44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 7, 2024 02:00PM
- Feb/7/24 4:51:48 p.m.
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I declare the motion defeated.
I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, Government Orders will be extended by 89 minutes.
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam, Housing; the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill, Foreign Affairs.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 19th report of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in relation to Bill C-40, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, to make consequential amendments to other Acts and to repeal a regulation (miscarriage of justice reviews).
The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 14th report of the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in relation to Bill C-318, an act to amend the Employment Insurance Act and the Canada Labour Code (adoptive and intended parents). The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in relation to BillC-33, An Act to amend the Customs Act, the Railway Safety Act, the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, 1992, the Marine Transportation Security Act, the Canada Transportation Act and the Canada Marine Act and to make a consequential amendment to another Act. The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.
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Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise once again to present a petition. Whereas employment insurance, maternity and parental benefits provide parents with critical financial support while they care for and bond with a new child, and having a parent at home longer in the critical first year of a child's life or placement within a family better supports healthy attachment and the well-being of a child, adoptive and intended parents are at a disadvantage under the current EI system.
Bill C-318 would deliver equitable access to parental leave for adoptive and intended parents, and the Speaker of the House of Commons has ruled that the passage of Bill C-318 requires a royal recommendation. The undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Government of Canada to support adoptive and intended parents by providing a royal recommendation for Bill C-318, which was just presented in the House.
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Mr. Speaker, members will agree with me that in Kings—Hants, volunteer fire departments have a really important role in our communities. We saw that throughout the last summer, in terms of the roles they played. I stand today to present a petition on behalf of supporters, friends and, ultimately, firefighters from Hantsport, Kings County, Milford and Waterville. They are petitioning the government to support Bill C-310, which proposes increasing the volunteer tax credit from $3,000 to $10,000. It is a private member's bill that I support.
We have seen the impacts across the country that have resulted from forest fires caused by extreme weather. Our volunteer firefighters are extremely important, and I am pleased to present this petition on their behalf today.
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- Feb/7/24 4:57:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present a petition on behalf of constituents.
I rise for the 29th time on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba, to present a petition on the rising rate of crime. The NDP-Liberal government has done nothing while the rural community of Swan River has been terrorized by a wave of crime that never used to exist in this small town in Manitoba, yet the Liberals give the same copy-and-paste statements to the people of Swan River, with no real solution in sight.
Rural communities like Swan River are petitioning the Liberal government for a tough-on-crime approach. They are calling for jail, not bail, for violent repeat offenders, to stop the crime. The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies, which directly threaten their livelihoods and their community.
I support the good people of Swan River.
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Mr. Speaker, you will not be surprised that I am tabling another petition in support of volunteer firefighters and search and rescue personnel from coast to coast to coast.
Over 165 communities have sent in petitions, representing every single party and rural riding in this House. They are calling for the firefighter tax credit to be increased from $3,000 to $10,000. It is the least the government can do to support fire departments and search and rescue, for retention and to show search and rescue and volunteer personnel that they matter and that we value the work they do and the sacrifice made by their communities and their employers to ensure that they can get out and protect people in rural Canada.
I hope that all members of the House will support Bill C-310 and the efforts of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, which has been working very hard to get support for this bill.
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- Feb/7/24 4:59:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today I will be presenting two petitions.
The first is from members of my community who wanted to express their opinions with respect to medical assistance in dying.
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- Feb/7/24 4:59:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from my constituents, who care greatly about the climate crisis. They are supporting the implementation of strong, clean electricity regulations, along with federal funding, affordability measures and complementary policies to support an emissions-free grid.
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- Feb/7/24 5:00:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to present a petition that deals with mental illness and MAID. The petitioners say that mental illness is complex. It can include suicidal thoughts and other symptoms, and people really should be provided treatment and support and not offered MAID.
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- Feb/7/24 5:00:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to table petition e-4576, which was signed by 7,610 people.
The petitioners recognize in the preamble that the Island Corridor Foundation is a non-profit partnership that is governed by 14 first nations and five Island regional districts. They also recognize that the population of Vancouver Island is expected to grow to one million people by 2030 and that expanding the congested highways on Vancouver Island is quite problematic.
Therefore, the petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to work with dedicated resources and with a nation-to-nation approach to reconcile and resolve long-standing first nations concerns with certain sections of the Island corridor. They also want to see the Government of Canada create a $1-billion fund to implement the development of the Island corridor.
They want to see the Island Corridor Foundation as a non-profit partnership that is very much in the public interest, and they want to apply the funding to create a modern freight and passenger service on Vancouver Island to retain and develop the strategic asset that was recognized by the B.C. and federal ministers of transportation and infrastructure on March 14, 2023.
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Mr. Speaker, I am so proud to present a petition signed by a firefighting force within my riding. On the very small island of Piers Island, the fire truck is the only internal combustion engine on the entire island.
