- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Lethbridge
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $131,565.29
- Government Page
- May/27/24 6:24:35 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, it is with some sobriety that I stand and address the House today. I am rising on a question of privilege that has been raised with regard to the conduct of the main Speaker of this place.
We have yet another display of public partisanship that has been put out there for folks across the country to witness, which is that the Speaker of this place is actually featured as the main guest at a Liberal fundraiser.
We know that the individual who occupies the chair has been given a trusted position. He has been elected by those in this place to make sure that the rules here are adhered to in a non-partisan and an equally applied fashion. This individual has been put in that spot, yes, through an election in this place; however, just as importantly, there is a historical precedent that also needs to be taken into account.
Based on that historical precedent and based on what we call the green book in this place, which are the Standing Orders that govern it, the Speaker is called upon not only to function in an impartial manner and but also to avoid any instance of even appearing not to be impartial.
The fact that the Speaker was stated to be the focus of this fundraising event, making him the main draw of fundraising dollars for the Liberal Party of Canada, is actually incomprehensible to some extent. However, it is the Liberal government in power, and this is certainly not the first breach. It is disheartening, for sure, but it is also altogether disgusting, actually, to see this individual function in that capacity, when he has been given such trust by this place.
In Canada, we believe that no one is above the law. Likewise, in the House, no one should be treated as though they are above the rules and practices of this place, especially the Speaker. The Speaker is the individual who applies the rules of the House. Therefore, the Speaker should be modelling those rules for other individuals who occupy a seat in this place. When he fails to do so and, instead, actually exploits his position, it is called an abuse of power. We have to call him to account on that.
As Conservatives, we are standing today, and I know that we have the support of the Bloc and, I am hoping, the NDP, to hold the Speaker to account with regard to his actions and call him to a higher standard.
Members will recall that this is actually not the first time we have had to do this; there have been a number of other times. Let us explore the most recent one, shall we?
We know that the Liberal Party of Canada was advertising something they called “A Summer Evening with the Honourable [Speaker].” The promotional material for this event used very partisan and even inflammatory language toward the Leader of the Opposition. I will read it into the House record, so we all know what I am talking about. The invitation said: “Join us for an event in your community - you don't want to miss it!
“It's an exciting opportunity to join fellow Liberals and talk about the ways we can continue to build a better future for all Canadians - because a better future starts with you.
“While [the Leader of the Opposition] and the Conservatives propose reckless policies that would risk our health, safety, and pocketbooks our Liberal team is focused on making life more affordable for Canadians and moving forward with our bold plan to grow an economy that works for everyone, protect our environment, keep our communities safe, and so much more.
“Especially in a minority Parliament, we can never take our progress for granted. Together, with your hope and hard work, we can keep Canada moving forward.”
This was a direct attack on the Leader of the Opposition and a celebration of the Liberal Party of Canada. Could it be more partisan?
It was the Speaker of this place who was put as the lead, in terms of the promotional material that was put out there. This is an individual who has been trusted to guide this place and to make sure that we are adhering to the rules; however, he himself cannot do so. Again, I will highlight the fact that this is not the first time.
Interestingly, since Conservatives raised this concern, the invitation has been taken down. It can no longer be found, because the Liberals must conduct themselves in the way they always do. That is, they deny it until they can no longer do so. They then try to cover it up and pretend it did not happen.
However, it did happen, and it is not the first time. Another time, just a couple of months ago, the Speaker was at another fundraising event. It was a cocktail fundraiser. It was a dinner that time—
836 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/8/24 2:23:04 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government is not worth the cost; neither is the CBC.
Under the leadership of the CEO, Catherine Tait, viewership, trust and revenue are all down. Despite this abysmal performance, the Liberal government has rewarded Ms. Tait by extending her contract and granting another $60,000 bonus. That is more than most Canadians make in an entire year.
Another $15 million was handed over to the executives as more bonus money. After this, the CEO had the nerve to come to committee and claim that the CBC is chronically underfunded. She then announced that she would be cutting 800 jobs.
Then, just weeks ago, the Prime Minister announced that he would be giving $140 million more to the same failed institution. This means that now the CEO can continue to give herself and the top executives big fat bonuses.
Greed and incompetence are exactly what is dragging this organization down.
