legislation said it was unconstitutional for Canada to deny automatic citizenship to children born abroad to parents who were also born overseas but have a substantial connection to Canada. Could my colleague describe what her government believes “substantial connection to Canada” means, and where that is contai…
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Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled. Members are saying, “Well, the NDP is not in government.” I do not know why the Liberals would just support their bill. It is completely strange. Here is the thing: We do not know how many people the bill would affect. The government could not say, over a 10-, 20- or 30-year period, how many people would be able to draw health care benefits in Canada, draw on the s…
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Mr. Speaker, what we have heard the member say in responding to questions is that she did not have a number, but then did have a number, but did not, and that it might be 100,000, which is small, but that it might also be 20,000 or maybe a dozen. The point here is that the Liberals are essentially, with this bill, enabling endless chain migration with no consecutive residency requirement, which ac…
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-216, An Act to enact the Protection of Minors in the Digital Age Act and to amend two Acts. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to introduce a bill that would protect Canadians online while safeguarding their civil liberties. The bill proposes a tightly scoped legislative duty of care for online operators as it pertains to children's online safety, would strengthe…
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to do that. In fact, I would speak to her boss, the Prime Minister, who appointed her as the House leader when the House was not sitting and then demoted her.
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Mr. Speaker, as has been expressed in debate today, Conservatives have deep concerns with two omissions in the bill. First, there is no consecutive residency requirement in the bill, which means somebody way down the generational chain could claim Canadian citizenship with no significant ties to Canada and no obligations to the country. The second thing is that there is no security vetting prior t…
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Mr. Speaker, the recent Auditor General's report revealed that GC Strategies, a Liberal insider company, was paid a whopping 64.5 million tax dollars by the Liberal government to do literally nothing. Think about how Canadians struggling to make ends meet feel about having to pay massive taxes just to enrich Liberal insiders. It is like reverse Robin Hood. Will the Liberals support our motion to g…
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Mr. Speaker, not only are the Liberals tolerating this behaviour; they are promoting the people who oversaw it. In the normal world, somebody who would have overseen $65 million going to scammers would have been fired. Instead, these ministers have been promoted. Today, we found out these ministers want to give even more money to consultants to manage web pages. Why is it that with the Liberals, i…
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Mr. Chair, again, I have the CBC article right here. The minister asked for a full removal of caps on immigrants. Would she agree that the number of people coming into Canada must be immediately and massively reduced?
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Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time three ways. I have an article here from the CBC wherein the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship asked the federal government to fully eliminate the cap on new immigrants, with no limit. Does she still believe that there should be no limits on how many people enter Canada?
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Mr. Chair, let us talk about challenges. Our ERs are overflowing, people cannot find a home or a job and the levels report says immigration is going up. How many people have been removed of the 500,000 who are on deportation orders announced in December 2024?
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Mr. Chair, the minister has not. The government is letting in hundreds of thousands of foreign students and temporary foreign workers. Why is the minister persisting in letting in hundreds of thousands of people when Canada is in the middle of a health care crisis?
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Mr. Chair, the minister claims she has been on the job for only a couple of weeks, but she was the minister of immigration in Nova Scotia for many years, close to a decade, I think. During that time, the Auditor General, in 2022, found that there was no process to determine labour market needs. The minister also asked for no cap on the number of people coming into her province. Is this what we can…
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Mr. Chair, does the minister at least agree that the 500,000 people who are here but should not be here, as of December, should leave immediately? Can she say, yes, she agrees?
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Mr. Chair, we were living in different times. It was a Conservative federal government and we had a balanced budget. I am thankful to the minister for acknowledging that. That is wonderful; it warms my heart. Earlier, the minister said that the economy would have collapsed if it had not been for immigration during COVID. Does she want to stand by that statement?
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Mr. Chair, what is the minister's plan to get those people to leave?
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Mr. Chair, I would ask the minister to say that to somebody who cannot find housing in Toronto right now. There are 500,000 people, at least, in Canada who have no legal reason to be here. How many have been removed since the report came out in December?
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Mr. Chair, how many more people is the minister going to let into the country while those people stay here?
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Mr. Chair, tonight we have heard the minister not know how many people have left the country. She has claimed that the processing time for asylum claims, while people with potentially fraudulent asylum claims claim social benefits, is 18 months. Her department said it was 44 months in committee just a few short months ago. She will not answer basic questions about the file. She does not take respo…
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Mr. Chair, during COVID, the federal government asked everybody to give up their civil liberties, and it shut down the economy to bend the curve to lower the impact, supposedly, on emergency rooms. Then the government added a hockey stick curve of immigrants to the strain on the emergency rooms. Why did it?
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Let me contextualize it for you, Mr. Chair. The reality is that there were way fewer than 290,000 housing starts last year, and there are a lot more than 290,000 people waiting for a family doctor right now. Why is the minister persisting in raising immigration levels when people cannot find a doctor or a job?
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Mr. Chair, what is not sustainable is that there are roughly 500,000 people, as of December 2024, who need to be removed from the country. How many have been removed?
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Mr. Chair, how many of the 500,000 people who are not supposed to be in Canada have been removed? I would like just the number.
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Mr. Chair, they are not being followed. Does the minister not understand that if we do not remove people who do not have a legal right to be here, the system is meaningless? Will the minister admit that the Liberals broke the system and that it is out of control?
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