- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Cypress Hills—Grasslands
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,746.42
- Government Page
- Apr/18/23 2:18:25 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government has close ties to the Trudeau Foundation, but the Prime Minister does not seem to care about accountability or transparency. First he chose a special rapporteur who was previously a member of the same foundation to be investigated for foreign interference and now he is making a desperate attempt to attack Conservatives. He wants to make it sound like the Trudeau Foundation is similar to an ordinary charity that has been victimized by partisanship from the opposition, but that is quite a stretch.
This is an organization that is listed under a government department's portfolio. The foundation's annual report also states that it reserves spots for the Minister of Innovation to appoint directors and members. Though the Prime Minister has officially divested his interests while holding public office, his name is still listed as a succession member.
Sadly, the NDP has sold out its principles for a coalition with the Liberals and is not supporting our efforts for transparency. Even if the NDP-Liberal coalition votes against it, Conservatives will demand nothing less than a fully independent inquiry.
185 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/17/23 11:36:08 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of Liberal failures, more Canadians feel that our country is broken in so many ways. The Prime Minister does not want to hear it and tries to deny it, but it is true. He blames the rest of the world and shames other people for the problems that his Liberal government created.
Instead of dividing Canadians against each other to distract from Liberal failures, will he finally take some responsibility and let Conservatives fix what he broke?
82 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Oct/27/22 2:11:41 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Canadians cannot afford the cost of living, and this week they have been hit with another devastating interest rate hike. That is the result of a Prime Minister who does not think about monetary policy and has added more to the national debt than all other prime ministers combined. While Canadians make sacrifices, the Liberals are blowing taxpayers' dollars on themselves and their elitist friends.
Most recently, we learned about the Prime Minister’s luxurious trip to London. He saw it as an opportunity to spend $400,000, which included a $6,000 hotel suite for one night.
It is not surprising. Year after year, the Liberals have not missed a chance to waste Canadians’ money. The WE scandal gave half a billion to a company that lined the pockets of the Prime Minister’s family. It cost $54 million to create the intrusive and glitchy arrive scam app, when it could have been made for $250,000. Former Liberal MP Frank Baylis’s company was part of a $237-million contract for ventilators that were not even used.
The Liberals have a record full of wasteful spending. It is unacceptable and it needs to stop.
202 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, even though we are discussing a government bill to amend the Official Languages Act, I do not think my colleagues, or the interpreters for that matter, would like to hear me using this time to practice my French, so forgive me if I spend the entire 10 minutes here with members today speaking in English. I will save that for another day.
When discussing our two official languages in Canada, it is important to first acknowledge the role each of them has had to play in our history, and they continue to actively shape our national culture. This is not only true for Quebec in the past, the present or, quite frankly, the future, as we go forward from here tonight.
There is a lot of French heritage across the entire country. To this day, we will find francophone communities in the Atlantic provinces, in Ontario, in Manitoba and even across western Canada. In fact, right in my riding of Cypress Hills—Grasslands, we have several distinctly francophone communities, and I am going to spend a few minutes tonight talking about those communities, if members will indulge me.
I will start with the great community of Gravelbourg in my riding. It has a great Catholic heritage with the Church of St. Philomena, which became the Cathedral of St. Philomena on July 27, 1930. It was later renamed Our Lady of the Assumption Cathedral in 1965. The construction began in 1918, and the Most Reverend O.E. Mathieu, Archbishop of Regina, presided at the blessing ceremony on November 5, 1919. The architect, however, and this is important to know for the context of the speech here tonight, was the one and only J.E. Fortin of Montreal.
On December 14, 1918, le Collège catholique de Gravelbourg opened its doors to its first students. This college is the oldest institution that still operates in Gravelbourg. In 1976, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate handed over the direction of the college to the francophonie of Saskatchewan.
This college has been a very important piece in my life. I played many volleyball matches at Collège Mathieu when I was growing up in the great community of Frontier. We travelled there multiple times to play. It is a great, beautiful school right in the middle of the Prairies, and pays a great homage to the French heritage that belongs to the community of Gravelbourg. The people are very proud of that community, and as a representative for the area, I, for one, am very proud of the great heritage that is represented there.
I also want to point out the great community of Lafleche, Saskatchewan. Lafleche is named after Louis-François Richer Laflèche, a Roman Catholic missionary to Rupert’s Land from 1844 to 1856, who also happened to be the bishop of Trois-Rivières, Quebec, from 1867 to 1898.