Common-sense Conservatives are calling on the Liberal government to instruct the CBC to stop awarding themselves big fat bonuses.
173 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the minister has disingenuously stated that the bill is about helping local newspapers, when, in fact, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, who is a non-partisan figure of this place, has reported that with the bill, the tune of 75%, the funding would go toward CBC, Bell Media and Rogers. These are the three big broadcasters. I would ask the minister this. Does that sound like newspapers to him, because it sure does not to me?
To the point from the hon. member who went before me, for our local newspapers in ridings like Lethbridge, where we have towns like Picture Butte, Coaldale or Coalhurst that are trying to make a go of it with one journalist, the bill would leave them out in the cold. There are hundreds, if not thousands, across the country that are in a similar boat. Does that sound like supporting local news to the minister?
152 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, we are here to talk about the court challenges program, which has been brought forward by the hon. member, and I appreciate his words.
Right now, we already have a court challenges program in place. However, it is based only on a contribution agreement within the heritage department. This bills looks to permanently enshrine in law a court challenges program here in Canada.
What is that? I will quote the bill. It says it is “an independently administered program whose objective is to provide financial support to Canadians to bring before the courts test cases of national significance that aim to clarify and assert certain constitutional and quasi-constitutional official language rights and human rights”.
There would be two streams: official languages and human rights. Individuals or groups could come forward and to apply for funding from this supposedly independent body, and then go ahead to essentially go after the federal government or a provincial government in a court challenge.
It should be pointed out, just as an important side note, that this program is currently funded to the tune of $5 million per year. We know that about $3.3 million is spent on actual cases, which means that $1.7 million is being used on administrative costs. That is a lot of money tied up in administration. I have many significant questions, as do Canadians, about that money and its wastefulness. If this program is about equipping Canadians or empowering Canadians to be able to seek justice, then the money should be going toward that and not the hefty fees for administering this program.
Nevertheless, I will also point out that the government has said that it is supposedly doubling this amount. That is what the 2023 budget says. What is the amount it is committing to in the 2023 budget? It is $4.9 million. It currently spends $5 million, and it is committing to $4.9 million, yet it says it is somehow doubling the funding to this program. I point that out because it is as if the government just says something and relies on being believed to pull the wool over Canadians' eyes. Going from $5 million per year to $4.9 million a year is not doubling the program. The numbers speak for themselves.
While the Prime Minister and the government may claim one thing, they are really doing another. It is incredibly disingenuous of them. I want to point that out. Nevertheless, the bill itself is deserving of our attention today.
We have to look at the history to fully understand it. It originated with Trudeau senior, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. The reason Mr. Trudeau senior brought this bill forward was because he was faced with Bill 101, which threatened the unity of this country. It looked to make French the sole official language in Quebec.
The prime minister at the time, Trudeau senior, did not want to challenge this himself, so he decided to put in this crafty mechanism called the court challenges program. It gave money to third party groups to challenge Bill 101. In other words, the prime minister, with his left hand, was saying he was in support of Quebec and its independence, and with his right hand, was handing over millions of dollars to have these third party groups challenge Quebec. That is the birth of this bill. It is incredibly disingenuous once again.
That is where it started. It has morphed over the years. Sometimes it has been backed up and supported, and sometimes it has been scraped or supported less. Nevertheless, it has existed in some form since the late 1970s.
One of the problems with this bill is that it undermines Parliament. This is where laws are made in this country. This is the place that has been entrusted by the Canadian electorate to make decisions regarding legislation. When we take that responsibility or authority, and we put it into the hands of the courts, we are doing a disservice, and even an injustice, to the Canadian people.
I would raise that as a significant concern, and I have many more concerns. They have to do with transparency, accountability and independence. I will explore those.
First, it should be noted that this bill is often used as a direct attack on Quebec and its culture and language rights. For example, even right now, the court challenges program is being used by activists to fight against Bill 21, which is a Quebec bill. It is currently being used to fight that bill.
The other thing I will point out is that this program is often used by woke groups to push woke agendas. Of course, that is supported by the panels that exist. Why is it supported by panels that make these decisions? I would argue it is because those panels are not in fact independent and are not in fact transparent. Again, there is a shroud of secrecy around the court challenges program and how it functions.
