- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Timmins—James Bay
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,227.44
- Government Page
- Apr/9/24 1:06:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member has made an accusation that 50% of the Conservatives do not believe in climate change. I think he needs to prove it. Maybe it is 100%.
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- Apr/8/24 1:46:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I always enjoy the synthetic outrage I hear in the House. Certainly, I remember some great Conservative moments. Do members remember when Tony Clement took $50 million of border security money to buy fake boats and gazebos in Muskoka, the ultimate pork barrel scandal? There was Nigel Wright and the $90,000 cheque to Mike Duffy, one of the most unworthy political figures we have ever seen in this country but he was a bagman for the Tories.
The issue here is the role of Parliament and the necessity of Parliament to maintain its ability to get evidence. That is what we are here to do. I want to speak of the need to use the tools we have. We do not have the power to find guilt at committee. Our job is to gather evidence and bring it to the House. We are here at the House now on the issue of those who failed to provide the evidence that was required of them. We will certainly support getting this motion through as quickly as possible.
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- Mar/19/24 10:30:42 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the one area where I agree with the Conservatives is that the carbon tax has not brought down emissions, and it has not brought down emissions because the Liberals believe that the tar sands companies would do the right thing. We had Pathways Alliance and the net-zero plan. We have seen carbon emission decreases across the board, except in big oil where it increases.
As for the carbon tax, Suncor, which was one of the companies that made $78 billion in profits last year, pays one-fourteenth of the carbon tax that “Joe who fills up his gas tank” has to pay. We gave these companies free money, and we continue to give them free money. They are burning our planet and have no intention of doing the right thing. The Liberals were suckers for believing that Rich Kruger, Suncor, Imperial and the rest of the tar sands companies actually cared about burning the planet. I am sorry. I will retract that because we know the Conservatives do not care about burning the planet either.
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Mr. Speaker, I am very wary in doing this. I do not think I have ever made a point of order while interrupting a colleague's speech, whose speech is very important, but it is important to raise my concern. This is about a motion instructing the House to be able to get legislation finished, particularly Bill C-50, which has seen a lot of obstruction.
In the previous exchange between the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle and the Liberal member, the Liberal member accused him of getting his children's private school funding covered by the Conservative Party, which I do not think is part of the motion, but I—
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- Feb/15/24 12:53:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would ask you to review the debates today, which I think have been very respectful. You mentioned disorder. Did anyone speaking about unelected or unaccountable senators cause disorder where it was raised?
You are putting yourself in a discussion where I think there has been very respectful conversation. Talking about the fundamental problem with the other House is germane to the issue at hand. It is why we are here today. It is why this debate has to happen. If we cannot talk about that, then we are not doing our job for Canadians.
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- Feb/15/24 11:05:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my colleague shares my concern that we are now 30-some days away from an arbitrary deadline that was imposed. We passed a national palliative care motion that I brought in 2016, and nothing was done. In 2019, we brought forward the national suicide prevention strategy that was based on the work in Nunavut. Everybody signed off, and nothing was done.
Now we are being told that we should be making it easier for people who are suffering with mental illness, people who are on the streets, people using opioids, people who are hopeless, and that we should be fast-tracking that rather than putting in place the protections needed to protect people.
What are my hon. colleague's thoughts are on that?
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- Dec/14/23 4:39:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the fascinating things, since the member for Carleton took over, is the use of the Trojan horse approach. The Conservatives say they want to deal with all the stuff that is in the budget and keep us here until Christmas, but it was a way for them to be visibly on the record as voting against Ukraine. They managed to do that.
What they have been doing with this bill on anti-scab legislation is carrying on their constant attack on investment in EV technology. We see the Conservatives of the 401 corridor making fun of EV batteries, saying they are going to catch fire, that they are inefficient, that we should just give the money out, as though we give it out to everybody. Volkswagen is making a $7-billion investment in Canada. That is enormous. There will be $5 billion from Stellantis, and GM is going to spend $35 billion on EV technology. The Conservatives are claiming that the people who are brought over to help set up the plant are scab labour.
