44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 18, 2024 11:00AM
- Mar/18/24 12:31:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on October 7, Hamas murdered, raped and tortured thousands. It murdered thousands of people. This motion does not hold Hamas accountable in any way. It does not call for the surrender of Hamas, or for the putting down of its arms or even for the return of those hostages in any meaningful way.
Why is the member rewarding Hamas terrorists for their October 7 massacre in the House of Commons? She should be ashamed of herself.
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- Mar/18/24 1:21:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, despite the many positions of the Government of Canada, the motion is not about a ceasefire; the motion is about rewarding Hamas for its massacre. The motion is about a vote to reward the murder, rape and kidnapping of Israelis, and the motion is deeply irresponsible for Parliament.
It is hard to explain and express the complex feelings of shock, fear and anger felt by thousands across the country who are being subjected to the motion today. It would have been enough if they were shocked by the public displays of blatant anti-Semitism in our streets, driven entirely by the irresponsible rhetoric in the House. It would have been enough if they were fearful for what lies ahead in Canada. It would have been enough if they were only angry and betrayed by the government's duplicitous attempt to be all things to all people, like we just heard.
However, today the blind sellout to the forces of evil at home and abroad is what should be a wake-up call like no other to every freedom-loving Canadian who has built any piece of this country and who enjoys everything that those before us built for us.
The motion would be a ceasefire motion if it called for Hamas to lay down its arms, to surrender and to immediately return every single hostage, to bring them home. It is not that.
In the face of some of the world's most vile anti-Semitism, and in the wake of the deadliest day for the Jews since the Holocaust, the Liberal government and the Prime Minister held captive by its NDP overlords are giving in to terror. The motion before us is only the latest example of that. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched an unprovoked and unjustified attack on innocent civilians in Israel, where hundreds of men and women, young and old, were raped, murdered, tortured and taken hostage. More than 100 of those hostages are still being held captive.
The motion is not only an abandonment of the ongoing fight to bring those hostages home; it is also an abandonment of our ally in Israel. More than that, it is a blind giveaway to Hamas terrorists and those who seek to undermine democracy, freedom and the rule of law in the Middle East and in the western world. It is an insult to everyone who lost a family member in the attack and to anyone who witnesses a nation, an ally, paralyzed by forces so barbaric, so evil, that discussing the motion today flies in the face of civilization and the future of a Palestinian people free of Hamas. There is a reason that Canada has a long-standing policy of not negotiating with terrorists. It is that it rewards barbarism, and worse that it provides an incentive for that barbarism to continue and even escalate.
I want members of the chamber to think long and hard about what many concessions in the motion mean for peace. In the short term they mean that Hamas would remain intact. They mean that no more members of Hamas would be brought to justice. They mean that no more hostages would likely be brought home. In the long run they mean that Hamas would be rewarded for its decision to attack a democratic nation.
They mean that our lost decade of foreign policy in this country would be culminated by a recognition of a state ruled by terror instead of what was once a long-established consensus of Canadian foreign policy by Liberal governments before this one that says that there should be a negotiated solution among parties. The Government of Canada supports parties that want to see a future of two states living side by side in peace and security in a negotiated settlement.
It is shocking and shameful that elected representatives here in this place would support such a dead giveaway to a group literally defined as terrorists by Canadian law. Imagine a future for the Palestinian people free of Hamas. We do not have to imagine it; we see it in the success of peaceful gulf states whose raison d'être is not the annihilation of the other or a perverse nihilism of their own people.
We should not be surprised, however. After eight years of the Prime Minister and his Liberal government, our nation has abandoned almost every principle that we used to be known for on the world stage. It is the Liberal government that called the Taliban our brothers and sisters, that frolicked with African dictators to try to buy a seat on the UN Security Council, that fails the basic task of listing the IRGC as terrorists and banning from this country those who are known backers of these atrocities and who intimidate our own citizens as sport, and that is now taking the side of a literal terrorist organization best known for killing babies in ovens and starving their own citizens in Gaza for more than a generation.
Yes, peace is needed in the Middle East. Yes, we all want to see an end to violence and to see aid reach those who are absolutely in need of it. Yes, we want to find a long-term solution that helps both innocent Israelis and innocent Palestinians live in peace and security. Yes, Hamas is responsible for all of the carnage that sets these goals back. However, there is a way to do that without sacrificing our principles, and there is a way to do it that is not a dead giveaway to a murderous, barbaric, inhumane terrorist group.
The motion is not that way. It advances the same kind of foreign policy that sees our foreign minister and the member of Parliament for York Centre caress the hand of a dictator in the 19th year of his four-year term, a terrorist who denies the Holocaust, who denies what took place on October 7, 2023, and who set up the martyrs fund that rewards families of terrorists who killed Jews, including, in some cases, family members in that member's riding. There is no other word than “shameful” for that.
