- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $135,225.85
- Government Page
- Nov/7/23 11:19:04 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House again to keep the pressure on our common-sense Conservative plan. Sadly, yesterday, the Liberals rejected fairness for all Canadians in our Conservative motion to take the tax off so Canadians could keep the heat on. I am honoured to be sharing my time today with the hon. member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition.
There is one party in the House of Commons that is fighting every single day to lower taxes for all Canadians. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal government, Canadians are hurting badly in every part of this country, whether it is housing, where housing costs have doubled, whether it is inflation that is hitting the pocketbooks of every family in Canada, or whether it is food inflation that is still stubbornly way too high, with an average family in this country paying $1,000 more this year on their grocery bills than they did just last year alone.
After eight years, it is time to stop taxing every part of this country and instead provide some much-needed relief. Heating a home in this country, our cold Canada that we live in, is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Again, the problem we hear over and over again in every single part of this country is that Canadians are struggling to pay the bills. They are having to choose between heating and eating. It is heartbreaking, and we continue to see an NDP-Liberal coalition vote, time and time again, to make matters worse.
What we have here now, and why I think this debate has exploded in the last couple of weeks, is Conservatives talking about axing the tax entirely, not just on home heating but the carbon tax entirely. It is not an environmental plan. It is a tax plan.
Breaking news this morning, the independent environment commissioner and the Office of the Auditor General, and the work that they do on the audits, confirmed once again that the carbon tax is a tax plan, not an environmental plan. The government is not even going to meet the very targets it is claiming a carbon tax would solve. It is failing by every measure possible.
What has really amplified this conversation and provided an opportunity for our Conservative motion that was sadly defeated yesterday and the one from the NDP today is the Prime Minister's desperation. He made a desperate, last-minute, panicked announcement a floor above here. He scrambled on a Thursday afternoon when his itinerary was updated and grabbed all of his Atlantic caucus members, because they were in full revolt as a caucus. They were hearing what the Leader of the Opposition was doing in Nova Scotia, in a long-time Liberal riding, where an electric rally of 1,000-plus people in the riding of Kings—Hants was about to get under way.
Atlantic Canadian MPs panicked and basically forced the Prime Minister to carve out a deal for 3% of Canadians. What the Prime Minister announced has backfired. The NDP and Liberal MPs and their costly coalition know it. What the Prime Minister is doing is what he does best, and that is not leading, it is dividing. He is pitting one region against the other. He is only carving out certain exemptions for certain types of home heating that impact certain parts of the country. If the Prime Minister was not divisive enough in that announcement and in how hasty it was, it was the Liberal rural economic development minister from Newfoundland who came out and said that if other regions wanted to get the benefit and get some sort of pause from the pain of the carbon tax, they should have voted in more Liberals.
An hon. member: Shameful.
Mr. Eric Duncan: Madam Speaker, shameful is absolutely right. Tone-deaf and out of touch.
In the last few months, I have had the honour and privilege of travelling to many parts of this country, including Atlantic Canada, to hear about the pain the carbon tax is causing.
The food bank in Fredericton, New Brunswick, has seen a 35% increase in usage in the last year. We heard in Nova Scotia from the president of the Nova Scotia Community College, who said that they have students who are granted admission and they are calling the school to ask if they can live in their pickup trucks on campus because they cannot afford to live, rent, heat and eat.
We are hearing that, in Newfoundland and Labrador, trucking companies are saying it is adding hundreds of thousands of dollars to their transportation bills to get groceries and reefer trucks from across the country to that province.
We talk about the Prime Minister, the Liberals, the NDP and their budgetary plan that the NDP will prop up and go along with, like they always do. Let us think about northern Ontario. In eastern Ontario, which is my neck of my woods as well as that of the member for Carleton, the leader of our party, they deserve that same pause from the pain as anybody else in the country.
