- Member of Parliament
- NDP
- Timmins—James Bay
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 63%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $134,227.44
- Government Page
- Mar/21/24 12:20:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, although Conservatives are demanding to vote until midnight on Saturday, I would bet they are going to fold like cheap suits. They always do.
I would encourage my friend to probably plan to go home, because the leader of the Conservatives is going to be off doing fundraisers, drinking and eating canapés with lobbyists for Loblaw and Jenni Byrne. Meanwhile, the rest of the schleps are going to start to cry and ask to please go home. They are all going to leave. I am ready to stay until Saturday night, but I was ready to vote until Christmas and they all packed up and left.
I would say that, if there is going to be a vote against Ukraine on Saturday night, they will all come in to make sure they are there. However, if we do not vote against Ukraine, I bet the Conservatives will all want to go home.
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- Feb/26/24 1:57:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, my Conservative colleague is correct, and it is unfair to make these comparisons. The leader of the Conservatives was in the House to vote against Ukraine.
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- Feb/26/24 12:33:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I know that we are not supposed to say when someone is not in the House, and it should be fair. The leader of the Conservative Party did show up in time to vote against Ukraine. Then he went home.
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- Feb/1/24 12:19:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would interpret it slightly differently. What we have seen online is the far right is a Putin troll machine. We see that Tucker Carlson, a white supremacist who is a Putin propaganda puppet, was vetted and treated by the great leader, the great visionary of the Conservative movement, Danielle Smith. Then, the leader of the Conservative Party gets up and quotes Neville Chamberlain, of all people, about Ukraine.
As for the leader of the Conservative Party, his defence critic and his foreign affairs critic, I watched them stand up and vote against Operation Unifier.
They are sending a message to Putin and to Europe that the Conservative Party is against us standing the gaff with Ukraine. They are willing to let President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people fall to Putin, because they said they do not like the carbon tax. How on God's earth can one go into the—
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Mr. Speaker, we are now two years into the brutal invasion of Ukraine by Putin and the mass killing of people in Ukraine, yet the member voted against Operation Unifier, which is a fundamental connection supporting the people of Ukraine, while the Trump MAGA team has attacked Ukraine and while Danielle Smith brings a white supremacist and Putin troll to Alberta to celebrate. He is a man who has attacked Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine.
How dare the member stand and support the Putin machine and undermine the people of Ukraine?
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- Dec/11/23 4:18:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have been listening to the conversation. I was really shocked that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan took this discussion of the Taliban and then tried to talk about support for Ukraine.
We are not going to say who was not in the House, but in the House I saw the leader of the Conservative Party, the foreign affairs critic and the defence critic sending a very clear message. They stood up to vote against Operation Unifier. They stood up to vote against Ukraine in the same week the right-wing in the United States shut down Zelenskyy, and at the same time that Orban in Hungary, and there are certainly Conservatives over there who are friends of Orban, has been undermining Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people.
What does my colleague think about the Conservatives having the gall to pretend that they are supporting Ukraine, when the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has called out the Conservative leader and his party—
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- Dec/11/23 3:37:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just this past week, President Zelenskyy tried to get support in Washington, and the right wing there tried to stop support for a military fight against the illegal invasion by Putin. It was the same week that the Conservatives decided that their leader, their foreign affairs critic and their defence critic would make sure they were seen standing in the House multiple times voting against Operation Unifier. I was looking at Operation Unifier and thinking, what is it that could be so offensive to the Conservatives that they had to make such a clear statement? The fact is that we have Canadian soldiers on the ground, Canadian soldiers doing military training and Canadian soldiers doing medic training, and yet the Conservatives are out to undermine that support for Ukraine.
I would refer to the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, who wrote, “For the second time this month, Conservative MPs undermine support for Ukraine by voting against funding for Operation Unifier.... Canada's support for Ukraine should be unanimous and beyond political games.”
That is what the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has said. Why is it that the Conservatives stood up with their leader to vote against some fundamental military support for Ukraine? The message they are sending is very clear: They are undermining—
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- Jun/16/22 10:12:14 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am really concerned that we are not looking at the larger issues here, the fact that we are dealing with war crimes being pushed by Putin. We are dealing with destabilization.