The Conservatives do not misunderstand the bill. They are abusing this bill to drive the agenda of the Conservative leader, the member who lives in Stornoway, who has undermined the EV investments that Canadians are dependent upon.
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- Dec/4/23 4:34:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am apologizing to Luke and Steve for the fact that their Conservatives were bragging about seventies muscle cars; talk about entitlement. Poor Luke and Steve are asking how come the member they voted for will not support offshore wind.
No, the Conservatives do not want to. They want to talk about seventies muscle cars. Let us talk about boomer entitlement. While we were talking about workers and offshore wind, they were talking about muscle cars. No wonder Luke and Steve are so upset and fed up with the Conservative lot.
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- Dec/4/23 4:34:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, now, Luke and Steve are being conjured up by the Conservative member who is blocking offshore wind projects for Newfoundland and Labrador. What were his colleagues talking about instead of talking about Luke and Steve? They were talking about their seventies muscle cars—
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Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a point of order. Obviously we struck a nerve about the $1,800 bottle of wine and the Danube Institute, but what the member is saying is a falsehood.
If the hon. member has evidence, I would have him submit it, if they will submit who actually paid for the $1,800 bottle of wine that the member for Cumberland—Colchester drank. If he wants to submit evidence, we would ask the Conservatives to give the evidence of who paid for all those drinks.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened to my hon. colleague say the old Conservative mantra that they are going to build pipelines, pipelines, pipelines. I was reading the indictment of the people of California against ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, Conoco, Phillips, and it says:
Rather than warn consumers, the public, and governments, however, Defendants—
That is big oil:
—mounted a disinformation campaign beginning at least as early as the 1970s to discredit the burgeoning scientific consensus on climate change; deny their own knowledge of climate change-related threats; create doubt in the minds of consumers...
...Defendants have promoted and/or profited from the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels...
This has forced the state of California and the people of the world to pay for the damages. What we are seeing is the big tobacco moment.
My hon. colleague is saying big tobacco and big oil will continue to pollute the planet and it will be good. I would suggest that he read the indictment from the state of California against all the big five oil companies that knowingly discredited climate science and are knowingly destroying our planet.
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- May/9/23 11:06:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think we all agree that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills has an incredible amount of integrity.
Where we do not see integrity is in how the Conservatives are trying to exploit this. I am amazed that my colleague quotes Teddy Roosevelt. Do Conservatives think their leader is going to carry a big stick? Teddy Roosevelt, of course, launched illegal invasions into Cuba and Philippines, and mass murder, based on falsehoods.
The Conservatives believe that, as long as Canadians do not know history, they will be okay. When it was Stephen Harper who was kissing up to China, what did they announce? The member on the back bench can confirm that they were going to send blueberries to China. In exchange for blueberries, what did China take? Chinese state corporations took control of a huge part of the oil sands. Stephen Harper said that was okay because they were sucking up to China.
For Conservatives to come in now with this false history is really concerning. They are exploiting a very serious situation to make their very juvenile leader look like he is going to walk out on the world stage with his big stick to take on China. For sure, Canadians deserve better than that.
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Madam Speaker, the Conservative leader came to Timmins. He has come a number of times. He has never been willing to meet with indigenous leaders, but during his meeting he was making jokes about electric vehicles. I find it hilarious that a guy who has never actually had a job would come to a mining town where critical minerals are really important and make fun of electric vehicles.
I want to ask my hon. colleague about this. I see the Conservatives undermining and attacking the investments that Volkswagen is making in EV batteries. We see what Biden is doing. We see that the United States is moving to ensure that 67% of all cars are EVs within nine years. Why is it that the Conservatives want to sit at the side of the road with their dead-end 1970s beaters?