People on natural gas and propane heating are hurting too. They are struggling to pay the bills just as badly as anybody else and anywhere else in the country, but I am thinking of northern Ontario where I have had the honour of travelling and hearing directly from Canadians there, in North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins and Thunder Bay. Let me tell colleagues that the landscape there is changing. After eight years of NDP and Liberal government, they have had enough. They are behind our plan for tax fairness. They are disgusted. They are furious with the fact that the government will not treat them with the same respect it is offering other Canadians.
The Prime Minister admitted that his carbon tax was punishing families and their budgets at home. It was causing a burden on them being able to heat their homes and pay the bills, yet what do we have here now? Time and time again, they ignored the concern. Every single Liberal MP yesterday voted against the same pause on the pain of the carbon tax that some of the other colleagues got in other regions. The situation is just as bad. In Thunder Bay, the regional food bank said their usage is skyrocketing. They cannot keep up with the number of people looking for assistance with their groceries. There are 12,000 people in Thunder Bay and the region and they have had to sadly admit they cannot even service far north communities anymore because they do not have the funds and they do not have the food. What we have at the end of the day is the same division.
The NDP proposed their motion here today. One thing to note that is a little curious, as it is absent from their motion, is that the NDP have talked about removing the GST from all forms of home heating. Maybe that is a clerical error. Maybe they could take the opportunity to fix this. They just voted yesterday with us to take all taxes off all forms of home heating for all Canadians. That is the right approach to what they need to do. Here we are, not even 24 hours later, and they are only saying we should take the GST off.
Here is the thing about the NDP. They can propose any motion they want here on their opposition day motion. The Liberals will not go for it. What the NDP will go for, like they have done every single time in their coalition deal is to talk a big game. They will talk tough. They will ask those questions, but when the time comes to vote on the actual budget, they prop up the Liberals every single step of the way and they are going to continue to do that. The reality is that at the end of the day, the NDP are going to continue their plan. The Prime Minister is putting a pause on until the next election. Bring it on. Conservatives will axe the tax. The Prime Minister and the leader of the NDP will quadruple the carbon tax in the coming years after the next election. Their plan is still in place. It will cause great pain to this country and to millions and millions of families and small businesses struggling to survive. The carbon tax is going to be 61¢ a litre on the price of fuel.
This country is struggling. Canadians are struggling. They need relief. What I think they need is for the NDP to finally stand up against their costly coalition, and take all taxes off all forms of home heating for all Canadians in this country.
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- Jun/16/22 5:15:55 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-9
Mr. Speaker, as always in the House, it is a pleasure to rise to speak and raise the voice and the message from my constituents in the eastern interior riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. I will be splitting my time here this afternoon with our opposition House leader, the member for Barrie—Innisfil.
I want to start my intervention and notes on Bill C-9 today with a bit of a personal parliamentary perspective.
We are hearing a lot of criticism here today on this bill. I will say at the forefront that I agree with this specific piece of legislation on the need to modernize our judicial system and to improve confidence in it in a timely fashion. We will hear from our Conservative colleagues some reasonable questions, comments and perhaps amendments to strengthen it. At the end of the day, when we talk about a general intent and the high level of opportunities for us to build strength and confidence in our judges and a process for removal if necessary, we would be deeming that appropriate.
As a bit of context on this piece of legislation, it was tabled six months ago, and this is the first opportunity to discuss it. It is not as if it had been debated for weeks and months on end here in the House of Commons. This is the first time we have had a few hours to discuss it. In my limited time here of two and a half years as a member of Parliament, I have seen that we have to learn how we can most effectively find ways to get our voices onto the floor of the House of Commons on issues that are important to our constituents.
I will take some time and note a bit of the background on the bill, but I will talk as well in general about some of my concerns and frustrations with the government's direction or tone or intention or narrative when it comes to building confidence in our Canadian judiciary.
The bill before us would update a piece of legislation. When I was looking at the background, I had to go online, and it was kind of interesting. The current process for complaints of misconduct against judges was introduced in 1971. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was our prime minister, and the minister of justice and attorney general at that time was future prime minister John Turner. I think we could agree in the year 2022 that there have been amendments over the years but that we are going to need to tweak and change and edit legislation over the course of time.