What is the plan to actually put in a new world order, a new understanding of the world in an age of destabilization? Where are we going, given the crimes that we are watching in Ukraine, the destabilization, the break-up of supply chains and the climate change? Canada needs to have a whole new vision.
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- Apr/5/22 3:52:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is the massacre of civilians in Bucha and the allegations of mass rape that have shocked the world, but it really is just an escalation of the war of terror that the Putin regime has been running against the people of Ukraine. It really is a line in the sand for us in Canada and for the world.
I have enormous respect for my colleague's expertise on this. The number one obligation is getting international war crime investigators in there so it can be documented because we are dealing with a disinformation terror regime, and second is getting the materials on the ground to help the people of Ukraine defend their skies, defend their communities and stop the killings and torture of their people by the Putin gang.
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- Mar/3/22 12:15:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need to rise up to a higher level here, because we are being watched around the world, and this motion brings us to a much lower, much more cynical, exploitive level.
I urge all my colleagues to vote against it. We need to move forward on something that shows that, as a Parliament, we will stand up for freedom for the people of Ukraine and not just for the pecuniary interests of the oil lobby.
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- Mar/3/22 12:07:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I really would hope that my hon. Liberal colleagues are not going to support this motion to expand gas line production, because we are afraid of what Russia is going to say. I just want to put that on the record.
We have been unanimous in standing up on the issue of Ukraine. What we are seeing is the Conservatives using this as a wedge to undermine our credibility by saying that our number one issue at this time, of all the issues that we are dealing with from Russia, is to undertake measures to ensure new, natural gas pipelines be approved. That is such a cynical and exploitive position. I certainly hope the Liberals are not going to go there with them.
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- Mar/3/22 11:49:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will take this moment to apologize to any European soccer player who has never played the game and never shown a great propensity to lie on the ground and howl. I apologize to them greatly.
We are dealing with something serious here. We are dealing with a party that is using a humanitarian disaster to exploit falsehoods. I will call that out and I will not be silent, because they are trying to fake out Canadians that there is somehow an economic argument. Let us throw mindless amounts of money that will somehow get to Ukraine and make some money.
If members want another example, it is like coming upon a horrific car accident, and as we are trying to pull people out of the car accident, someone is climbing over them and saying, “Hey. I'm from Abe's Honest Used Car Service. Let me sell you a car.” This is not what we do in the middle of a humanitarian disaster, because right now, as I said, 12 major LNG projects are not going ahead. Things are not further ahead, but the Conservatives want to build a pipeline of 2,000 kilometres. In Europe right now, stocks in clean energy have taken off. Why have they taken off? It is because Europe knows that its future is in clean energy.
Let us talk about Conservative mathematics, and certainly Liberal mathematics too, because the Liberals are now on the hook. They bought a pipeline because Kinder Morgan knew it did not have the financial capacity to build a $5.4-billion pipeline. It went to the Conservative government in Alberta in 2014 and asked it to backstop the TMX pipeline. Alberta said no since the money was not there and the economic case was not there.
The Conservatives and big oil accused the Liberals of hating the oil sector, so the Prime Minister signed up and hooked us into a pipeline that is now at $21 billion. Here is the thing. We paid Kinder Morgan for selling us a leaky pipeline and it used taxpayer money to give the CEO bonuses for hoodwinking us.
Here is the other thing that is important to know in the scam that we are dealing with in continually giving money to big oil. The cost overruns are locked in at $7 billion. Those are all the extra overruns in the pipeline. For the tolls that run the oil through the pipe, all the extra costs are being paid for by the taxpayer. Not only are we paying $21 billion, but every barrel of bitumen that goes overseas from here on in will be paid for by the taxpayer. That is a pretty good deal for big oil and, again, it is being paid for by the taxpayer. However, that is perfectly normal mathematics in the world of the Conservatives, who think that this is how money should be spent.
