- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Saskatoon West
- Saskatchewan
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,909.92
- Government Page
- Nov/1/22 10:52:04 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, it would seem that the debate today is all about ArriveCAN, and it should be, because the questions are very good.
The app was, first of all, mandatory, so I find it interesting that the minister bragged about how many people downloaded the app. They had to download the app; they did not have an option.
The real question is the $54 million that it cost. We already know payments were made to companies who did not even know they got paid, and that all this money was lost. Will the government actually audit the money that was spent and figure out, number one, why it cost so much more than it should have cost for what it did, and number two, where all this money went that nobody knows about? Who got rich on this?
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Madam Speaker, I am very proud to be here today to speak on Bill C-232 this evening, which would proclaim April as Arab heritage month in Canada. I appreciated listening to the speech of my colleague for Scarborough Centre and to hear all of the people she named, all of the distinguished people of Arab descent. It is quite significant in our country. As many Canadians know, we have a long tradition in the House of Commons of recognizing certain months or days to honour individuals or groups or, indeed, entire peoples that make up this Canadian fabric. We do this much more than just the 12 months or the 365 days that make up the calendar.
April, for example, is already officially recognized as African American Women's Fitness Month, Alcohol Awareness Month, Black Women's History Month, Celebrate Diversity Month, Distracted Driving Awareness Month, Financial Literacy Month, Foot Health Awareness Month, International Guitar Month, Mathematics Awareness Month, Month of the Military Child, Pets are Wonderful Month, Scottish-American Heritage Month, Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Sexually Transmitted Infections Awareness Month and Sikh Heritage Month. This is just the tip of the April iceberg.
Why do we need an Arab heritage month? The answer is that, like the worthy causes I just listed, we need to formally recognize the contributions that Arabs make to Canadian society.
Let me tell everyone about my riding of Saskatoon West and the contributions that Arabs make to my community. As many people know, I knocked on many doors over the past three years and on many occasions I got the usual politician-at-your-door treatment, which was, “Why are you here? Get off my lawn. I am voting for the other guy,” and that type of thing. When I would go into apartment buildings that had primarily Arab tenants or even people from other Islamic backgrounds, I received a different treatment. People said, “Yes, yes, please come in. Have some tea and biscuits. Sit down. Please discuss what you are here for.” I would spend 10 or 20 minutes there, then knock on the next door and it would be the same thing all over again.
As a westerner in a country like Canada, I am not used to Middle Eastern hospitality. Arab people are earnest and honest about treating outsiders with kindness, respect and dignity. This is a value that is ingrained in their culture. The result of those visits was that those polls that I visited, where I sat down and took tea and biscuits, ended up voting for me. If we look at the electoral map, this is the first time ever that some of those polls voted Conservative. It is because I took the time to make a one-on-one connection with the people there, which is the way they are. More importantly, they got to know me and to know more than just the politician. That is the amazing thing about the Arab and Muslim people. They love their children and care deeply about their families. They care for their neighbours, they love this country of Canada and want to make it a better place. They work hard, often working at multiple jobs or working at a job while running a family business at the same time.
As old-stock Canadians, we just need sometimes to move beyond our preconceived ideas that have formed in our minds from popular culture and past events and get to know our Muslim brothers and sisters. Just two blocks away from my constituency office live Ahlan, her husband Osoma and their six children. They are Arab Muslims from Jordan and want to visit Osoma’s ailing father, who is in a hospital in Jordan. The family has personal objections to the COVID vaccine and now that the world is reopening, they would like to go to Jordan to visit the children’s grandparent, whom they have not seen in eight years. The only thing stopping them from this trip is the NDP-Liberals' unscientific vaccine mandates, which prohibit them from boarding the airplane. I want this family to know that I am doing everything I can to fight these useless mandates put forward by the current government.
I want to tackle head-on some of the perceptions that Canadians have of Muslims and Arabs, in particular, due to past events and popular culture, and I am not going to sugar-coat this. When I was growing up, I and many people of my generation saw constant conflict in the Middle East between various nation-states, and the growth of terrorism scared many people. We saw the despots in control of Arab countries such as Syria, Iraq and Egypt and the puppet regimes in other countries such as Lebanon. The Persian neighbour of Iran saw the Ayatollah come to power, seize the U.S. embassy and declare us in North America to be the great Satan. Who could forget 9/11 and then war and even more war?