I will give credit to the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, who just spoke for a few minutes and gave some very tangible examples of how we need this reform to go. Right now, one of the issues is that if a serious complaint is made through the process of the judicial council and if the misconduct is deemed less serious, the individual member may negotiate a resolution to the process. That lacks accountability and transparency, and I think there is agreement that we need to reform that process.
The proposal in Bill C-9 would change that so that if it is deemed less serious, there still is an opportunity. A member would review it and could either dismiss the complaint if it was wholly without merit or refer it to a three-member review panel. This would provide an opportunity to make sure all reasonable and credible allegations of misconduct, and their severity level, would go through a proper process, which again would give Canadians confidence.
I will also note from my colleague from the Green Party's intervention that there have not been many of these over Canadian history. That speaks to the integrity, the ethics and the strength of the bench in Canada for decades, but I also think we need to update this to make sure that, again, the cases that are deemed “less severe” would still require a review in a public, transparent process in terms of the review panel, the hearings and so forth.
One of the things I want to raise when we talk about building confidence in the judiciary is the government's intention when it comes to mandatory minimum sentencing. One of the pieces of legislation we have debated here is Bill C-5. That can relate to, and the government is proposing to remove, several mandatory mandatory minimum penalties. The government is saying that if we oppose the removal of those mandatory minimum penalties, we do not support the Canadian judiciary and the discretion of judges. That is not the case. We believe, as Conservatives, in victims' rights and in supporting those who have gone through trauma or issues and have gone through being a victim of a crime. There deserves to be a minimum punishment.
One of the things we talk about when we talk about removal is that this is not for simple things like simple possession. I want to list the things that we have been standing up for, as I believe confidence can still be maintained in our Canadian judiciary and individual judges.
A number of mandatory minimums are being removed related to gun crimes. Mandatory minimums are gone for robbery with a firearm; extortion with a firearm; weapons trafficking, importing or exporting, knowing it is unauthorized; and discharging a firearm with intent. The mandatory minimum in all of these cases is gone, and the list goes on.
Also, some of the legislation we have been dealing with would eliminate mandatory prison time for drug dealers by eliminating six mandatory minimums in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act: trafficking or possession for the purpose of trafficking, importing and exporting or possession for the purpose of exporting, and production of a schedule 1 or 2 substance. What does that mean? It means heroin, cocaine, fentanyl, crystal meth. There would be a removal of those mandatory minimums.
This, again, is the first time we have been dealing with the bill in this Parliament, as it was over in the Senate. The government prorogued at one point, and then it called the election, so it has been stalled several times. This is the first time that we have an opportunity.
I have advice to the Bloc and the NDP, which are complaining that I would like to stand up and have a 10-minute intervention on confidence in our Canadian judiciary: It is that I do not believe in the direction the government is going when it comes to eliminating mandatory minimums. We may agree on the need for reform; there is what is in the legislation, but, most importantly, it is what is not in the legislation, and we have an opportunity to stand up here in the House of Commons and raise those concerns.
It also gives me the opportunity to be the voice for my constituents as well when we talk about the process. Bill C-9 is one example, and Bill C-5, which is terribly flawed, in my opinion and in the opinion of our caucus and in the opinion of many members of law enforcement as well. One of the things that we are not seeing, among the easy things to do, is a whole bill dedicated to reforming this. It means that they are not putting in legislation to address some of the other things. We are calling it out when we see it.
A perfect example is the lack of services for those in the Canadian justice system who are dealing with addiction or battling addiction. We are seeing changes in an effort, through legislation, to try to distract us from the lack of investment in mental health and addictions treatment for those who truly need it. We are taking mandatory minimums away from people who are trafficking and preying on some of the most vulnerable in our society, yet we are not providing the resources to get them the help that they truly need.