Why is TMX so fundamentally important to the ideology of the Conservatives and the Liberals? It is because they were never focused on supplying Canada's energy needs. They were not interested in that. They stand and rant about how Saudi Arabian oil, Venezuelan oil and Nigerian oil are coming down the St. Lawrence, but it is not true. Quebec refineries are not using that. This is about export. Why is export so important? It is because none of the emissions of burned bitumen count as part of Canada's total. Right now, our emissions total from exports is more than all the emissions in Canada combined. Talk about the burning the planet. We are looking at an increase of 1.2 million barrels a year thanks to TMX and thanks to the money that is being invested by the government.
I will refer to a recent article in Forbes Magazine from January 28, 2022. It says that big oil is using the big tobacco playbook because they realize they have lost the argument in Canada on the energy crisis. People don't believe them anymore. What they have done is turned to export. They are looking to create markets in the global south. They are looking to China, where there are lower standards. That is the economic model and none of those burned barrels of bitumen in places like China or in markets in India will ever be counted in the global total. That is how we burn the planet while getting to net zero.
The Conservatives have tried to tell us that this pipeline is some kind of humanitarian grain mission. We do not deal with food in pipelines. I know the Conservatives would love to add it in the mix, but it is not there. However, they keep talking about how this is a clean fuel. The problem is that Canada has failed on this time and time again.
I will refer members to the problem with methane. The Prime Minister made a promise of cutting 45% by 2025. We never got there. Now he is saying we are going to get to 75% by 2030. I mention methane because if we cut methane emissions on natural gas, then we can say this is a transition fuel. However, methane is a planet killer. Everybody knows this, but we have not seen the industry take any steps to deal with methane. We can do this. I talk to people in the industry. We can get to zero on methane, yet this planet killer is leaking out of abandoned wells, leaking out of pipelines and leaking out of refineries. What do they do? Of course, they go to the government and say, “Help us.”
The Liberal government has held 6,800 backroom meetings with the oil lobby since the Liberal government came in. The Conservatives say the Liberal government is against big oil, but it is just a myth. We have had $121 billion in oil subsidies. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers has come forward and said it wants $75 billion in carbon capture. We are paying $21 billion for TMX. We are on the hook for $1 billion for abandoned wells.
Then big oil came forward asking to be given money to deal with methane, and the government gave them $132 million to clean up methane. Now here is the thing. What were the goals of the methane reduction program? Number one was to attract investment. Number two was to increase competitiveness. Well, that is not saving the planet. Then down at number three was finding some equipment to help reduce methane emissions.
Why does this matter? It is because the environment commissioner has said that Canada, which used to be a world leader, is now at the back of the G7. This methane reduction program was not used to deal with the planet killer. It was used as a subsidy to big oil and it allowed them to increase production. What the environment commissioner also found was that they are not even tracking any of the background emissions. They do not even know how bad methane is. They have not bothered, yet we are writing cheques for $134 million and we do not even know how it is spent. Meanwhile, the planet is burning.
The Conservatives have a whole series of myths they try to perpetuate about how hard done by the west is on this and how hard done by oil and gas is. This is a group that is belligerently fighting for billions in taxpayer subsidies to support the typewriter when the rest of the world is moving to the cellphone.
I want to point out one of the myths I have been hearing. It is that rules on environmental standards in Canada are somehow scaring off investments. That is simply not true. I refer members to a Wall Street Journal headline that says financial giants are quitting what they call “one of the world's dirtiest oil patches”. That is something they also do not want us to know. Canada's—
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- Mar/1/22 11:19:54 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it is so profound that we are discussing our democracy in Canada, the voices we can have and who should be at the table as we watch the horrific violence being perpetrated against the democratic people of Ukraine by Putin in Russia. It reminds us in this House how precious and fragile democracy is.
I would like to ask my hon. colleague about this historic moment in our nation and around the world, where we have come together to say that the violence that is being perpetrated against the Ukrainian people must be fought at every level. Canada has to have a coherent plan in order to support the people of Ukraine, support refugees, support democracy and ensure that Russia pays a serious price for this attack on the democratic rights of an independent nation.
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