Canada went to war in Afghanistan for nearly 20 years with our American and European allies, only to let Kabul end up in the hands of the Taliban. Hollywood, the mainstream news media and now social media have added an extra layer to these actual historical world events. Hollywood takes everything and embellishes it. In the early and mid-2000s, we could not turn on the TV without hitting another American TV show with Arabs as the bad guys against the American good guys.
NCIS is still the number one show on TV, and for 19 years, in almost every episode, Gibbs is chasing down some fictional Arab terrorist.
Social media has taken all of that anti-Arab, anti-Muslim mixed bag of historical fact and popular culture and created the new global crisis of out-of-control conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories have always been a part of a free society, but now every hateful, spiteful thing that is said is twisted and amplified by the Internet.
Why am I bringing this up? It is because, as parliamentarians, we need to shine a light on the dark spaces and on the garbage dumps of our society in order to clean them up.
Unfortunately, but truly, Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiment are real in Canada. If this bill, Bill C-232, which would create Arab heritage month, and the few hours of debate that we will have on it allow us to address this issue, then so much the better, because as members of Parliament, we owe it to all of the Arab folks to get this right.
Let me tell you, Hollywood has it wrong. Yes, bad historical events happened, but they happened because of bad individuals, not because of the religion or the area of the world. Putin is nominally a Christian, and he is engaging in a war of aggression. Mussolini was the first to call himself a fascist, and he was a Roman Catholic from Italy. Hitler was Austrian. These were individual men causing great harm, and they did not reflect European Christians at the time. Just like Saddam Hussein was one man and Gaddafi was one man, they did not reflect all Arab Muslims.
What we need to do is move beyond these individual men and these bad events and celebrate Arab people as a group. We need to better understand the Muslim religion in its entirety. That is what Bill C-232 strives to do.
The Tigris River is the birthplace of modern civilization. The Bronze Age, where man moved from stone tools to metalwork, took place in the delta of the Persian Gulf. From that moment on, civilization has been marked by the advances in the Arab world. Did you know that the concept of the number zero was invented by Arabs?
It actually goes back to the Quran, which calls upon Muslim people to count the phases of the moon in order to track days. As we know, there are 28 days in a month, with the new moon at the beginning of each cycle, so they needed a way to numerically write that and came up with a number to represent nothingness, the number zero.
It seems a simple concept to us but it was not the Greeks, nor the Romans, nor the Indians, nor the Chinese who could grasp this concept until the Arab world taught it to them.
What about language and learning? The Great Library at Alexandria, in Egypt, was the first place of learning. Long before Oxford and Cambridge were established in England as the first modern universities, the first university had already been established in Damascus in the eighth century. To the chagrin of many school-aged children, who invented algebra? It was an Arab, in the territory of Spain.
The first hospital was also established in the Arab world and, prior to that, there was no central place for physicians and patients to gather in one place. The first modern surgical procedure was also undertaken by Arabs.
How about inventions in the Arab world? Graph paper, the first planetary globe and the first mechanical clock. Yes, it was the Arabs, not the Swiss, who invented the clock.
In Canada, the first mosque built was the Al Rashid Mosque, in Edmonton, in the 1800s. My colleague from Edmonton West would argue that the Rahma Mosque in Edmonton West was the first, but I do not think he is right.
Mr. Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West, CPC): No, it is the best.
Mr. Brad Redekopp (Saskatoon West, CPC): Oh, it is the best, Madam Speaker. I will not pass judgment on that, but I do know it is the first.
I must emphasize how proud I am to support this legislation. Canadians need to understand the positive accomplishments that the Arab people have brought to our planet and our country. It is not just the bad stuff they see on the TV and the Internet. There is much more to it. In Canada, the contributions of Arab Canadians are immeasurably positive.
There are, of course, many friends and neighbours who have come from countries throughout the Arab region. Some of us have family members who are Arab or Muslim. We know them as shopkeepers, business people, restaurateurs, school teachers, oil rig workers, bus drivers, pilots, doctors, nurses, members of Parliament and every vocation possible. They are Canadians and, according to our census, 2,300 people of Arab descent live in my riding. They may be from the Middle East and have a different religion, but they are the same as everyone else.
If there is one message that I want my constituents to hear, and I want all Canadians to hear, it is that we must move past historical events and what Hollywood has shown us and focus on the positive.
Let us work together and vote to support this legislation.
