Emergency Debate
Madam Speaker, I am glad the member spoke about living in an era of sound bites. A lot of what the Liberal members have been doing so far is blaming the people of Alberta for the situation we find ourselves in, but we would not be in this situation had we received vaccine supplies back in January and February. I am one of those who has been vaccinated. The vaccine supply is almost at 90% used in t…
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I liked that the member gave us a history of political debates in Quebec over the past 30 years. However, I would like to come back to a comment one of the Bloc Québécois members made about old age security. In the budget, the federal government decided to give $500 to those 75 and older. Can my colleague tell me why, in his opinion, the government decided to proceed in this way, wh…
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Madam Speaker, as some members will know, I used to sit on the finance committee in a previous Parliament. I do not get to do that now as chair for the Conservative caucus, but I see this is a report that has 145 recommendations and is one of the biggest in the past five to six years. Typically, what I have noticed is that the Liberal government has been ignoring the finance committee's recommenda…
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Madam Speaker, the member spoke about a little of everything, but the debate is on concurring in the finance committee's report on the pre-budget submission to the government. Over the years, we have seen that the number of recommendations being accepted by the Government of Canada keeps going down. I think it is around 25% to 30%. However, I want to draw the member's attention to recommendation 1…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for La Pointe-de-l'Île for his comments. I agree with the first part of his question and his idea. I think people need to provide valid and informed consent. Many of my constituents have the same concern about private businesses sharing their personal information. I agree with the first part, but as far as the second part is concerned, I would like to hear more deba…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, as far as I can tell, not much new in this legislation specifically deals with those types of issues. We have all seen the phishing scams, even on Parliament Hill, where people pretend to be banks, financial institutions or credit unions. It looks so real and the interaction is so real that people feel it was actually sent by the named institution. There is a lot more that could be do…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to joining the debate on Bill C-11. “One who wants to know is better than one who already knows” is a Yiddish proverb, and members know I have a great love of them. However, I want to go through the legislation before us, because a lot of constituents have written to me with major concerns. It is not that they dislike the legislation per se. They agree, as many members ha…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, I will speak about the first part of his observation on privacy rights. Privacy rights should be property rights. That is where we should go and expand it, and that is the way it should be understood. I talked about, for example, deepfakes and the concerns I heard at people's doors, specifically in Mahogany. I had a constituent who spent a lot of time explaining it to me. It has panne…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member is the parliamentary secretary to the House leader. He is participating in setting the agenda. It has been months since this legislation came to Parliament to be debated. He should perhaps look at his own schedule to determine how many more days the government could do this. I read directly from concerns of my constituents, and I invite all members to do that. That is exact…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to the First-Time home buyer incentive (FTHBI) announced by the government in 2019, from September 1, 2019, to date: (a) how many applicants have applied for mortgages through the FTHBI program, broken down by province and municipality; (b) of those applicants, how many have been approved and accepted mortgages through the FTHBI program, broken down by province and municipality; (c) of…
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With regard to treatments and therapies subject to approval for market by Health Canada, from January 1, 2016, to this date: (a) how many pharmaceutical drugs were granted market authorization by Health Canada, broken down by name of drug and date of approval; and (b) of the pharmaceutical drugs listed in (a), how many were for treatments and therapies for rare diseases, known as orphan drugs, bro…
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With regard to the federal government’s use of the Quarantine Act as part of measures taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, from March 1, 2020, to date: (a) how many locations in Canada have been designated isolation or quarantine sites or facilities by the government; (b) how many individuals have stayed longer than a day in these sites, for the purposes of quarantine; (c) what is the location o…
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With regard to the federal disability tax credit (DTC) that helps persons with disabilities and certain medical conditions defray unavoidable medical expenses, since fiscal year 2017-18: (a) what is the total number of DTC applicants for fiscal years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, broken down by year; (b) what is the total DTC amount claimed for fiscal years 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20, broken dow…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, I wrote to the Minister of Canadian Heritage four months ago regarding substantiated claims of harassment, verbal abuse and intolerance levied against the Canada Artistic Swimming team's coaching staff by athletes on the team, including Cassie, an athlete and a constituent. It has been four months, and there is no answer. No coaches have been fired and there have been no apologies t…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I have three petitions to table today. They are from constituents and Canadians all across Canada. The first one is on the Magnitsky act. The petitioners are asking for the Magnitsky act to be applied to those who are persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in mainland China. They would like sanctioned under the Magnitsky act Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Li …
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, the second petition draws the attention of the House of Commons to the continued plight of Venezuelan refugees, specifically to an event that happened near the country of Trinidad and Tobago, where that country's coast guard boarded a vessel of Venezuelan refugees fleeing the country in contravention of section 2 of the Commonwealth charter. The undersigned are asking for the Govern…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, finally, I am tabling a petition on behalf of Canadians who are asking that the definition in Bill C-6 be abandoned and fixed to ensure that parents can speak with their own children about sexuality and gender and set house rules about those kinds of relationships.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
