Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I rise to table a petition from Canadians who are concerned that the Liberal-Bloc amendments to Bill C-9 could be used to criminalize passages from the Bible, the Quran, the Torah and other sacred texts. The state has no place in the religious texts or teachings of any faith community. Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are fundamental rights that must be preserved. Therefo…
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Mr. Speaker, under the Prime Minister, food prices have skyrocketed by 7.3%. Canada is now the food inflation capital of the G7. This is a made-in-Canada problem. Seventy per cent of all food is produced domestically. We produce 80% of our processed foods. Conservatives have a food affordability plan to remove hidden Liberal taxes on food, such as the industrial carbon tax on farm equipment, ferti…
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Mr. Speaker, the petition I am tabling has received 245 signatures on behalf of the Kurdish Canadian community to draw attention to an urgent humanitarian and international security matter that directly affects the community. In northern Syria, Kurds, Druze, Alawite and other minority civilians are facing sustained attacks and systematic deprivation. Petitioners respectfully urge the Government of…
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Mr. Speaker, in the last decade, the government has not negotiated a single treaty with the indigenous community. That tells us a lot. There are 70 groups right now negotiating with the government. They are going to continue to negotiate and negotiate, but no one, especially the government, is showing any results. The government is not showing us the truth of what it is doing. Unless we reach that…
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Mr. Speaker, I think the debate here is between delivering results and showing signals that really do not deliver anything to the people. The community wants results. It wants more action. It wants to see that things are progressing properly, and some of the issues the community is facing need to be resolved. That is what the community is looking for. How to approach that, in our opinion as the Co…
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Mr. Speaker, we have a great nation. I think all of us can agree on that. We and those who came before us have worked to build a country that all Canadians can feel proud to be part of, but we are not perfect. We have not always lived up to our ideals as a nation. One area we have fallen short is when it comes to our obligations to our indigenous people. Our nation is a relatively young one. The r…
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Mr. Speaker, what is appointing bureaucrats going to do? There are no results being delivered by the government as far as this file goes. There has been nothing done and no progress made in the last 10 years. What is the point of appointing someone? It is just to add another bureaucracy. I do not think the community is looking for that. The community is looking for action and looking for results, …
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Mr. Speaker, in the system that we have for our democracy, I believe that Parliament should keep the government in line. If we need to add layers and layers to keep the government in place, then what are we doing here? Why are we here? We are here to represent the people and defend their rights, and I think Parliament should have the power to do that, not another new bureaucracy.
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Mr. Speaker, the situation remains fragile for members of Syria’s minority communities. The new government makes promises, but has not yet been able to provide guaranteed security for its citizens. Recent massacres targeting the Druze community around Suweida and the ongoing blockade of Kobani by HTS fighters are especially concerning. After years of civil war, the Kurdish and Druze communities wa…
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Madam Speaker, the country is not doing well. Admitting this is not a bad thing; it is the right thing to do, because then we can at least deal with the problem. I have three questions for the hon. member. The first is, would he admit that the country is not doing well? The second is, will he take responsibility for the last 10 years of damage? The third is with respect to the CUSMA negotiations. …
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Madam Speaker, former prime minister Stephen Harper established a new policy on the tabling and ratification of treaties through a ministerial statement in 2008. That policy remains in place under the current government. Under that policy, treaties are tabled in the House of Commons 21 sitting days before ratification by the minister. Treaties that require changes to domestic law go through an add…
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Mr. Speaker, congratulations to the hon. member for York South—Weston—Etobicoke for sponsoring this bill in the House. What message would he like to give to Canadian society on behalf of the Arab community, which has been in this beautiful country for nearly 160 years?