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- Apr/26/22 2:16:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on April 1, about 25 people in my riding of Saskatoon West lost their jobs because of an imposed federal vaccination requirement. Their employer, Maple Leaf Foods, is federally regulated by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and as such must follow federal rules.
On April 4, Shawn, who lost his job, wrote to me wondering how he was going to put food on the table and provide for his family. When I originally posted about this on Facebook and Twitter, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader mocked Shawn and my other unemployed constituents: so much for Liberal sunny ways.
While countries around the world lift restrictions, here in Canada we have a government that tunes out actual science and substitutes it with its own political science. This NDP-Liberal government is creating division when it forces people out of work, making it impossible for them to provide for their families.
It is time to end the mandates, end the division and work to heal our country so Canadians such as Shawn can get back to work and support their families.
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- Mar/29/22 2:52:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when lifting COVID mandates in my home province of Saskatchewan, Premier Moe said the following: “It's time to heal the divisions.” Premier Moe recognizes something the Prime Minister simply cannot, that a leader must unite Canadians. Instead the Prime Minister is using every opportunity to divide Canadians based on vaccination status. Dr. Tam has stated that the science supports a review of federal COVID mandates and restrictions.
Since the government claims to listen to science, why is it not immediately announcing a plan to lift all federal COVID mandates and restrictions?
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- Mar/28/22 1:19:54 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, there are so many ways to answer that question, but I think I am going to focus on this: Did we need to spend money during the pandemic? We did. Was that money well spent, as the member asked? I would say in many cases it was not. I have seen many examples of organizations that received more money than they needed and businesses that received more money than they needed. We have lots of examples of people who were not even in Canada, inmates and all kinds of things. There was a tremendous amount of money that was not spent correctly.
At the end of the day we have to be very careful with Canadians' money, because this is the fundamental thing: It is not our, us in this room's, money. This is Canadians' money. This is money they earn and spend, and we have to be extremely careful and prudent in how we spend that money. When we put ourselves into debt, we are putting Canadians into debt, and we have to be extremely careful on that as well.
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- Mar/28/22 1:07:53 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is a privilege to speak in the House again.
Today is March 28, 2022, and we are debating the government's fall economic update, an update that was given in the House in December of 2021. Yes, we are actually debating budgetary measures that this government introduced over 100 days ago. In that time, Canada and the world have changed. With COVID, we saw omicron come and go, provincial lockdowns and vaccine passports established and removed, and we are now learning to live with the virus. In Ottawa, we saw the use of the Emergencies Act to call on police forces to crush peaceful protesters under the jackboot of the Prime Minister's basic dictatorship, and another dictator is currently using his war machine to crush our friends in Ukraine.
What are we doing here in this House of Commons? We are debating legislation that, among other things, would allow the government to get rapid test kits for COVID out to the provinces. Well, maybe somebody should tell the government that everyone already has rapid tests—
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- Mar/23/22 3:03:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada is a tale of two governments. Provincial governments use real science to make decisions and have lifted their COVID mandates, but here in Ottawa, the NDP-Liberal government relies on political science and refuses to end COVID mandates, making some Canadians second-class citizens. These Canadians cannot fly, cross an international border or keep their jobs in the military simply because they do not want a voluntary vaccine.
When will the NDP-Liberal government follow the lead of the provincial governments, listen to the science and end the federal COVID mandates?
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- Feb/20/22 6:10:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if Ottawa has an incompetent mayor who could not get the job done, I do not think it is incumbent on the federal government to take a sledgehammer with the Emergencies Act to come in and try to fix that problem. That is a problem for the City of Ottawa. If the City of Ottawa could not handle it, then the province should step in. The laws that were currently in place could have gotten the job done. I think it is completely unnecessary to do this to cover the incompetence of a local city councillor.
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- Feb/20/22 6:09:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are significant consequences. I want to particularly highlight the people I have been talking to. For example, an older lady called my office in tears because she had donated a small amount of money to the convoy and was worried that her bank accounts would be frozen. Businesses' bank accounts are now frozen because of the imposition of the Emergencies Act. This is having very significant financial implications on individuals and businesses right across the country, and we need to be very concerned about that.
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- Feb/20/22 6:07:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there were a lot of questions. For the businesses in downtown Ottawa, it has been difficult, but I must remind the member that there have been two years of difficulties for business owners in this country. For two years, businesses have not been able to open. It has been difficult for everybody.
