Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, it takes a stunning level of audacity for the member to give a lecture to the House on politicization and throwing stones in glass houses. On Thursday, he and his friend from Kingston and the Islands undertook a blatant strategy to discredit the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, in order to defend their incompetent government—
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Madam Speaker, does the member believe the hon. member for Winnipeg North should stand right now and apologize for saying that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was not credible?
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member is correct. I did walk across and said that if he did not apologize, I am going to keep asking the question, and I will keep asking the question—
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Madam Speaker, on Thursday, while my hon. Conservative colleague was speaking, he was being heckled by members on the Liberal side, particularly the member for Kingston and the Islands and the member for Winnipeg North. The member for Winnipeg North, in his heckle about the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, said the member is not credible.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier, the member for Winnipeg North stood up and did not apologize for some of the comments he made the other day. However, he did acknowledge that when he came into the House on Thursday morning, he did not have his facts straight and that is a start. If the government does not have its facts straight, it is hard for Canadians to make sense of what is going on. Today, we are debat…
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Madam Speaker, on that point of order, I did not actually reference any comments that the member made—
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Mr. Speaker, I will point out that the other parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, the member for Kingston and the Islands, at the time, said the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was “supposedly affected”. He used those words. That member of Parliament did uncategorically apologize for his comments, but I want to ask the member from the Bloc this: To what extent does a combativ…
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Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, we had a debate on this important issue. Of course, we had a vote today and the vote passed. However, what was most striking was not the vote. It was actually the first 15 minutes of the debate on Thursday, when it was very clear that Liberal members were going to mock and condescend their way through that debate to discredit the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Specif…
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Mr. Speaker, once again, the member sitting in that spot, with three other members from the Liberal Party, was laughing and mocking our Speaker at the time. I was sitting close enough to hear him very easily—
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Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled again. I cannot tell them what to do. I am imploring them. I am not telling them what to do; I do not have that power. However, I think the debate would be better if members from all parties were participating wholly and fully in it. To the point of the question, I think there is a real question on Canadians' minds as to why we are even having this conversation righ…
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Madam Speaker, he did withdraw two words that I am not referencing at this point in time, but the entire strategy that they undertook is what I am taking issue with right now.
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Mr. Speaker, I will start by pointing out that given the normal practice of the House, the normal routine, it would have been time for a Liberal question, but a Conservative got up and asked a question instead. Again, I would implore the Liberals to actually take part in this debate, take a productive role in the debate and try to understand what people—
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for that important question, because I do think this is critical. One of the four elements in the motion from last week that we voted on today was the idea of having a public inquiry. There is a real power to transparency. There is a real power to us coming together as 338 members of the House and agreeing on behalf of our constituents across the country, all…
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Mr. Speaker, I will point out that, while I very much agree with the member on this, we do not always agree on everything. I am very thankful for a thoughtful question in this debate. She makes a very good point for all of us. We may not agree on the choices that the people in one riding or another make about who they send to debate on their behalf here, but we do have to respect that our democrac…
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Mr. Speaker, well, I will point out, just because this summarizes exactly what the situation has been today, that an hon. Liberal member just said, in his heckle to the group about his colleague from Kingston and the Islands, that he is doing a good job, that he is doing a good job because he is pissing all of us off. That is what he just said in his heckle across the way. This is the dynamic we h…
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Mr. Speaker, I am splitting my time with the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. Let us look at the context of the conversations we are having right now. There is a member of the House of Commons, a colleague who is well respected by members on all sides, whose family has been threatened and who clearly did not know about the situation. Earlier in the debate, the hon. member for Winni…
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Madam Speaker, that was quite a speech after we just sat and watched a group of Liberal members of Parliament mocking and laughing at the member for St. Albert—Edmonton as he was speaking earlier. The member talks about taking these concerns very seriously, but earlier, in a question, the member for Kingston and the Islands referred to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills as “supposedly affected…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member is not saying that he did not say those words; he is just saying that they were not recorded. He absolutely said those words. I was sitting right here and I heard him say them.