Today she will have a free vote on the motion, and we will all be watching. We will see whether she puts her community first or whether she is just a sellout to the Prime Minister and the radical mob once again, as this is not about foreign policy but about the heartless ploy to placate the domestic audience by a government that has lost its way.
I am not afraid for my community to see the tragic support of a deeply illiberal government stand against it, but I am afraid for our country; for our reputation abroad; and, most of all, for the values that this country is formed upon, the values of order, of democracy, of justice and freedom; and of the precedent that is being set here today with the motion. It would set in place a casual, gradual erosion and a disregard of the very beliefs that make this country special, sending a signal that we support a noisy few over a silent many, lawlessness over principle and what is convenient over what is right.
The government is playing a dangerous game of moral equivalency, pitting one group against another. It misrepresents the truth about support for funding for organizations like UNRWA, in fact for the organization UNRWA. The government promised a month ago that it would cut off the flow of taxpayer dollars to an agency whose members actively participated on October 7, 2023. It is rewarding rapists.
It is yet another empty and broken pledge made in a blatantly transactional manner for domestic politics, one that never saw the funding stop. The government advanced payments instead and upped the amount. These payments are not going to bankrupt our country in a fiscal sense but in a moral sense. The price of abandoning our values, our allies and reason is the true cost of these payments. That is the true cost of the Prime Minister's moral indifference, and that would be the true cost of the motion before us.
It is not too late. We can begin by voting the motion down. We can begin by voting down the Hamas giveaway. We can continue by voting out the immoral, immature Liberal government, and we can finish by putting in place a principled, common-sense Conservative government that will never support this motion, not now and not ever. Hamas is watching the House. Our allies are watching the House. Canadians are watching the House. Our allies and all Canadians will see that there are members on this side who stand in their fight for democracy, who stand in their fight for the west and who stand in their fight for justice.
I will leave colleagues with these words. There are going to be many politicians who make a choice today. Ours will be the right one. I can only hope that members, all members on the other side, make the right one too. When they do not, those who sit with them will have to account for their own choices.
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- Mar/18/24 1:32:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my implication that the government is off track is not an implication; it's just the truth.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs stood here and gave Canadians every position. No matter what the position was, she tried to placate every single group with what it wanted to hear. That is exactly what the government is doing on this issue and so many more. It sends one group of MPs into one community to say one thing and another group of MPs into another community to say another thing.
It has no position on this. It has no moral clarity on this and now everybody at home gets to see it.
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- Mar/18/24 1:33:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Conservatives support the long-standing Canadian foreign policy position of a negotiated solution. This motion does not do this. It puts forward a moral equivalency of terrorists and innocent civilians, and that is exactly what we have called out. We will call it out at every single opportunity, and I will not be shamed for that by any member of the House who is going to vote in favour of this motion.
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- Mar/18/24 1:34:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate the member hears that. Here is what Conservatives do support: a two-state solution negotiated by both parties in a negotiated settlement. What we do not support is the House calling for the recognition of a state that is governed today by Hamas terrorists, by an organization that we have called, in law, terrorist and banned from this country. This motion rewards terrorism. It would never be on the table if October 7 did not happen.
I want the member to tell that to the families of the hostages, the families of the victims who are still being held hostage in Gaza today. I want her to say that to them, if she would even bother meeting them, if any member of the NDP would even bother meeting with those families.
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- Mar/18/24 2:33:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, food bank usage in Toronto is up 500%. Now Liberals want to hike the carbon tax on gas, groceries and home heating by 23% on their way to quadrupling the tax over the next six years. What a cruel April Fool's Day joke.
According to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the average Ontario family will pay $1,674 of carbon tax. Where does the Prime Minister think they are going to get that kind of money?
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- Mar/18/24 2:34:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they have already done that, and we are going to cut the taxes.
If we give back $1,000 to an Ontario family but take $1,674, Liberal math says that is more, but real math says that is less. The Prime Minister does not get it. He is not worth the cost, especially for the 300,000 Torontonians who ate at a food bank just last February.
The Liberals are about to hike taxes by 23% in less than two weeks. Why is the minister the only person in Canada who thinks that raising taxes will lower the cost of food?
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- Mar/18/24 4:51:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is very clear that the leader of the NDP is passionate about the issue. It is also very clear that the government has taken all of the positions and has not stated in the House whether it supports the motion.
I would ask the leader of the NDP this: If the government does not support the motion, is he willing to, right here, right now, declare that his confidence agreement with the government is over today? I would like just a yes or no answer from the member.
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