I also want to remind the member that the bridges that he referred to opened up prior to the imposition of the Emergencies Act. They were dealt with through the regular channels of the system of law that we have in our country. Those were taken care of through regular laws. We did not need the Emergencies Act for that.
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- Feb/20/22 5:54:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the member from Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River.
It is a sad day to be speaking here on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West. When I first ran for office two and a half years ago, I never thought I would spend most of my time representing my constituents during a time of COVID-19. When I ran for re-election just six months ago, I never imagined that I would be representing them during a debate about martial law being imposed upon them. From day one of that campaign, when the Prime Minister deliberately set out to wedge, divide and stigmatize our population, the wisest among us may have foreseen this power grab. Unfortunately, I was naive enough to think that even this Prime Minister still had a modicum of love and respect for his fellow Canadians and for democracy. The truth is that his love is for power and his respect is for dictatorships.
What is the Emergencies Act? I want to be absolutely clear. This is a naked power grab by the Prime Minister, and I will not be supporting it. This act allows the government, under certain strict criteria, to override all established laws, regulations and norms of Canadian democracy. It is, simply put, the imposition of martial law. The New York Times reported these measures for what they are: a “temporary suspension of civil liberties”.
This legislation is a successor to the War Measures Act and has never been used in Canadian history. Its predecessor was used during times of world wars to help Canada mobilize and by the first Trudeau to go after real terrorists in Quebec during the FLQ crisis in 1970. Today his son, our current Prime Minister, is using emergency powers to clear vehicles on Ottawa streets.
To be clear, I and my colleagues in the Conservative Party have called for an end to these blockades, but the vehicles at the U.S. border crossings were already gone before this Emergencies Act was even initiated. The Liberals said they needed this power to compel Ottawa tow truck operators. They did not. Existing laws already gave that power. In fact, nearly everything they are doing could have been done under the provincial emergency order.
The extraordinary powers of the federal Emergencies Act have never been invoked, not even when the twin towers were toppled on 9/11, when we went to war in Afghanistan or when an actual terrorist stormed Parliament here in 2014 and tried to assassinate the prime minister at that time. The fact is that the Prime Minister mishandled this situation right from the beginning. Every parent teaches their children to use their words, not their fists. Instead, our incompetent Prime Minister chose division over leadership, chose name-calling over dialogue.
As an aviation enthusiast, I am fascinated by airplane crashes. The root cause of a plane crash can always be traced back to someone not even on the plane. The reason for the crash is never the most obvious one. One must ask why. Why did the engine quit? Why was there no fuel? Why was the fuel gauge incorrect, etc., etc., until one gets to the root cause. If we apply that strategy here, what is the root cause of the unrest we see today? Is it the protesters themselves? Certainly they will be the ones held accountable for their actions, but why were they here? One root cause was the mandate for truckers to be vaccinated. Who forced that? It was the Prime Minister.
Another root cause is frustration and weariness with COVID restrictions in general. When the provinces began to relax restrictions, the federal government was intent on keeping them in place. Who forced that? Again it was the Prime Minister. In fact, time and time again, the root cause of this conflict can be traced right to the feet of the Prime Minister. His own MPs have said that the Prime Minister has politicized the pandemic, using division and fear to pit Canadian against Canadian. We have neighbours snitching on their neighbours, fully encouraged by the government.
The Prime Minister desires division and depends on it to retain his political power. Conservatives want to lead with dialogue and mutual respect. We know that a root cause of this conflict is the lack of a plan to move us past the COVID restrictions of the last two years, so last Monday there was a vote in the House of Commons on our Conservative motion to make a plan to end COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. The Liberals and their lackeys in the NDP voted it down.
In this situation it is the cheerleading of the NDP that is perhaps the most telling of all. The NDP, going back to its CCF roots in Saskatchewan, pretends to be the hero of the little guy, the working class. These last few weeks have finally discredited that myth. We know that many of the current NDP are self-proclaimed socialists. Just like our PM admires Communist China’s basic dictatorship, today’s NDP looks back in time at Lenin and Stalin and yearn for a return to those days.
The whole philosophy of socialism as written by Marx was to put down dissent and seize power through violence. I read with great interest the tweet of former NDP member of Parliament Svend Robinson. He was referring to the 1970 vote, when the first Trudeau invoked these emergency powers. Svend said, “The NDP Caucus in 1970 under Tommy Douglas took a courageous and principled stand against the War Measures Act. Today's @NDP under [its leader] betrays that legacy and supports Liberals on the Emergencies Act. Shame. A very dangerous precedent is being set.”
