Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, the hon. member and I were once seatmates. It seems strange to say, but we were right on the boundaries of our respective parties at one point. Now we are about as far away as we could be in the House. However, I always enjoyed our conversations. When it comes to the measures the member is talking about, he will find a willing ally in our party in pushing the government to account. …
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, I am pretty sure that had there been a commitment to electoral reform in the throne speech, it would have been ignored by now. As the member knows, there was a commitment to electoral reform back in the 2015 Liberal election campaign, and it was one of those moments where all the members of the opposition were united in a proposal brought forward. He might remember that the campaign…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak for the first time in this Parliament. This is my sixth time being elected to represent my constituents, first in Edmonton—Mill Woods and then in Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. I want to thank those voters first and foremost. As my hon. colleague said, we would not get the opportunity to do all of the other things that we do if we were not accountable to our voters a…
Read full speech →Speech from the Throne
Madam Speaker, I do not always appreciate every question the hon. member asks when I am speaking, but I appreciate that one. Maybe it is in the spirit of what happened earlier in this place. The mental health issue is one on which all parties were pretty much on the same page during the election campaign. The parties put forward plans to take very meaningful action on mental health. As we try to m…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, that is a great question. I, like the member, absolutely care about those things. I care about them today and in the future. I care about them for us and seniors today, as well as for people who are not seniors now but will be in the future. I care about vulnerable Canadians. As the member might know, I have a 25-year-old son with autism. I care about what programs look like for him…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, when we were in government we laid out a seven-year plan to get back to balance and we got back to balance slowly during that time. It should be noted that during that time we could not spend enough to satisfy the Liberal members, and we see that in this very question. We laid out a plan to get to balance over 10 years. The current Liberal government has no plan to get back to balan…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, what a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to this bill for the budget implementation act. I listened carefully to the previous speaker from the Liberal Party and wanted to say a couple of things in regard to working with him. I note, with appreciation, that back in 2017, he was the only Liberal member of Parliament who broke the whip on the Canadian autism partnership and vot…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, all of the things the member mentioned are good measures. We want Canadians to be able to have access to them, but I would point out for all members that we have to also look at the revenue side of the equation. As a member from Edmonton, from Alberta, I have to point out that we have absolutely robbed our economy of our opportunity to fund some of those things because of our disast…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, that was quite something. The hon. member talks about a consistent message from Ottawa like that is the whole point of Parliament. It is as if parliamentarians on opposition benches should not ask tough questions of their government and expect actual answers from their government and that Canadians would not be better served by that. He talked about false information, accused Conserva…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, taking a look at the Our World in Data numbers for COVID vaccinations, yesterday we were at about 37.85 vaccine doses administered per 100 Canadians. When I look at the numbers for other countries, I see that the U.K. passed that threshold on March 13, almost two months ago, and the U.S. passed it on March 21. Regarding the U.K. numbers two months ago, when we take a look at Alberta's…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure I sensed a question in that, so maybe I will give someone else a chance to actually ask me a question.