With regard to undertakings to prepare government offices for safe reopening following the COVID-19 pandemic since March 1, 2020: (a) what is the total amount of money the government has spent on plexiglass for use in government offices or centres, broken down by purchase order and by department; (b) what is the total amount of money the government has spent on cough and sneeze guards for use in g…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to continue debate on Bill C-237, which was brought forward by the member for Brampton South, and to listen to the previous member. I agree with him. I do not see much to disagree with in this private member's bill. It was in the format of a motion in the previous Parliament, and I know the member for Brampton South is well-meaning in the work she is attempting to have …
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on this very important issue, which my colleague for Lakeland has proposed. I have listened to the debate so far, and as an Albertan, I am disappointed to hear that other members will not be supporting a piece of legislation that is good for the environment. I have heard people say that it is good for oil and gas companies, but this is about the envir…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, I hear the same member chirping away again. I am sure it is a different condition out there in Hamilton and the regions that he comes from, but in my neck of the woods, in the southeast part of Calgary, I have a lot of oil and gas workers who have been out of work for years now. Their severance pay has run out, they have no more space in a home equity line of credit, they are at the…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the third petition is from residents all across Alberta, who are reminding the Government of Canada that there was a Fair Deal Panel that was struck and had reported recommendations. The petitioners draw the government's attention specifically to the recommendation related to community policing. The petitioners are asking for the following, which I will read into the record: The petit…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, the member gave a great speech, laying out a very empathetic case for why the Senate's amendments should be rejected. The debate I have heard so far is not about the amendments the House has already made within Bill C-7 to the original Bill C-14. I disagreed with the House and voted in the minority because I felt that our response to the Truchon decision went too far at the time. What…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from residents in my riding who are calling upon the Government of Canada to remove the per capita cap on the fiscal stabilization program, referred to as the equalization rebate, which the petitioners say equals about $3 billion to the public treasury in Alberta.
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present today. The first is an e-petition. It is sponsored by Holly Oshust and signed by 576 Canadians. The petitioners draw the attention of the House and the Government of Canada to the fact that minors do not need a piece of identification in order to board a flight in Canada. The petitioners are asking to amend subsection 3(1) of the Secure Air Travel Act…
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Madam Speaker, I have the benefit of giving a short answer. I have the benefit of having been elected as caucus chair for the members on my side, and I look to them. They are the ones who will decide how long we should present ideas from our constituents to the House so that the government can listen to them, because it has not been listening to them. We heard of one poll on one day. Ruling by pol…
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Madam Speaker, my colleague's constituents are lucky to have him as a representative of Chatham-Kent—Leamington. He is absolutely right. Again, going back to the job numbers in the fall economic statement and the assumptions that are made between the PBO's analysis and the labour force survey, we are far, far behind and we are going to stay behind, because there is nothing in the statement itself …
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Madam Speaker, the member obviously has not read his own fall economic statement. It will take five years before we recover the jobs we lost during this pandemic. There should be some type of award given to the member. The member probably has the most words spoken in the last Parliament and this Parliament too, so if we are going to talk about a member filibustering his own bill, that member deser…
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Madam Speaker, today I am going to ask Canadians whom they trust. Do they trust the current government and its handling of the pandemic, or do they trust the Conservative Party? I hope we will earn their trust in the future and form a government. I have gone through the Parliamentary Budget Officer's review of the fall economic statement, including the contents of the fall economic statement the g…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, the most difficult medication to buy is the one that is not available in Canada. It is the one someone finds out about after going to their doctor and being told that it is in the United States, and if they were an American citizen, they could get access to it. However, since they are a Canadian, they cannot. That is the news that too often happens to patients with rare diseases and t…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to comment on what the hon. member said. I know that in my riding, seniors are telling me that it is not enough to use buzzwords. These buzzwords, written by the government's research bureau it seems, seek to convey that all is well since we have spent nearly $400 billion and we have achieved some significant results. In my riding, I am told that it is not enough to spe…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Drummond for his question. In my opinion, the events that occurred in January south of our border, that is in the United States, or more specifically in the capital, Washington, are the result of a misinformation campaign led by the former president of the United States for nearly two months. According to many conservative American newspapers, there is nothing…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be joining the debate on Bill C-10. There is a Yiddish proverb that says when one sweeps the house, one finds everything. I am not sweeping this House, as I am sure it is the cleanest house in Canada right now. I am sure the staff is doing amazing work. In reading the legislation now before the House, I had to sweep over articles of what the minister and the governme…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, to the minister's point, on November 18, 2020, in a House of Commons speech, he was referring to this legislation and talking about tackling these issues, saying “voluntary self-regulation does not work”, and “several other countries, including Canada, are concerned about misinformation, online hate and web giants' blatant inability to self-regulate.” He went on and on. The two issu…
