Orders of the Day
Madam Speaker, I have a two-part question for the member for Perth—Wellington. In the Auditor General's report, she noted that one in six projects that were approved by the board for the slush fund monies were completely ineligible for any of the funding. Projects had nothing to do with green technology but only enriching Liberal cronies. For the first part, would he comment on that issue? I think…
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the same question as the member before me. He mentioned that close to $400 million was taken out of taxpayers' pockets and given to Liberal cronies. What could taxpayers have seen the Conservatives do with nearly $400 million, their money, today?
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to table today. My first petition is one I have presented before. It is about the green Calgary Co-op compostable bags that the federal government has ruled are not a compostable product. In fact, they are. The City of Calgary in this petition is again drawing the attention of the House of Commons to the fact that the bags are fully recyclable and compostable wi…
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Madam Speaker, my second petition today is about the Falun Gong Canadians who are in Canada, who continue to be persecuted by the CCP. The petitioners are drawing the attention of the House to the work of the late Canadian lawyer David Matas and a former Canadian secretary of state for Asia-Pacific, the late and great David Kilgour, who conducted an investigation in 2006. They concluded that the C…
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Mr. Speaker, during the last few weeks of this debate, the government has paralyzed the House of Commons, which is unable to continue with the work of reviewing private members' bills, motions and legislation here on the floor. In the past, all opposition parties were always united in opposing government corruption, especially Liberal government corruption, which we have seen over the past many de…
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Mr. Speaker, that is rich coming from the minister, who called 24 Liberal MPs “garbage” because they are looking after their own careers and are worried they are not going to be here after the next election because their constituents are going to send them to the unemployment line. The Prime Minister is reckless, and he even said himself that he did not get it right. He said it during his own pres…
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Madam Speaker, I am different from the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, although we are the ones who are usually making a quip to the Speaker. I wanted to ask the member about a common argument being made by Liberal members of Parliament that it is unwise to hand over the documents to the law clerk. Multiple departments continue to refuse to do so, or are redacting the documents they give to the la…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up, time is up and now even excuses are up. The Prime Minister now admits that he destroyed Canada's immigration system and the 150-year immigration consensus. He cannot fix what he broke. He cannot fix immigration. He cannot fix housing or anything else right now because he is fighting his own caucus…
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Madam Speaker, I do not know Annette Verschuren. She has definitely never donated to me. I know every single one of my donors. I would hope that the New Democrats stay on course with us. I think that this is the one part where the opposition parties agree: that we are not here to defend Liberal corruption. That is the one thing on which, through the decades, all opposition parties have agreed, tha…
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Madam Speaker, I hope it never comes to having to do a filibuster at any committee, particularly at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. As I jokingly say with colleagues, “filibuster” is my favourite F-word in this place. I have been at PROC as a regular member and as a substitute member. I have testified before PROC as well. I hope it does not come to that, because in this part…
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Madam Speaker, I am glad the member is here. We share an alma mater, Concordia University, though I think there was quite some time between our graduation years. It took me a long time to finish my bachelor's degree, I will jokingly say. In this particular case, there is an easy way for it to end and get to committee. As I mentioned twice during my intervention, the member can go to any member of …
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Madam Speaker, I would say it is the latter. The government simply refuses to listen to the House, even though a majority of members voted to have these documents handed over to the House and then forwarded to the RCMP. It is simple. Even the Speaker ruled that the government was in the wrong when it failed to provide all the documents. We have seen this all before. It is nothing new for this gove…
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Madam Speaker, it is simple: I do not care who someone donates to. If they steal from Canadian taxpayers, they deserve to be in front of a court, and the judges can decide.