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, that is a fantastic point. Obviously, if we had gotten similar numbers of vaccines delivered earlier and spread out over time, we would have been able to deliver them in a more efficient way. We would have put less pressure on our frontline responders. By the way, I got vaccinated this past weekend with my first shot as well, and I want to use this opportunity to comment on the unbeli…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure if the hon. member listened to my speech. Maybe he just came in time to ask the question because I referenced the fact that the targets were not good enough. They were not ambitious enough in the first place, so I ask who cares if we meet the targets. We are talking about a target down the road of six vaccines for every Canadian three years from now. That does not matter…
Read full speech →Emergency Debate
Mr. Speaker, it was great to listen to my colleague speak on behalf of his constituents in Edmonton Mill Woods, which is an area I represented for 10 years before the boundaries changed. I am so glad that those constituents have such a fantastic MP advocating for them. I sensed the passion in his speech, and I share that passion. My thoughts tonight, as we are having this conversation, are with my…
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, how fitting it is that I would follow the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan reminiscing about his one suit. While he might not think I teased him, I just did not tease him to his face about his single suit. We certainly noticed it and I rib him from time to time. He was a great parliamentary secretary assistant, by the way. The genesis of my speech tonight for four minutes …
Read full speech →Adjournment Proceedings
Madam Speaker, after four or five months, and with an army of public servants to give briefings on the issue, there is still absolutely zero attempt to answer the question, which relates to the oil coming from Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Nigeria, and other countries such as Azerbaijan, Côte d'Ivoire, Columbia, Russia and Kazakhstan. The question is whether oil coming from those countries is subject …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, April 2 is World Autism Awareness Day, and it has been 23 years since my son Jaden was diagnosed. Jaden often needs help to navigate the world around him. Let us face it. We all need help sometimes. Jaden also has many things the world needs right now. Surrounded by unrelenting noise, the world needs some quiet, and Jaden challenges us to slow down to wait for his thoughts to find exp…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, I have asked this question three times and three times, through what I can only assume is some kind of Zoom glitch, it was like the person answering was in a completely different conversation, so I am going to try again. The Liberals have made it virtually impossible for the private sector to build a pipeline in this country. Over the past few years, we have imported tens of million…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, I have asked this exact same very simple yes-or-no question twice before, in November and December, and got incoherent non-responses from the government, so I am going to try again. We are importing tens of millions of barrels of oil per year into Canada from Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Algeria. Is this oil subject to the same rigorous regulations on upstream and downstream emissions …
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, the past several years have been challenging for global democracy. We have seen a rise in polarization and increasingly vitriolic language expressed by hyperpartisans from all sides. Too often this leads to violence. Social media have exacerbated the problem. Sides are chosen and anchored in Twitter bios. Talking points are delivered in echo chambers, amplified by cryptic algorithms. …
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, again, I was in government for almost a decade, and having actually been there, I can say that the Conservative record is stable over the entire time. There were stable increases of 6% every year through the entire time Conservatives were in government. If the member wants to look at stable funding for health care, let us avoid the rhetoric, the talking points and the revisionist hi…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is great to have this opportunity to participate in the debate today. I have listened intently to previous speakers. It is very interesting to hear the Liberals' questions and the different types of points they are trying to make in the debate. We heard the member for Yukon a little while ago talking about the Harper record going back to the economic meltdown in 2008 and criticizin…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, the hon. member talks about supporting Canadian business. Let me give an example that hits really close to home for me. The fact of the matter is that right now in Atlantic Canada, we are importing 600,000 barrels of oil every single day. The third-, second- and fourth-source countries for that oil are Algeria, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia. That oil is not subject to the same strict reg…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I love how the member talked about cherry-picking data and then cherry-picked his own data. He criticized the Harper government for running deficits and then, in the same sentence, accused the Harper government of being reluctant to run deficits. It is almost as though he has talked to some of his colleagues who were around at the time and may have reminded him that, yes, it did go …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, there has been a lot of talk today about things like scripting and non-answers, and attire. I would even put decorum in that category to some extent. I question who should be the arbiter of these things. It is difficult to police a lot of these things. I would make an argument that, with our House of Commons broadcast, everything is available for constituents to see and that we can …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, while I was reflecting and getting ready to speak, although I do not think I will have time today, I was looking at some speeches from last time around. In 2016, the member for Chilliwack—Hope said, “Parliament is not here to serve us; we are here to serve Parliament and the Canadians who sent us here.” I am reminded of that as we are having this conversation. As several members are…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I would like to point out to the hon. member that the reason the member for Carleton is so effective in his approach is that he knows exactly what the scripted Liberal ministers' responses are going to be. I did listen carefully and I liked where he was going in terms of the debate. It is rare I find some common ground with the member, but I have been thinking about an idea, of gett…
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