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Madam Speaker, the support should not come through the social media platforms, because they are spreading good journalism and good stories. I will give the member an example. I think we can all agree that the National Observer is mostly independent media of the centre-left. I am a reader. I am a fan of its journalism and work. I would have never found it if it had not been for a social media platf…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Madam Speaker, these have been hard years for Calgary. Harder still was the past year for aviation workers. After the mergers and downsizing in energy companies, WestJet became our largest corporate headquarters, with 14,000 employees; 5,700 remain today. The job losses in aviation and related fields are in the tens of thousands, with temporary layoffs and furloughs hiding the enormity of the situ…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Madam Speaker, Calgary is home to proud entrepreneurs. Those risk-takers created WestJet, and after the devastation of our energy sector by malicious Liberal policy actions, it became our largest corporate headquarters. Now WestJet has gone from 14,000 workers to 5,700 due to a lack of support from the Liberal government. What is the Liberal government going to do to save and secure aviation and a…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I am tabling two petitions today. The first petition is on behalf of constituents who are calling upon the government to support legislation that would ban the illegal harvesting of organs overseas and make sure that financial transactions done overseas without consent are banned in Canada. The petitioners draw the attention of the House to previous private members' bills that had s…
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Madam Speaker, the second petition I have to present draws the attention of the House and the Government of Canada to the internment and concentration camps in the Xinjiang Region of China of the Muslim Uighur Turkic people. The petitioners are asking the government to formally recognize the genocide and to use the Magnitsky act to punish those who are organizing the genocide of the Turkic Uighur …
Read full speech →Orders of the Day
Mr. Speaker, I oppose the idea of a second chamber until we fix the way debates are done. To have a second chamber where speeches are read and it is a stultified debate, under the standard format we have now, does not help anything. It does not achieve the goals of members debating either the details of legislation being presented by the government or a private member's bill or a motion. I oppose …
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Mr. Speaker, I agree. Often, our opposition supply days get put on a Wednesday as a form of punishment because of wrangling and negotiations among House leaders in this chamber. If, ahead of every session or return to Parliament, specified opposition supply days could be agreed upon at the very beginning, perhaps by standing orders, we could get around this problem. We could then schedule every su…
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Mr. Speaker, I would never say you use some type of list. That would be against the Standing Orders. I do not know how you choose who speaks in the House, but catching your eye is the first difficulty of any member, especially new members who are much closer to you or to your sides. It would be a difficult task. Adopting the United Kingdom's format where the Speaker, at the beginning of the debate…
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Madam Speaker, the member for Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame and I enjoyed a long time on the PROC committee in the last Parliament dealing with one of the government motions. There is a Yiddish proverb that says “Men don't build on strange ground.” I want to critique the member's proposal for a second chamber. Going back to what I said earlier, until we fix debate in this chamber, we should not…
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention. I would like to add that the Legislative Assembly of Alberta was prorogued five times between 2015 and 2019. We are not known for proroguing, but the provincial government does use this tool almost every year, unlike the other jurisdictions in Canada. I would comment that I like what the member is proposing for Fridays. We could extend Friday…
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Madam Speaker, during her first speech the member showed us that if we are speaking from our offices we should always have our hands moving and speak with our hands to set off the motion sensors and keep the lights from going off in our offices. She brought up a lot of really good points and a lot of things that should be considered. She spoke about the culture of Parliament and how we do our busi…
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Mr. Speaker, the member pointed out the practice that has emerged where there are unanimous consent motions after every single question period, just like there are points of order. I wonder if she would perhaps agree to a system where we do what happens during adjournment debates, that we move to the end of question period to stop that practice right now. I get the same amount of angst as many mem…
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Mr. Speaker, as the member said, I do not think this is a partisan issue; it is just ideas being laid before the House for the procedure and House affairs committee to consider. One of the things he said is that the way we vote right now, and I think I am quoting him correctly, is “insane”. What about considering things like moving from having five members stand in order to cause a vote to 12 memb…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-263, An Act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act (equalization). Mr. Speaker, today I am tabling an act to amend the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act with regard to equalization. For short, it is called the equalization and transfers fairness act. This act would do the following: publish publicly all calculations on equalization; pub…
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Mr. Speaker, I am happy to be joining this debate. Just like the previous member, none of what I am about to say is my party's position, because we do not have one here. It is important that backbenchers be heard whether they are in the opposition parties or the government caucus. That is an important part of what we do. I also believe all Standing Order changes should be agreed to unanimously. Th…
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