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Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise to offer my support for Bill S-227, the Arab heritage month act. There are more than a million Canadians of Arab descent. They are found in every province and territory. Each one has a different story of how they or their ancestors came to this country. No matter where they came from originally, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, Morocco, Jordan…
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Mr. Speaker, in A Christmas Carol, Dickens wrote, “Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts”. Under the Liberals, it is millions who are in need. My constituent Enide says,“I can barely afford to eat, a lot of people are in the same situation and feel helpless.” In 2015 the Canadian grocery bill was $159 a week. After a decade of Libera…
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Madam Speaker, we have been hearing the word “investment” for the last 10 years. There has been more debt and more money to service the debt. It seems as if the government does not want to listen to true numbers, whether they are coming from the PBO or coming from us and from others around the country. Unless we accept the reality of the last 10 years, including now, we will still be going in the …
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Madam Speaker, the previous incarnation of the Liberal government was led by a man who believed that budgets somehow magically balance themselves. He clung religiously to that belief, even after 10 years of watching the deficit get bigger and bigger. No wonder he thought Canadians would forgive him if he did not think about fiscal policy. He obviously did not understand that the government deficit…
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Madam Speaker, I have learned in life to compare myself to the people above me and ahead of me, not to the people behind me. The government has given us the same story over and over. It talks about the comparison to whatever, such as the comparison to the debt in so many years. All these numbers do not help Canadians with what they deal with on a daily basis. Millions of Canadians are lining up at…
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Madam Speaker, there is a lot of bad news in the budget. One piece is the $78 billion of extra deficit, with $321 billion for the next five years. At any simple level of understanding, we know this has to be paid somehow by Canadian taxpayers and by future generations. My hon. colleague is correct; the lineups at the food banks are a huge concern. It is something we have not seen in our history. T…
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Madam Speaker, I am presenting this petition, which has 600 signatures, on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners in China. They are suffering severe human rights abuses, including mass arbitrary detentions, torture, killing and forced organ harvesting on a large scale. The petitioners are calling on the Canadian government to publicly call on the Chinese regime to end its persecution of Falun Gong in…
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is the most expensive in Canadian history. The Liberals do not understand that every dollar the Prime Minister spends comes out of the pockets of Canadians, driving up the cost of everything. Year over year, food costs have increased 3.4% under the Liberals. Canadians are forced to go hungry to keep a roof over their heads. The Liberals had a chance to lower foo…
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moved that Bill C-234, An Act respecting the establishment and award of a Living Donor Recognition Medal, be read the second time and referred to a committee. Mr. Speaker, a living donor is someone who donates all or part of an organ to save the life of a fellow Canadian. I am a living donor. On December 8, 2003, I donated part of my liver to save the life of my son Tyler, but I am not alone. Acro…
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Mr. Speaker, I am not aware of any specific awards such as the one I am proposing. April is Organ and Tissue Donation Awareness Month, which was created through the effort of some NGOs in their jobs, trying to bring awareness. I continue to help and to support their initiative; however, I believe we need to do more. We need to recognize and bring awareness to Canadians about how important it is to…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his support. He brought other cases to my attention, and other organizations that are doing some good work. I am adding another chapter to that through the House; I am giving the House, all MPs in all parties, the opportunity to work together with all Canadians. For Canadians who are most in need of organs, the bill would facilitate that, make their lives…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the kind words and for the question. Absolutely, the nature and spirit of the bill is to recognize the heroes we do not even know about in Canada. Working with organizations across the country is very important, and I believe this will be done. My office and I will be reaching out to many more organizations that we know of, and I thank the member for highli…
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Mr. Speaker, it was an impressive speech by my hon. colleague. The budget will mean a $78-billion deficit. This money is going to be borrowed against future generations, to be paid by Canadians for the longest time we can ever imagine. What does the member think of the deficit? Should we go into a $78-billion deficit with a budget?
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Mr. Speaker, the history of business is filled with scandals and scams as companies cooked the books to hide financial disaster. The Lehman Brothers global financial services firm hid more than $50 billion in loans disguised as sales. Bernie Madoff conducted the largest Ponzi scheme in history, defrauding investors of almost $65 billion. Enron, the energy company, kept huge debts off the balance s…
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Mr. Speaker, the government wants to borrow $321 billion over the next four years, borrowing $78 billion in this year alone. That represents $8,000 per Canadian. Where is the prosperity in the budget? Where are the benefits to Canadians in the budget? It would put an additional $8,000 on the shoulders of each and every single Canadian.
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Madam Speaker, if anyone should accept any amendments, it should be the government, not the Conservatives. When it comes to the bill going to committee, it is very important for any bill of this importance to go to committee to be examined by all parties. This is the way we do things. I hope the committee will be able to study this bill well to make sure we can present to Canadians, once and for a…
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Madam Speaker, after a decade of passing laws to make life easier for criminals, the Liberal government has suddenly realized it created a problem. From its rare attempt to face reality, we have Bill C-14, the bail and sentencing reform act. Conservatives have been pointing out for years that the Liberal approach to crime has the opposite effect of what the Liberals intended. Criminals did not rea…
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the hon. member knows well that we need Canadians to be safe, first and foremost. In order for Canadians to be safe, the government cannot be light on criminals, as it has been through Bill C-75 and Bill C-5. I said in my speech that this bill, Bill C-14, is a good start. The Conservatives want it to be stronger. We want criminals to understand they cannot just get a freeb…
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Madam Speaker, we hear a lot in the news everywhere about how many crimes are committed every day, and the majority of them are committed by repeat offenders, people released from prison within 15 days who go out on the streets again and start attacking people. I hear about it in Edmonton every day. Toronto is also a great example.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague had a very thoughtful speech. The last part of his speech was about transparency. The government is bringing forward a huge bill to make a huge change to something that is very important, which is citizenship, without any idea about the number of people who would qualify for that nor what the cost would be. The government is introducing a budget on November 4. Why …
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Madam Speaker, Edmonton's Food Bank is serving more people now than at any time in its 43-year history. Requests for food hampers have gone up 42% in the last 30 months. Food Banks Canada reports record use, with 2.2 million visits in a single month. It took decades to hit one million but only six years under the Liberals to double it to two million. When will the Prime Minister finally give Canad…
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Mr. Speaker, this bill would still allow serious offenders, including those guilty of robbery, trafficking and firearms-related crimes, to serve time at home under house arrest. This is a loophole in the bill. Can the hon. member tell us why the government left this loophole in Bill C-14?