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Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Conservative Party came to northern Ontario and said he was too busy to meet with any indigenous people, which I think sent a clear message. However, then he made all these jokes about electric vehicles. The leader of the Conservative Party has never had a real job, so maybe he does not understand this, but in northern Ontario, which is mining country, we are going to be seriously focused on EVs because of the economic opportunities. Then this morning, again I heard the Conservatives insinuating and attacking investment in a battery plant in St. Thomas.
As the Americans are tooling up for a complete overhaul of their economy, we have the Conservatives attacking and undermining EV technology and digital investment. I would ask my hon. colleague why he thinks the leader of the Conservative Party does not understand the basics of economics.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the frustrating elements of dealing with Bill C-11 is that, on the one hand, the Liberal member, whom I do not think mentioned Facebook or Google once, is talking about Corner Gas, a television show I have not seen in 15 years, as though it is the cutting edge of Canadian technology. I think we should focus on what is at hand. On the other hand, we have the Conservatives claiming that taking on some of the richest corporations in the world and making them pay into the system is going to lead to the son of Pierre Elliott blocking people's access to cat videos. That is their position.
I know if we blocked access to cat videos, it might cause a lot of problems for the Conservative backbenchers, who have a very short attention span during question period, but I want to ask my hon. colleague this. Number one, is the government trying to ban cat videos? Number two, what about Facebook or Google threatening to ban access to Canadians' use of online journalism? That is the question. We have never heard the Conservatives have a problem with Google telling Canadians they are not going to be allowed to read online news articles, because they are being blackmailed by the tech giants. Is the government going to stand up for Canadians' right to access information, not just cat videos but news content that Google or Facebook is threatening to block?
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Madam Speaker, in May 2019, every member of Parliament stood up and supported my motion, Motion No. 174, to establish a national suicide prevention action plan. There were a number of key steps that the government and members of all parties agreed to, including establishing national standards for training people involved in suicide prevention and making sure we were working with first nation, Métis and Inuit communities on establishing norms and proper funding, as well as the obligation to report to Parliament annually on preparations for and the implementation of the national action plan, including data.
That never happened. The government voted for it, and nothing happened. Yet, when the unelected, unaccountable Senate decided to throw in, at the last minute, a provision that would allow mental illness to be the sole reason to judge whether someone should be allowed to die or not, that was accepted without even a challenge, and now the government is scrambling at the last minute to prevent it from becoming law.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the lost opportunities the government has had to lay a proper course for the protection of people to make sure that we are doing things in a humane way and not having to act in such an ad hoc, eleventh-hour response to a very badly thought-out provision thrown in by the unelected, non-accountable Senate.
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Madam Speaker, when we voted on this legislation, we were told that Parliament would be able to review so we could tell whether or not we had overstepped and whether or not it had worked. We were never given that right. Instead, this was handed over to the unelected senators, who got it into their head that people who are depressed or who have a few problems should be able to die. We have to fix that. We never got to address whether or not these provisions were working, whether or not there need to be proper guardrails in place.
Would it not be better if this bill would just park this, stop it dead, until we can actually find out how this process is working for the people of Canada?
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- Dec/8/22 4:36:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to apologize. I was just concerned that the member was accusing the Conservatives of believing in evolution, and I do not think that is fair.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague mentioning Gord Downie, someone that I was proud to know. I have seen the growth of careers of those in bands like the Hip, and I see the crisis facing musicians today, especially after COVID and the shutdown of live venues, along with the fact that Spotify is ripping artists off dramatically. When I hear the Conservatives talk, they are saying that the bill is actually going to somehow make it impossible for us to watch a video of someone fixing their deck. I do not know what they think entertainment is, but we are talking about a powerful industry in Canada. Our artists travel the world, yet without the ability to have a sustained financial income, we are seeing more and more musicians unable to make it, along with more and more theatres, and more and more groups.
I ask my hon. colleague this: What specifically in the bill will guarantee that we start to see a revenue stream return rightfully to the artists who make the content?
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- May/17/22 12:02:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not want to challenge the Conservatives on whether they believe in climate change, but the member should get some better acting skills if he is going to pretend he believes in climate change.
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