When we have a bill like this, it is an opportunity to talk about the views from our community on the portfolio of the Attorney General, the Minister of Justice. It is an opportunity to perhaps find agreement on this, yes, but I can also find time to join the floor of the House of Commons and say what is not in forthcoming legislation, what is perhaps not in budget bills to address some of the flawed aspects of the government's intentions.
I will just say this as we wrap up, and I have always said it: Somebody who is battling addiction does not need prison time. That is a universal agreement in our country, of law enforcement, I believe, and of the House. We need to target our resources and our criminal justice system on those who are preying on these people and victimizing them. At the same time, we need not only pieces of legislation like Bill C-9 to increase confidence in our justice system; we need investments that can actually get victims, those who are dealing with addiction, out of our justice system and into proper help to get back into a better trajectory in life and a more positive future for themselves.
I will say in review of this bill that it is time for an update. I look forward to questions and comments and I appreciate the opportunity to speak broadly about confidence in our justice system.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise tonight once again to speak to the government's proposed Bill C-11. In the last Parliament, it was Bill C-10, and it certainly generated a lot of feedback and frustration from Canadians across the country. We have been witnessing that here again in the last couple of months with this bill in its current form.
I have been receiving a lot of emails and advocacy petitions from constituents, both online creators and those who consume the content. They are concerned about what this bill entails and, frankly, among several things I will get into, what it does not entail. I believe that kicking the can to the CRTC and other organizations is a slippery slope and not a good precedent, based on the precedents that have caused a lot of frustrations to build up over the years.
I want to note that I will be splitting my time with the member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington.
We are debating this motion tonight because of an attempt by the government and its NDP partners to try to jam this legislation through the House of Commons once again. I know there are still numerous witnesses who want to provide their perspectives and voices at the heritage committee and share the legitimate and reasonable concerns they have and the clarifications they wish to see that they are not getting from the government and its partner.
One of the problems we have that is typical of the Liberal-NDP strategy when it comes to legislation, which we are seeing in Bill C-5, the criminal justice reform legislation, is that if members do not support the Liberals and NDP on the bill, it means we do not care about racism. If members want an end to federal mandates and the chaos we are seeing at the borders and airports, it means the members hate vaccines and health care workers. Now, with the Internet censorship bill, Bill C-11, if we do not support their way and their ideas, we hate content creators and arts and culture in this country. It is an either-or, a divisive approach, but it is not surprising. It is one that we see more and more.
I will repeat what I said in the last Parliament because Bill C-11, as we have it, is very similar to what we saw in Bill C-10, and a lot of the concerns we had last time are not addressed or clarified in the bill in its current form.
Let me start with a positive in terms of agreement in Parliament. The Broadcasting Act was created in 1991. I do not remember it. I was about five years old at the time. Boyz II Men, Paula Abdul and Bryan Adams had some hits then, but since that original piece of legislation, a lot has changed in how Canadians create content and get it out there as well as in how they consume it.
We have the Internet, social media platforms, YouTube, Spotify, TikTok and so forth. There is an agreement that we need to have a level playing field with these large conglomerates of a foreign nature and how they do business in this country. At the same time, we also need to make sure that we protect the individual freedoms and rights of individual content creators, like those on YouTube who have been able to explode in not only the Canadian market but also the international market with the evolution of the Internet and social media platforms.
There are serious flaws, and I have a perfect example. My colleague from Perth—Wellington, the shadow minister for Canadian heritage, raised this as a perfect example today. We all want to make sure Canadian content is created and is fairly represented on Netflix, Hulu, Crave and all the different platforms. He alluded in the chamber today to this bill not creating the specific measures to clarify some of the red tape about what is Canadian content. A perfect example that was illustrated was The Handmaid's Tale. I do not agree with Margaret Atwood and a lot of her politics, but I will admire her and give her respect as an artist and an author and for what she has done over her incredible career. A proud Canadian she is.