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, it is the oldest trick of the Liberals. Every time we question them about something they do, they turn it into trying to divide Canadians further, calling us names and trying to narrow the conversation to their level of non-transparency. Unfortunately, that is what they have done here. This is what they have been doing all along. We cannot reject the premises of their quest…
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Mr. Speaker, the obvious thing is that this is a government that made a disaster of the immigration policies in Canada. In the last 10 years, it brought in millions of people. It made slavery, a housing crisis, a health crisis and an education crisis. There are crises across the board because of its policies. Now, it has the face to come to Canadians to ask for more citizenships to be granted with…
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Mr. Speaker, the issue of citizenship is one I have heard about on more than one occasion from constituents concerned with how our laws impact their status. It is one about which we as parliamentarians are called upon to make decisions and establish rules that will, by their nature, exclude some people. Canada, like all countries, has regulations surrounding who is automatically granted citizenshi…
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Mr. Speaker, it is very funny and unfortunate that the government asks us to be transparent, but it is not transparent itself. It is bringing forward a bill without giving any information to Canadians. It is as though no accountability and transparency is needed. Before it asks the question of us, it needs to remind itself about what it has done and what it has included in the bill. After that, we…
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Madam Speaker, I did address the issue of legitimate refugee claims, and we know that Roxham Road has been a devastating story for Quebec and for Canadians in general. We definitely have to deal with the serious issue of fake refugee asylum claims being made in order to come to Canada. I agree that we need to work harder on this, and that is why I mentioned the words “legitimate refugees” in my sp…
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Madam Speaker, every time I meet with constituents, the topic of immigration comes up. The government has left a mess by opening the floodgates to get all kinds of people into Canada, millions and millions of them, without even thinking about the economic impact on Canadians, such as there being no schooling or housing available and no health care or social supports. The Liberals have left this me…
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Madam Speaker, I extend my offer of another mirror to this member.
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-12. As a Conservative member of Parliament, I am proud to stand and express my concerns with this legislation. I have heard from my constituents, and they have made it clear to me that the Liberal government is not going far enough to fix the messes it has created at our borders. Conservatives negotiated…
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Madam Speaker, I would like to send the member a mirror today, because he and his government need one. They should look into the mirror to see what their former prime minister did and what he called the RCMP. Other members on his side have asked to defund the police. I am not sure why they did that. Maybe a mirror is needed today.
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Mr. Speaker, what I gather from the member's speech, as far as the seriousness of the government or the military commitment or leadership, is that the rights of those serving in the institution were neglected completely and ignored in terms of what happened in the last 10 years. What in the bill would assure us that we are going to change the conduct of the past to give people the rights they dese…
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of National Defence is new to the job. He inherited a mess from his predecessors and is now trying to fix a decade of Liberal mismanagement and neglect. I hear him saying the right things about Bill C-11. I am sure he believed it when he stated: Canada’s military justice system must reflect the values of fairness, accountability, and respect that Canadians expect. With th…
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Mr. Speaker, I was hoping the hon. member on the government side would at least recognize the 10 years of misconduct, the 10 years of mismanagement and not taking the issues that happened in the military seriously. He used the podium to praise the current government. He missed my point when I spoke about the last 10 years, the last prime minister and what they have done by filibustering at the com…
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Mr. Speaker, obviously, the government has not learned at all after the last 10 years. It is still the same rhetoric, name calling and talking about American politics to somehow convince Canadians otherwise. Liberals have to be serious. They are in government. They have to be serious about these issues and deal with them responsibly. That is what they are not hearing. By the way, I insinuated in m…
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Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is absolutely correct. Canadians have seen complete neglect of the justice system in the way of approaching crime and the way of dealing with it. That is why I was hoping they would stand up today, admit to the mistakes of the past and assure us, and Canadians, that they can move forward seriously and honestly to make sure they correct the wrongdoing.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague is highlighting an important issue. We hear a lot of concerns from Canadians about Bill C-8. She included some of them in her speech. If she could shed light again on those concerns, it would be great.
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Mr. Speaker, obviously the government likes more control over Canadians through Bill C-8. Can the hon. member, through his wonderful and detailed speech, explain to us where the government wants overreach and more control over Canadians?
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