The volunteer firefighters of Piers Island have asked me to present this petition in support of the private member's bill by the hon. member for Courtenay—Alberni, which has been spoken to a number of times this afternoon. Volunteer firefighters account for 71% of Canada's total firefighting first responders. Right now, we have a good step in the right direction, which we supported at the time, of a $3,000 tax credit for volunteer firefighters.
Bill C-310 is supported by the petitioners, and it asks that volunteer firefighters and search and rescue volunteer services have that grown from a $3,000 tax credit to a $10,000 tax credit. I am proud to present this petition, and I urge Parliament and the House to get behind it.
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Mr. Speaker, adoptive and intended parents are at a disadvantage under the current EI system here in Canada. All parents are deserving of equal access to parental leave benefits. Bill C-318 would deliver equitable access to parental leave for adoptive and intended parents.
The undersigned citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Government of Canada to support adoptive and intended parents by providing a royal recommendation to Bill C-318.
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- Feb/7/24 5:03:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we all know, Canadians are very passionate and care deeply about health care. However, the backbone of that system, of course, is our health care workers, and this petition is dealing particularly with our nurses at the many different levels.
The petitioners are asking, in essence, to have their valuable contributions recognized, whether it is through enhancement of salary, credentials being recognized, incentives or the type of workload they have to experience. In general, they are looking for governments at all levels, whether it is provincial or federal, to be more proactive in supporting our nurses.
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- Feb/7/24 5:04:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time.
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- Feb/7/24 5:04:33 p.m.
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Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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- Feb/7/24 5:04:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all notices of motions for the production of papers also be allowed to stand.
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- Feb/7/24 5:04:45 p.m.
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Is that agreed?
Some hon. members: Agreed.
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- Feb/7/24 5:04:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to return to the question of privilege that was raised by the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle yesterday regarding who was responsible for inviting Yaroslav Hunka to attend events with the President of Ukraine during his visit to Canada in September 2023. I must say that I agree with the House leader of the official opposition on this issue.
Here are the facts. On the afternoon of Monday, February 5, The Globe and Mail reported that the Prime Minister's Office had invited Yaroslav Hunka, a former soldier of the Ukrainian Waffen-SS who received ovations in the House of Commons during Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit on September 22, 2023, to a reception that was held in honour of the Ukrainian President that evening in Toronto at the Fort York Armoury. The article also stated that the Prime Minister's invitation had in fact been sent by Canada's protocol office four days before the reception.
However, when the Prime Minister was repeatedly asked about it in the House in the week following President Zelenskyy's visit, he blamed the Speaker of the House without taking any responsibility himself. He said on September 27, 2023, that the Speaker was “solely responsible” for inviting and paying tribute to former Nazi soldier Yaroslav Hunka. He said, “we all recognize that the former speaker of the House made a serious mistake.” He also said, “the Speaker of this House of Commons invited an individual without apparently doing that Google search, but it is not up to the government of the day to oversee or to have a veto power over those who the Speaker or, indeed, members of official parties choose to invite into this House.”
The then speaker took full responsibility for this situation and decided to resign from that role. Two weeks ago, in an interview with CTV News Northern Ontario, he explained that it is actually the Prime Minister's Office that approves invitations for major international events organized on Parliament Hill, such as President Zelenskyy's address during his visit to Parliament in September. Let me quote him directly: “Normally, it goes to the Prime Minister's Office, and they go through it with a fine-toothed comb, and then the invitation goes out from protocol.”
According to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, it is appropriate to raise a question of privilege when the House has been misled following statements made in the chamber by one of its members, whether they are a member of Parliament, a minister or the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister's statements on September 27, 2023, seem to meet the three criteria set out in previous rulings by Speakers of the House under similar circumstances.
First, the Prime Minister's statements were misleading, in that they implied that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office did not know Yaroslav Hunka and had nothing to do with inviting him to the House when members of all the opposition parties were attempting to find out exactly what role the PMO or the Prime Minister himself had played in inviting Mr. Hunka during President Zelenskyy's visit. As a matter of fact, acting on behalf of the Prime Minister, the PMO itself had invited the Ukrainian former SS member to a reception that very evening in Toronto.
Second, the Prime Minister must have known that those statements were misleading because he would be hard-pressed to claim that he was not aware that the PMO had extended such an invitation on his behalf.
Third, it seems entirely reasonable to believe that the Prime Minister intended to mislead the House because, at the time he made those statements, since the entire world was focused on the Parliament of Canada, the Prime Minister had every reason to hope that he would not be held responsible and that the blame would fall on someone other than himself.
In his apology on September 27, the Prime Minister described this mistake as a “horrendous violation” of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust and said it was “deeply, deeply painful for Jewish people...Polish people, Roma people, 2SLGBTQI+ people, disabled people, racialized people and the many millions who were targeted by the Nazi genocide.”
This demonstrates how seriously the Prime Minister was taking this matter. Anyone in this situation would have every reason to hope that they would not be associated with this mistake and not be held responsible.
In conclusion, the Bloc Québécois is of the opinion that there is a prima facie breach of parliamentary privilege and that the matter must be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for study.
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