The Handmaid's Tale, a blockbuster TV series, was filmed in part in the greater Toronto and Hamilton area. One would think Margaret Atwood and filming in the province of Ontario, the GTA, would classify as Canadian content. It does not. That speaks to the need to define this content better, to set better parameters and better definitions when it comes to this. Sadly, the bill would not do that. One would think it would when we talk about the modernization that we face.
I want to specify my concerns during my time. This comes perhaps from my background before being in the House, as a mayor at the municipal level, and perhaps it is a bit affected by my experience in the past few months on the public accounts committee, which reviews Auditor General reports on programs and efficiencies and how they run.
I want to reiterate my concern with regard to the vague definitions particularly around user-generated digital content, claiming there is an exemption, but section 4.2 is there. The government says not to worry about it. The CRTC says not to worry about it. I do not think Canadians have a lot of faith in that approach to what we have.
The CRTC is a public entity, but considers itself very independent. I have a lot of frustrations with the organization that I will not get into tonight when it comes to providing Internet service to rural and remote communities. That is a speech for another night.
Particularly, what is happening is that the government's legislation is extremely vague. Conservatives have been standing up in committee and in the House, not just in this Parliament but also in the last Parliament, and I have foreseen and I am foreshadowing what I know is to come. We see it over and over again. The government says, “That is not our intention. Do not worry.” The legislation would pass and then it would go to the CRTC, after which, at some point down the road after the bill is passed, after it has come into law and been enacted, suddenly we would see algorithms or we would see content. At that point, the CRTC would say, “We are independent. There is nothing you can do. This is the law that was passed and this is the way it is interpreting it.”
The minister has tried to claim that user-generated digital content and YouTube creators, TikTok creators and Canadians who have been able to burst onto the scene, not just in this country but internationally, are free from having their content regulated. They say that they have no interest in looking at that.
If that is the case, the government should be going for what we have been advocating for: it should specifically rule it out and make it black and white. It should make it very clear so that there is not a little door poked open for the CRTC, when it is batted over there to look after, all of a sudden to decide that, in the public interest, it is going to be doing this.
This is the time for Parliament, for Conservatives, for us to stand and be on the record to say that there are amendments. There are a lot of things that need to change, but there are specific amendments at least on that. I believe that just speaks to the rushed attempt that we are seeing from the government. It speaks to the secrecy of what it is trying to do. It is trying to pass the buck over to an independent organization, one that is overly powerful in my personal view, to interpret these laws, at which point the government can later say that it was its goal but secretly it was not the government's problem but somebody else's.
It is government creep at its worst. We have seen it before. We see it at the public accounts committee, in terms of leaving it to bureaucratic organizations to organize, and the success of that.
In my time remaining tonight, I want to acknowledge some of the comments made by a Canadian YouTube creator who spoke at the Canadian heritage committee a few weeks ago, J.J. McCullough. I go back to what we could agree on: Modernization is needed for the Broadcasting Act to make sure that large companies such as Netflix pay their fair share and also create Canadian content for us to have as Canadians. J.J. McCullough noted the following, which really hit home when I heard his testimony:
The tremendous success and even worldwide fame of many Canadian YouTubers in the absence of government regulation should invite questions about the necessity of Bill C-11. An unregulated YouTube has been a 17-year experiment, and the result has been an explosion of popular Canadian content produced by Canadians of every imaginable demographic....it is important to understand that it is simply impossible to regulate a platform like YouTube without also regulating creator content.
We have seen more Canadians become known. We have seen more Canadians make a living on these platforms. What the government is proposing is not that if one does not support this, one does not care about Canadian artists. We are standing up for individual content creators to say that platforms like these have given them the opportunity to make a living, to get known and to get Canadian brands, Canadian stories, Canadian music or other things we could name out there.
Our colleagues will stand up for those individual creators in making sure that we get the government to better define the very slippery slope it is on, not just with Bill C-10 in the last parliament. It is repeating the same mistake with Bill C-11.
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