Traditionally, the NDP has stood on the side of civil liberties and prevented governments from being granted sweeping powers; today’s NDP, well, not so much. This will not come as a surprise to current NDP leadership, but it should be a wake-up call to all Canadians who support the NDP. The NDP is not the friend of democracy.
I want to get to the heart of the matter. A leader skilled in dividing and stigmatizing is also skilled at distracting. Like a clever magician, our Prime Minister is having us look at downtown Ottawa while he works behind the scenes to carry out his true goal. What is that? As they say, follow the money.
The finance minister let slip this week that the government's real desire is to make some of the emergency measures permanently available to the government. Which measures was she referring to? She was referring to financial tools.
Let us take a step back. All dictators want control. In our modern society, control is exercised through money. One cannot do anything without money. Even exercising constitutional freedoms requires money. For example, freedom of speech might require a website, a pamphlet, an advertisement, etc., all of which require money. If someone takes away our money, they take away our freedoms.
My parents grew up with cash. A person could accumulate a pillowcase full of cash, put all that cash into a briefcase and buy a neighbour’s house by handing that briefcase over to him. In most of human history, that is how transactions were done, using shells, gold, cattle, etc. Today, if someone shows up with a briefcase full of money, that person will likely be arrested. Governments, through their central banks, want cash to be eliminated so that they can control our money and therefore control us. This plan was going very well until GoFundMe and cryptocurrencies showed up. These new payment methods have thrown a big monkey wrench into the wheels of government control—that is, until now.
What did the finance minister let slip this week? She let slip that the government would take the overreaching powers of the Emergencies Act regarding financial controls and make them permanent, particularly as they relate to crowdsourcing and cryptocurrencies. In other words, in a moment when Canadians are allowing the government to have absolute power, the government is using that opportunity to slip in some permanent changes
I am not a conspiracy theorist; I am just making an observation and hoping people pick up on this discussion and really pay attention.
These emergency powers are significant. What are the people of Saskatoon West saying about this? Cora in my riding said, “This language of hate and divide needs to stop. Love and kindness is the only way forward. ... I can’t help but wonder if we continue on this path how long it will take for myself to be on the receiving side of hate from our government because of policies that go against my well intended morals and values. It’s only a matter of time...and I’m scared.”
I am scared too.
Matthew said, “As a constituent of your riding, I just wanted to voice my extreme concern that the Federal Government of Canada has implemented this measure over a peaceful protest. I know you're part of the opposition, and I have been glad to see some of the members of your party speak plainly to the Canadian people. I don't typically take the time to get involved in politics, but it's absolutely disgusting what's going on right now. I am embarrassed to be a Canadian at this point.”
We should all be embarrassed. A recent immigrant from Bangladesh told me plainly, “Things going on in Ottawa are very sad. [The Prime Minister] is becoming a dictator. Yes! People around the globe know Canada as a calm and peaceful nation. We love friendly, peaceful Canada, and that is why we moved to Canada. Please raise your united voice in the House against all kinds of violence.”
The Prime Minister is embarrassing Canada on a global scale, but all is not lost. My home province of Saskatchewan shone a beacon of hope last week for Canada. It ended the vaccine passport system on February 14, the very same day the Prime Minister took his drastic step federally. I have listened to my constituents, unlike the Prime Minister, who attempts to shut down opposing voices.
I have much more to say, but my time is up. In summary, the Prime Minister has created this situation. He has the power to make it worse and the power to make it better. I pray he chooses wisely.
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- Feb/15/22 2:47:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last Friday, the Prime Minister said that the Ottawa police had enough resources to deal with the protesters, and on Monday he calls for emergency measures. Boy, that escalated quickly. He had 17 days to act, and after hiding in his cottage on his MacBook for the first week, he did nothing but divide and stigmatize.
My constituents in Saskatoon West want to know this: What changed in the Prime Minister's mind over the weekend to justify such drastic measures?
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Madam Speaker, I just want to remind the minister that it is the official opposition, the Conservatives, who have been calling for this for many months. It was even in our election platform. Even the government's coalition partner, the NDP, has been asking for this, too.
I heard just a few moments ago the minister and the parliamentary secretary both talking about how, when they were first appointed, they started working very hard, which I believe implies that the previous minister was not working hard and was not doing as much as they should have.