Members may be starting to sense a theme here of the great French heritage imported through the Catholic church from Quebec into Saskatchewan. However, there is one more community I want to talk about here tonight. There are more than three great communities, but I am going to focus on these three here tonight, because we have a limited amount of time in this debate.
The third one is the great community of Ponteix, Saskatchewan, and I just want to go over the history of it. The Paroisse Notre Dame D'Auvergne Parish was born of Father Albert-Marie Royer's dream of founding a parish that he would dedicate to the Virgin Mary. In 1907, after having studied the nature of the soil on several occasions, Father Royer made his choice on the land that runs along the Notukeu Creek in Saskatchewan, which seemed promising to him. It was a land without wood, but very fertile and easy to cultivate.
I would be remiss if I did not mention that this land also happens to fall within the Palliser Triangle, which was deemed not to be suitable for mankind to live within, yet here we are today. We have many great communities that live in within the Palliser Triangle. They happen to be feeding the world, not just Canada, and doing a great job of it.
It is also important to keep in mind something that I am sure most parties will agree with in this place. The French language, with its history and future in Canada, is much bigger than the Liberal Party, or any other political party for that matter, including the Bloc Québécois. There have already been, and there still are, Conservatives and members of many other parties who have participated in its history and supported its growth.
Besides transcending political parties and partisan interests, French Canada is also something that is much bigger than what governments try to do. That is why we have to make sure that the issue of official languages is handled in a careful way that gets the right balance, which is also why a member from Saskatchewan would be willing to speak to this important bill here tonight.
I will turn now to a general concern, which has already been raised by other members, including the great member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier in Quebec, who also serves as our Conservative shadow minister of official languages. It has to do with the minister and the department of heritage. There are some technical questions with how they should be involved with the implementation of these proposed changes. Along with those points, I want to bring up some broader context. There has been some confusion expressed and feedback, not only from the opposition, but also from other parts of society as well. The Fédération des communautés francophones et acadienne du Canada was quoted on Radio Canada saying that they also have to wonder about the fact that the Department of Canadian Heritage retains a coordinating role in the implementation of the law when it has no authority over other federal institutions.
Ultimately, this minority Parliament needs to hold the federal government accountable. We need to make sure that any power we give to them is used responsibly for the good of Canadian francophones and that it will not somehow be used by the Liberals to promote their own partisan interests and political gain.
As always, I also want to make sure that we never miss the rural perspective on this issue. Our policy for official languages does not just impact a single region in the country, and I hope the experience of francophones who live outside of Quebec's biggest cities is considered.
Here is something that I came across in the summary of Bill C-13, which reads:
(l) enable the Commissioner of Official Languages to enter into compliance agreements and, in certain cases, to make orders; and
(m) enable the Commissioner of Official Languages to impose administrative monetary penalties on certain entities for non-compliance with certain provisions of Part IV of that Act.
It also makes a related amendment to the Department of Canadian Heritage Act.
Part 2 enacts the Use of French in Federally Regulated Private Businesses Act, which, among other things, provides for rights and duties respecting the use of French as a language of service and a language of work in relation to federally regulated private businesses in Quebec and then, at a later date, in regions with a strong francophone presence. That Act also allows employees of federally regulated private businesses to make a complaint to the Commissioner of Official Languages with respect to rights and duties in relation to language of work and allows the Commissioner to refer the complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board in certain circumstances. It also provides that the Minister of Canadian Heritage is responsible for promoting those rights. Finally, Part 2 makes related amendments to the Canada Labour Code.
I find it interesting that this bill would allow for fines to be levied against a private business or a Crown corporation for not adhering to the act, up to a maximum of $25,000. I know that this is all in response to the pressure that the government is facing for Air Canada hiring an anglophone executive, and that would be a $25,000 fine for a corporation that is responsible for bringing in millions and millions of dollars of profit, but I wonder about the far-reaching consequences of having a knee-jerk reaction to this decision.
For example, I wonder if we were to go back through history, does that mean that, when it was still a federal program, it would have excluded or fined a PFRA pasture rider for simply not being bilingual. I also wonder about other federally regulated businesses in my riding.
What about, for example, Farm Credit Canada, which provides crucial financial services to farmers and ranchers? Over the last two years, we have heard many, many people talk about the impacts Farm Credit Canada has had on their farms. What is this act going to mean for people who do business in a very important industry such as agriculture? What is this legislation going to mean for a business like Farm Credit Canada? What about grain elevators and inland terminals, which happen to be federally regulated, that are responsible for the contracting and shipping of commodities to the coasts for processing or export to the world markets?
1586 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