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Mr. Speaker, I remember a time in the country when there was something called the sponsorship scandal, which really rocked the political world. That was the event that made me a Conservative. It was a seminal event for a lot of young Conservatives. At the time, all opposition parties were united to ensure that we could fend off this massive corruption scandal coming from the Liberal Party of Canad…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to remind the member that he says that these organizations are so independent, but it was the current government that invoked the Emergencies Act and that ordered police forces across Canada what to do and how to do it, removing the role of justices in issuing search warrants and warrants of any type. That is what the Emergencies Act did. The Liberals did that. With res…
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Madam Speaker, it is a delight to see you in the chair. I was hoping you would be the chair occupant during my intervention on this issue because you and I share something in common. In my formative years, I went to school on the south shore of Montreal and grew up in Brossard. You are the member for that region and you will know my elementary school, Harold Napper. Many people went there, includi…
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Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is now up. The Liberal minister from Edmonton claimed he had no contact with his business partner during an alleged half-a-million-dollar fraud linked to the other Randy, but phone records and text messages now show the complete opposite. It seems the minister made a habit of bending the r…
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Madam Speaker, after nine years of these NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. Two years ago, the NDP leader sold out workers and signed a costly coalition deal with the Liberal Prime Minister. That deal hiked taxes, ballooned food costs, doubled housing prices and unleashed crime and chaos on our once-safe streets. Will the Prime Minister finally call a carbon tax …
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Madam Speaker, it is just too bad that, for this Prime Minister, the only buddy he cares about is the one he has in the NDP and its leader, who voted 24 times to hike the carbon tax. Over the summer, while door-knocking from Calgary to British Columbia to Ontario, everywhere I went, I clearly heard the same thing: Canadians are fed up with the skyrocketing cost of food, gas and housing. From food …
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Madam Speaker, the next petition, e-4937, has over 15,000 petitioners, who note the following for the government. The permanent residence pathway for Hong Kong residents took effect on June 1, 2021, and expires on August 31, 2026. The petition draws the attention of the House to the fact that more than 8,000 Hong Kong citizens are in Canada and are awaiting PR processing as of April 2024. The targ…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, it is always a great privilege to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the residents of Calgary Shepard. Over the past two years, constituents have written to me on multiple occasions, both for and against a universal basic income, and specifically on the legislation before us as well as what I will call its partner legislation, which is in the Senate. It is very confusing when t…
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Madam Speaker, I have four petitions to table today. My first petition relates to one of my favourite issues. The Calgary Co-op is unable to use plastic compostable bags. The petitioners want to draw the attention of the Government of Canada to the following points. The Calgary Co-op has successfully kept over 100 million plastic bags out of landfills with the use of its compostable shopping bags.…
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Madam Speaker, my third petition is on medical assistance in dying. There is now a delay on this but not a complete ban. The petitioners are asking for Parliament to reconsider it as a priority issue and to ensure that there are supports for people with mental health illnesses for everyone in Canada. They are calling on the Government of Canada to definitively stop the expansion of medical assista…
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Madam Speaker, this final petition is signed by petitioners I met at their doors. The petitioners are calling on the House of Commons to have a vote of non-confidence and a federal election within 45 days of that successful vote.
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Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to table today. The first petition is from constituents of mine; they signed it during the Auburn Bay Stampede breakfast. It is about the Auburn Bay Calgary Co-op. It is specifically about the single-use plastics ban introduced by the government in December 2023. In Calgary, we have a compostable green bag that is only used by the Calgary Co-op. These are the fact…
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Mr. Speaker, my next petition is from constituents of mine. While I was door knocking, this was being filled out, and they asked for the following: They would like the House of Commons to call for a vote of non-confidence and for a federal election 45 days after that successful vote.
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I want to remind the member that when the original first-generation limit was introduced in Canada in Bill C-37, all parties, including the Liberal Party of Canada, the NDP, the Bloc and the Conservatives, unanimously voted twice on it, on February 7, 2008, and February 15, 2008. Australia, the United Kingdom and America all have similar types of legislation that offer a first-gener…
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Mr. Speaker, I just want to make sure the member understands the 1977 Citizenship Act was amended in 2009. Actually, those portions would not be amended here; that was done way before. In 2009, Bill C-37 introduced the first-generation limits. It was supported by all parties. It was supported twice by the Liberal Party of Canada, by the NDP and by the Bloc, and yes, it was a Conservative bill. It …
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask a question about numbers, but I just want to preface by saying to the member that Bill C-37, when it was passed in 2009 and introduced the first-generation limit, was actually supported by all parties in the House twice, on February 8 and on February 15, with unanimous consent votes. With respect to numbers, I looked at Statistics Canada, and in 2016, a study done by…
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Madam Speaker, I hear the member for Waterloo heckling me, as she did yesterday. I had asked the minister a question earlier in the debate, and I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary: How many persons who are abroad currently would be eligible for the provisions in Bill C-71?
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Madam Speaker, sometimes it is hard to notice. Standing Order 16 was a great standing order when it was suspended temporarily, so we could sit at any place and actually speak. That way, we could represent our constituents from anywhere in here. I think benches were a great solution. The member for Calgary Centre heard, as I did during the debate on a previous private member's bill that dealt with …
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Madam Speaker, I have two petitions to table quickly today. The first petition is from constituents whom I heard from over the summer. They are very concerned with the fact that the medical assistance in dying regime has not been banned entirely for those with mental health conditions. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to stop the expansion of medical assistance in dying to t…
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Madam Speaker, the second petition is from my constituents who, over the summer, made this very clear to me. The petitioners are asking for the House of Commons to call for non-confidence in the government and call for an election within the next 45 days.