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Madam Speaker, it will not take me 20 seconds. My question, given the gravity of the situation, is very straightforward: Will the hon. member who just spoke turn around and ask his two colleagues, who hold leadership positions in his party, to unreservedly apologize to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills?
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Mr. Speaker, because the hon. member used the phrase “to correct the record”, to correct the record myself, the hon. member used the phrase “supposedly affected” in regard to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills today. He now has a chance to stand up and apologize.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby kind of touched on this as a long-serving member of the House. I want to also express my solidarity and my admiration for the Conservative member for Wellington—Halton Hills, whom we have been talking a lot about this morning. Perhaps members from all sides can recognize the important contributions that member has made over the years to this plac…
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Mr. Speaker, continuing my comments, if we actually listen to what the member for Kingston and the Islands said, he said, “if Conservatives were bothered by it”. That was the caveat he added when he mentioned that just a few minutes ago—
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That is what you said. I am not going to get into a heckling match, because that is how we got into this challenge in the first place. There were about four members at the time, including those two members, who were laughing as the conversation was happening specifically related to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and the—
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Mr. Speaker, I will point out that the hon. member, in his defence, mentioned coming in 15 seconds before the member for St. Albert—Edmonton stopped speaking. I will point out that it was the precise moment that chaos descended on this conversation. It was his question for the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton that triggered the condescension and mockery among his colleagues over here. It was hi…
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Mr. Speaker, that is one of the most ridiculous questions I have ever heard in the House of Commons. We are talking about a member of Parliament who is serving in the government. We all wish we were serving in the government, but we are not. There is one government. There is one Prime Minister. All of this has happened under that Prime Minister's watch. The government has known for two years about…
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Mr. Speaker, I do not normally get this fired up in here. There is a lot of people who get very fired up in here, but usually I try to avoid my hockey side, in a sense. However, to the hon. member's point, I came in today expecting to discuss a motion that I thought would be unanimously supported. If we take a look at what is in the motion, including the measures on the registry and on closing com…
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Mr. Speaker, there are four main elements of the motion. There is some preamble, which is really important, but the four main elements speak to things that should be universally supported. I think Canadians across the country will support them and I am glad to hear that the NDP and Bloc support them as well. The four elements are: creating a foreign agent registry similar to Australia and the U.S.…
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Mr. Speaker, he is referencing the point of order. The fact of the matter is that if we are looking at that particular point, and there is something else that you should apologize for but, on a technicality, said it was not on the record, on that particular point, you said the Prime Minister had a briefing on Monday and then you said that the member got the same briefing two years ago. The member …
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Madam Speaker, I listened with interest as the hon. member, like all Liberal members of Parliament, talked about more and more spending, adding to the record levels of spending and record levels of debt undertaken by the government already. One thing he did not touch on was that it is Mental Health Week. If we read from the Canadian Mental Health Association's website, it says in a headline, “Budg…
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Madam Speaker, it is astonishing to me to hear the NDP and Liberal members stand up in the House, with the record-shattering levels of debt and spending they are undertaking together, and call for, in the debate today, more spending. I hearken back to the Trudeau government of the seventies and eighties and the massive debt and deficits they rang up. This resulted in record cuts to social services…
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Madam Speaker, I have had a chance to chat with the hon. member about some issues, and I know we are concerned and care about similar issues regarding vulnerable Canadians. I brought up earlier, as I do many times in the House, one of the things I am concerned about. Looking back, the Liberal government of the late 1990s had to cut $35 billion in transfers to provinces for things such as health ca…
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Madam Speaker, it is a regular occurrence for me when I am speaking to have the two members across the way, who remind me of the old guys from The Muppets, chirping from the gallery as I am—
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Madam Speaker, like many colleagues here, I am on House duty today. I showed up here expecting that we would be having a debate about the budget.
