44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 12, 2024 11:00AM
Madam Speaker, the member for Cumberland—Colchester had a couple of factual errors in his speech. The NDP voted against Bill C-7's amendment that brought this in. We supported the member for Abbotsford's bill, Bill C-314, and we support the majority report. We have never been for the expansion; let us put that on the record.
We are at a moment in time this week, with an impending deadline, when we can throw blame at the Liberals, and they are well deserving of it, or we can rise to the occasion and be the adults in the room, given that there are only two sitting weeks left before March 17. Which are the Conservatives going to choose? Are they going to be on the side of getting the bill through the House to the Senate in the correct amount of time?
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- Feb/12/24 1:06:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, clearly we know that the NDP, part of the costly coalition, will continue to not support the needs of Canadians and that it will continue to vote on all things with the reckless Liberal government, which has led Canadians to be, every month, $200 away from insolvency and to have the greatest numbers of auto theft crime in the most recent history. The chance to believe that it might do something right for Canadians is almost zero.
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- Feb/12/24 1:49:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have already answered my colleague's question.
What I told him and I will say it again is that the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying sat for too little time. I would have liked to be able to question the people who wrote that letter to get them to support my position, which is that decisions cannot be forever.
He is telling me that the NDP, which is a progressive party, believes that mental disorders are totally related to our ability to meet demand, when no matter how good the treatment a person receives is, they may still experience a mental disorder that will be irremediable.
Instead of putting it off indefinitely, why not work on it over the next year? That is the Bloc Québécois's position. It is a matter of hearing from those people to see what their arguments are based on, knowing that this cannot be postponed indefinitely.
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- Feb/12/24 2:30:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we thank the NDP leader for his question. We share his concerns about the need to manage taxpayers' money wisely.
The Auditor General identified circumstances that were entirely inappropriate. That is why the Canada Border Services Agency and the Department of Public Services and Procurement have taken the necessary steps to ensure that this type of situation never happens again.
We will always remain focused on managing Canadians' money properly.
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- Feb/12/24 2:31:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's arrive scam app was supposed to cost taxpayers $80,000, but it was confirmed by the Auditor General that it in fact cost more than $60 million. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, we know that he is not worth the cost. He is definitely not worth the corruption.
This process was so corrupt that his favourite company of two guys in a basement, GC Strategies, got to write the contract for themselves, to the exclusion of everybody else. We know they did no IT work, and that has been confirmed, but they got $20 million for their trouble.
Will the Prime Minister just admit that he is lining the pockets of insiders at the expense of Canadians?
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- Feb/12/24 2:58:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier today we learned that the Prime Minister's arrive scam app was not worth the cost or the corruption. The Auditor General found a glaring disregard for management practices. The process was rigged from the beginning, which appears to be business as usual. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, taxpayers are paying a high price for Liberal insiders, and Canadians want answers.
Will the NDP-Liberal coalition come clean with Canadians or continue the cover-up?
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Mr. Speaker, it is such an honour to rise today to talk about Bill C-29. I want to let the House know that the NDP wants the bill to pass. I am always very honoured to work with my good colleague, the member for Nunavut. She has put a lot of effort in to amend the legislation to make it much stronger.
If we want to reconcile in this country, we must focus on children and families. I say that because I want to go back to why we have to have these discussions in the House to begin with; it is for the country to try to reconcile, as was affirmed in the Haida Nation case, the sovereignty of indigenous people with the assumed sovereignty of the Crown. I share that because it was an assumed sovereignty that began a violent genocide of indigenous people in Canada, which began with the dispossession of lands and led to the dispossession and kidnapping of our children and taking them off to resident schools, where they experienced all kinds of abuses.
It is important to note that, as we sit here in the House debating the bill before us, there are more kids now in the child welfare system than there were at the height of residential schools. We will not reconcile in this country until all governments make a concerted effort to bring our kids home. However, I worked on the legislation in committee making amendments, and that does not happen in real time, even though in the last session the Liberal government passed Bill C-15.
I would like to read article 5 of Bill C-15, under the title “Consistency”. It says, “The Government of Canada must, in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples, take all measures necessary to ensure that the laws of Canada are consistent with the Declaration.” I share that because at every turn on matters impacting children, the Liberal government continues to not support the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous people to make decisions about our own children. I will give an example: The national child care strategy, until the NDP amendment, did not support the inclusion of honouring the free, prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples to make decisions on matters impacting our children.
Why is this significant? First, it is because the government is now obliged to ensure that all legislation is compatible with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Second, it is because one of the most serious violations that has reverberated in our communities and has had lasting impacts is when they robbed us of our children and shipped them off to residential schools. I have said in speeches before that, as a mother, I cannot even imagine the pain that reverberated in our communities when those communities fell silent each September when they stole our children, many of whom never returned home.
I share that because every day, even now, there is a growing movement of residential school denialism, where survivors and descendants have to confirm the fact that genocide did occur in residential schools and that many of our children did not in fact return home but are buried around schools around the country. What school needs a graveyard? What school is built with a graveyard attached?
There was nothing about the residential schools that was about education. I say that because although the government talks a good game of reconciliation, and although it passed Bill C-15 in the last Parliament, it is one thing to pass a bill but another thing to change colonial behaviour, a tradition of colonial violence in this place. That includes something I had to experience today, having the member for Winnipeg North lecture me about the dark cloud I place on this place when I talk about the ongoing genocide of indigenous women and girls, and when I complain about the fact that the government has not moved fast enough around the crisis of murdered and missing indigenous women and girls.
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Mr. Speaker, as my colleague rightly pointed out, I very proudly get to represent a majority of Canada's energy industry, in the Fort McMurray—Cold Lake riding in the oil sands.
It is really interesting that, last week, the member for Timmins—James Bay brought forward a piece of legislation, a private member's bill, Bill C-372, that would make it illegal for people to talk positively about fossil fuels. Just today in the National Post, there was an op-ed by Stephen Buffalo, who is the CEO of the Indian Resource Council and also a member of the Samson Cree Nation. He is a really wonderful man. He stated, “In other words, it would make it illegal for anyone with a connection to the fossil fuel industry, including First Nations involved in oil and gas development, to discuss the benefits this will bring to Indigenous communities.”
It is a pretty sad state of affairs that the NDP thinks that is the way toward reconciliation with first nations.
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- Feb/12/24 7:23:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, on this side of the House we want to axe the tax. It seems across the way their priorities are to distract and to axe the facts, so let us insert some facts back into this discussion.
As we seek to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, let us be clear that the NDP-Liberal carbon tax is a failed experiment. The government has spent eight years talking about it and about how raising taxes is going to save the planet. It has not worked. The government has not met any of its environmental targets. The environment minister might be planning on climbing on a roof somewhere again because the government has not achieved the results it promised. It was an experiment, one of trying to force people to pay more to see whether that would fix the environmental problems we have. Clearly, it has failed.
Let us axe the tax instead of taking the government's approach of axing the facts.
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