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Madam Speaker, the previous member who spoke, the member for London West, made a point, so I want to make a point to the parliamentary secretary. I want to just congratulate him on the multi-meeting filibuster he conducted on the draft report on Afghanistan. He was able to make it last from May well into September, and it ended only yesterday. He did quite the job on it. It is unusual to have a dr…
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Madam Speaker, the Liberals seem to be implying that there is a rush to get this legislation passed. The ruling by the judge was at the end of December, and the government took until May 23 to table the bill. There were 19 sitting days before the June break and this bill never came up. In fact, we are only on the second day of debate. I would like to hear from the member why there is a sudden need…
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With regard to visas for international students in Canada: how many international students (i) are currently studying in Canada, (ii) are studying at institutions accredited by Universities Canada, (iii) are studying at institutions that are members of the National Association of Career Colleges, (iv) have transferred institutions within Canada during their period of study, (v) are in a K-12 progr…
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Madam Speaker, coming back from the summer recess, I was hoping the minister would not start by being so partisan on the bill before us. I want to remind the minister, because he mentioned it several times, about the Harper government. In the session of Parliament on February 7, 2008, the Liberal Party voted for the first generation limit and then proceeded to vote again for it at third reading. T…
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to be the first member of the official opposition to rise for Bill C-71. After hearing the minister speak, it tells me that he came here unprepared to deal with the substance of the legislation that he himself tabled in this House. First of all, I will debunk a bunch of things that were said that are incorrect. They are not true. If we look at the record, as I said in my q…
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Madam Speaker, if this bill goes to committee, would the member be willing to support a Conservative amendment that would require a criminal record check for everyone who applies for citizenship by descent?
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Madam Speaker, forgive me for the error of reading the Prime Minister's name into the record. Thank you for reproaching me for doing so. I see that I have about six minutes left to address the backlog of applications at the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. We always forget that it is the Department of Citizenship and Immigration. These are two matters we are dealing with at the same time…
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Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to hear the NDP complain about committee work because they always want to send things to committee. I want to do the work at committee, and when it is presented to me, I do it. We proposed well over 49 amendments. I am looking at them because I have them with me. Ten times, we voted with the Liberals in support of their amendments that we agreed with, so we …
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Madam Speaker, I am being heckled again.
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With regard to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada's Humanitarian and Compassionate immigration category, in 2023: (a) what is the total amount of applications under this category that (i) have been submitted, (ii) have been accepted, (iii) have been rejected, (iv) have been withdrawn, (v) are still waiting to be processed; (b) what is the total number of individual names and the total nu…
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Madam Speaker, to continue what I was saying, when we had Bill C-37, the first-generation limit was introduced, and the Liberal Party of Canada voted in favour of those changes, twice. The Liberals cannot now claim that it is a charter violation and that they have changed their minds. They supported it then for the reasons they had, and I do not know exactly what those were, but they did, twice, s…
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Madam Speaker, it is interesting that this is the first day back, and I think I have been heckled more as a member today than I have, probably, in the entire last session. I am not a member who does the heckling. I hope you will agree. I try to restrain myself. I am not always perfect. I have a member next to me who sometimes does the same. With respect to the committee work and the amendments, we…
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Madam Speaker, the member is heckling me now. If she would allow me, I will give a thoughtful answer, as best I can. Her own party voted for this legislation twice, back when it was Bill C-37, the first-generation limit—
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Madam Speaker, to the point I think the member was making, nobody would lose their citizenship through Bill C-71. There is no new person who would lose their citizenship.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my Bloc Québécois colleague. We work together on the committee as much as we can. Sometimes we are on opposite sides, but I do not make it personal when we have differences of opinion or political differences. It happens. We are in different parties. People in our ridings voted for us because we belong to different parties. The problem is that the last time we …
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Madam Speaker, the member well knows, as the parliamentary secretary on the government side, who speaks often in the House, that we will only use it with respect to justice bills. This is not a justice bill; this is the Citizenship Act. I want to remind the member, because again he implied or basically said that there is a taking away of rights here, that the Liberal Party of Canada, on February 7…
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With regard to Immigration and Refugee Board hearings on refugee claims, in 2023: (a) for accepted written hearings, (i) what is the total number of persons on all applications, (ii) what is the amount of applications that had one person's name attached, (iii) what is the amount of applications that had more than one person's name attached, (iv) what is the amount of applications that had a marita…
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