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Madam Speaker, of course, but I will point out that the hon. member who just rose on this point of order speaks more and uses more words in the House than almost any other member of Parliament. He has the opportunity to stand any time he wants. He is getting applause. I cannot say how many members he was getting applause from, but it was very quiet. I will point that out—
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Madam Speaker, since we are having this conversation, I have a couple of points on this. It is interesting that we are supposed to be talking about the budget today. The NDP and Liberal members have agreed to have this debate here in this House because they do not want to talk about the budget, including all the challenges with the budget and the economic disaster that reflects the previous approa…
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Madam Speaker, I am not sure whether the offensive reference was “old” or “Muppets”. Usually they get their back up when I start talking about the Trudeau legacy. We have had this happen on multiple occasions as we talk about budgets and disastrous Liberal economic policy. We get talking about the Trudeau legacy. Of course, I am talking about the Pierre Trudeau legacy.
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Madam Speaker, that was just a comment and I agree with it.
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Madam Speaker, again, we are talking about a Senate public bill that could be supported by all parties and we are having a conversation about some parties in the House taking the bill in a completely different direction than the senator originally intended. Not one member in this House would accept that if it was their own private member's bill, but they are expecting us to move on with it today. …
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Madam Speaker, we had a vote half an hour ago to move on, and the Liberals voted against it.
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Madam Speaker, this is the first time I have ever spoken where I have had members stand up three times and raise of points of order to try and delay the speech that I am making. I will sit down after making this final point, which is, again, the same point that I have been making. This is a Senate public bill that is very important to the senator who is moving it. The Liberals and the NDP have ver…
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Madam Speaker, the hon. member has been in this House for a long time. She just said if we wanted to do something we could do it. She should know that it is very clear that the Liberals have expressed support for what she wants to do. Her party is in a coalition agreement with the Liberals. All she needs to do is walk across the floor to the two Liberal members who have been heckling me the entire…
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Madam Speaker, it is kind of funny to see these two members. I will not make any Muppet references here, but to hear them chirping from the gallery, and here we go again—
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Madam Speaker, there is latitude. I am talking about process, which is really important here. The two members that keep rising on points of order have the highest word counts in the House of Commons. I have listened to many speeches where they have not even been in the same area code as the subject being discussed. I am actually talking about a process that is important here. I am talking about so…
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Madam Speaker, again, the issue today is that there is a Senate public bill, moved by a senator. The issue is very serious for her. She has asked specifically, in testifying before committee, not to go way beyond the scope of the bill. We all have those opportunities where we get a chance to move things that are very important to us. I have had the opportunity to do it myself. In fact, we just had…
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Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things to that point. The bill is many pages long, and experts who have spent their entire lifetime studying this stuff have, in large numbers, come before multiple committees of the House to say that user-generated content is open to being regulated by the government through the CRTC. On the cultural side of things, I trust that Canadian creators, from across th…
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Mr. Speaker, this exercise is called democracy. The hon. member talks about how she listened until midnight the other night and did not hear anything different from me than what she might have heard the other night. I do not know what she heard the other night, but she certainly did not hear the member of Parliament for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, representing the 230,000 constituents who I represent, st…
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Mr. Speaker, I am being heckled from the other side. They will not stand up and actually debate today, but they will stand up and heckle me. Then, they will probably ask questions about misinformation without making any arguments or trying to persuade anybody. They know they have the numbers tonight to just ram this through, regardless of what Canadians think. This is the issue we are talking abou…
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and to speak to this debate tonight. In 2023 alone, I have held 15 constituent round tables of two hours each. I have heard from a couple of hundred constituents on a variety of issues, and this is among the top issues that constituents have raised with me. I am not an expert to the extent that the member for Lethbridge is. She has done such fantastic work for…
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Mr. Speaker, it is actually the flip side of that argument. I think the government's response to the Senate amendments, by way of completely ignoring them and then taking to the Internet to actually attack people who criticize the government's approach, is what erodes Canadians' confidence and trust in their government, more than anything else.
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Mr. Speaker, April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day, and a quarter century since my son, Jaden, was diagnosed. Over the years, I have focused a lot of my public words on Jaden’s strengths. This is not because he does not need help but rather because, all too often, all people see is the help he needs. To be clear, as incredible as Jaden is, he needs a lot of help. He has considerable strengths in t…
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