Let me explain more. With regard to transparency, panels exist: one panel for language rights cases and one panel for human rights cases. How are the individuals on those panels selected? I do not know. The reason I do not know is that this is not available.
The government claims it is supposed to be available, but my staff and I have checked the government's website numerous times over the last several months and it has always been down. We decided to go on the Wayback Machine, thinking perhaps the site was just down momentarily, but we were not able to find anything on the Wayback Machine. I wonder about that. Is the government purposely being secretive in the selection of these panel members or is the site just down? It is interesting. I am sure someone in IT would be able to fix that should they wish to do so.
Further to that, yes, there is some secrecy with these panels, but with regard to the supposedly independent organization, which is currently the University of Ottawa, how was it selected? Again, there are crickets. I am not sure. I could not tell the House because it is not readily available in the public domain.
I must highlight, then, that there is also an issue around transparency regarding which cases are funded. That was never made public knowledge. That was never made knowledge here in Parliament. There is also this shroud of secrecy around the level of funding, so not only what gets funded but also to what extent. How much money is going toward each of these cases? Again, it is secret.
We have a program taking tax dollars and putting those tax dollars toward these cases, but there is no transparency as to the decision-making process. Canadians deserve better than that.
Transparency is one issue, but another issue would be independence. One would expect the administrating body, which is the University of Ottawa, to be functioning fully independently of the government. Well, a bit of research shows us that this simply is likely not the case.
The University of Ottawa is functioning as this body. This is the university whose former president was a man by the name of Allan Rock. He was a cabinet minister under Chrétien who was convicted of an ethics violation for taking a free trip with the Irving family, which covered his transportation and his hotel. Does that sound familiar? We see a lot of that.
Allan Rock is known for initiating legislation that put the Trudeau Foundation in place. He is also known, of course, for his relationship with the Chinese. It is super interesting, is it not? We have this super independent body with these secretive criteria that are not transparent and are being used to select panels, and further to that, there are two panels making decisions.
When I look at the biographies of these panellists, all of them read as if the Liberal Party of Canada platform was just copied and pasted under their names. There is no doubt about it: These panels are not independently selected. There is no merit-based process being utilized, unless it is the same merit-based process used for the supposedly independent senators over in the other place, and we all know how independent that is.
The Speaker will excuse this side of the House for the conclusion we must draw, which is that this program is absolutely ludicrous. It lacks transparency, it lacks accountability, it lacks independence and it must not go on.
1431 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Dec/9/22 11:32:29 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, Canadians were advised by the Deputy Prime Minister that they should cut their Disney+ accounts in order to help them make ends meet. Meanwhile, the government has no problems spending $6,000 on a single hotel night, $54 million on a failed arrive scam app and, more recently, $32 billion on altogether illegitimate or suspicious funding with regard to COVID. The worst part is that Canadians are actually on the hook for all this spending, the Canadian people, who work incredibly hard.
When will the Liberals show them some respect and stop their wasteful spending?
97 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/22 7:52:58 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Chair, I believe the hon. member across the way has very much outlined the problem, and I agree with many of the points that she raised in that regard. She also drew attention to the fact that this is really about people, and I appreciate that, because I think we have to consider the human face.
The member also stated that we need more money to be contributed in order to help solve this problem, so my question is this: Where will the more money that is needed come from?
I do not believe that the member opposite has spoken about the importance of entrepreneurship, innovation, small business owners and industry within Canada, and getting that part of our economy back up and running so that we can have those individuals actually helping to fund these types of initiatives. Government does not have money of its own, so I am just curious: Where does it come from?
158 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, the individual across the way made mention in her speech that through Bill C-11, money will be taken from broadcasters and put into an art fund, and artists will then be able to pull from that art fund in order to generate more “Canadian content”.
She said this is an investment in broadcasting of Canadian material. When I look at YouTube, TikTok, Twitch or Snapchat, I see some incredible up-and-coming Canadian artists. We call them digital-first creators, and they will be captured under this piece of legislation. There is good potential that 30% of their revenue will have to be contributed to this art fund.
Can the hon. member help me and those digital creators understand whether they would have the opportunity to also pull from that fund by applying for grants from it, in the same way that they are paying into it?
152 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
