44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 6, 2022 11:00AM
- Jun/6/22 2:43:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today marks the one-year anniversary of a deadly attack on a Muslim family in London. Four members of the Afzaal family were deliberately hit and killed by a truck during an innocent evening walk. A spokesperson for the family rightly criticized the federal government for its lack of action and hollow promises to prevent similar attacks in the future.
This is a serious offence. Will the Prime Minister ensure that this murderer receives a serious sentence?
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Mr. Speaker, those are more words and no action.
Contrary to the government's claim, Bill C-21 is not about getting tough on crime and it is not targeted at the gang members who are shooting up our streets. On the one hand, the Liberals try to increase the maximum penalty, yet they push eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for a number of serious gun crimes under Bill C-5. Also, let us not forget that last year they voted down the Conservatives' bill that proposed making the punishment harder for criminals using smuggled guns. It is shameful.
When will the Prime Minister put the rights of victims first and commit to ending his soft-on-crime agenda?
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- Jun/6/22 3:27:30 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, the residents of my riding and many across the country are rightly concerned about the dangers that Bill C-5 would cause to our communities. As we know, the bill would eliminate a number of mandatory minimum penalties for significant, serious, violent gun offences and drug offences. It would also eliminate mandatory minimums for dangerous fentanyl dealers. Canadians are afraid that those who commit criminal harassment, sex assault, kidnapping and human trafficking will be under house arrest instead of traditional jail time, meaning they will be back in our neighbourhoods.
Sharing their concerns, I am presenting a petition that calls on the government to immediately withdraw Bill C-5 and stop favouring criminals at the expense of law-abiding Canadians.
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- Jun/6/22 6:48:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to be one of the members of Parliament who, along with four Senators, are working on the Special Joint Committee on the Declaration of Emergency. This committee is one of very few that requires all its members and staff to take an oath of secrecy in order to allow them to work with sensitive information and secret documents.
After a couple of meetings, the media started reporting that the Liberal government will nor reveal what information led it to use the Emergencies Act to end the protests this winter, citing cabinet confidentiality in its response to legal challenges. After discussing this issue during the committee meetings, it became obvious that the Liberal members of the committee were not prepared to permit the release of any government documents either.
My Conservative colleague, the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, moved a motion that asked to throw light on the security assessments and legal opinions the government relied on when deciding to invoke the Emergencies Act for the first time in Canadian history. Members think that sounds reasonable, right? A committee that has to get to the bottom of the decision chain and find out why the Emergencies Act was invoked and how its powers were used has the right to review all the documents that the government possesses. This is how a democracy works. Unfortunately, not in this country under the rule of the Prime Minister. Most of the witnesses who appeared before our committee did not want to answer our relevant and reasonable questions. They hid behind lawyer-client privilege and cabinet confidentiality.
When I brought this issue to the House of Commons chamber and asked the Minister of Emergency Preparedness what the Prime Minister was hiding this time from Canadians, he repeated the same mantra, “there is certain information, such as lawyer-client privilege, which is respected and well established in the law in this country.” Who is the client here?
My constituents email and call my office daily. They share their concerns related to the study of the declaration of emergency committee. The Prime Minister, who promised to run the government open by default, must respect the public will and produce the documents that led him to believe that our police forces were not able to handle the situation without the invocation of the act. The PM and his government have been weakened by the changing narratives.
To date, the RCMP commissioner, OPP commissioner, and the interim and former Ottawa police chiefs have confirmed that they have never asked the government to invoke the act. The mayor of Gatineau also confirmed that neither she nor the Gatineau police requested the use of the act. These statements directly contradict the statements made by the government, which continues to justify the use of overreaching powers.
Ultimately, the question to put to the government is as follows: Now that we have a study that will prove how misinformed the public was by the government when the Prime Minister decided to use the act for his political benefit, what is the government hiding?
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- Jun/6/22 6:56:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, listening to my friend, his comments are completely off topic, which is par for the course for him. To take a page from the Liberal government that it ought not to take any lessons from the Conservative members who challenge the Liberal government on a daily basis in question period, perhaps he should listen to his own rhetoric. The bottom line is, if he has nothing to hide, why are Liberals consistently doing things to conceal documents that are relevant to this particular study?
Let us look at the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Let us look at the WE scandal or the Winnipeg labs scandal, where they actually had to sue the Speaker of the House. This is the pattern of the government. It is not about accountability. We want to get to the truth. Canadians want to get to the truth.
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