I just wonder if the minister could comment on some of the mistakes that were made by the previous minister. What things is she doing to correct them?
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- Feb/1/22 1:55:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I am not saying that we should not follow public health measures, but I am giving a perspective from Saskatchewan. We have taken a bit of a different approach. We have had fewer lockdowns and fewer restrictions, and the results have been similar, so there are ways that we could manage through this by using our creativity. We can do this.
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- Feb/1/22 1:54:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no question that our health care workers and our health care providers in this country deserve medals of honour. They have been working extremely hard. I think all of us in this House would salute them.
What it is really showing is that we have a deficiency in health care in our country. Our budgets need to get higher in this area, because we do not have enough resources. Our hospitals are overtaxed at the best of times and our care homes need help. All of these things have come to light because of COVID.
I believe we need to work harder. We need to thank our health care workers. We need more of them. We need more resources in the health care field.
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- Feb/1/22 1:52:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the protests we saw in Toronto were about denouncing Israel, and unfortunately we never saw anything about that on the news. Apparently that is not important to our media.
The real question is, will this end? Is it possible to make this end? I would submit that large problems require creative solutions. If we do nothing, then the member is exactly right: This will never end. We will remain in a cycle of a variant and a lockdown and a variant and a lockdown. That is what I am calling out.
That is what the truckers and all Canadians want. They want us as leaders to show some creativity, some different ways of attacking this problem. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is defined as insanity. We need to try different things.
Yes, I think we can conquer this. We can find a way to live with whatever COVID looks like going into the future, normalize it, get on with our lives and start to live again.
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- Feb/1/22 1:41:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to get up and speak in the House on behalf of the constituents of Saskatoon West.
Nearly six months ago we had an election call, and the Liberal Party leader said that this was the most important election since World War II. It has taken him months to swear in his cabinet and recall Parliament. It has been 69 days since the throne speech, and MPs are still here in the House debating that very first item of business on the government's agenda.
For some context, we had the election, and then Thanksgiving, Remembrance Day, Christmas and New Year's. Now it is February, and we are still talking about this. I would suggest that this government is tired. It is struggling to get anything done. Fair enough; it has been difficult with COVID for all of these months, but this is exactly when our leaders need to step up and provide that inspiring leadership. This is when we need to lead.
With this in mind, there are too many things that I want to discuss today, but one is the trucker convoy protest, and the second is the situation in Ukraine.
We cannot help but notice the protests that are going on outside today. If we listen to the Liberals, the NDP or the media, we would think that Ottawa was under attack by these protesters. The NDP leader said, “I am concerned by extremist elements that are spreading misinformation and attempting to turn the convoy into a Canadian version of the terrorist attacks on the US Capitol.” I think the leader of the NDP needs to be concerned about his own spreading of misinformation.
The truth is that this was all started by our hard-working truckers, who are tired of COVID restrictions. If we spent any time among them, we would have seen tens of thousands of people of all races, colours, genders, sexual orientations and languages protesting vaccine mandates peacefully. We would see families, including young children who were either joining in the protest or giving encouragement.
Now, we also saw a few bad seeds joining in, and this is common for any public protest these days. Look at any Black Lives Matter event, and we will see a few troublemakers. In Canada, we have seen troublemakers knock the head off the Queen Victoria statue in Manitoba, tear down the Sir John A. statue in Montreal and put flags on the Terry Fox statue here, and we in this room condemn all of that. Of course, I condemn anyone promoting hate speech or hate symbols in this protest. However, I have also seen in this protest people picking up garbage, people cleaning up, people praying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. These are stories that the media fail to report.
Listen, I am not saying that I agree with everything they are protesting about, not at all, but when such a large group of Canadians take time off work and spend their hard-earned money to come to Ottawa, we have to hear them out. We have to listen to what they are saying. I am calling on all of us politicians to meet with these folks and listen to what they have to say, even if we do not agree with them. They deserve to be heard. I am asking the Prime Minister to talk with these folks. Do not be afraid of them. Do not hide, but go and actually talk to them. We might be surprised with what they say. If we talk to them, we will find normal, hard-working people tired of COVID. They want an end to lockdowns, vaccine mandates and disruptions.
Now, regarding the vaccine mandate for truckers specifically, what they are asking for is very similar to what Conservatives have been saying since last summer. First, we have been encouraging people to get vaccinated. Next, we have been encouraging employers to make accommodations for those people who do not want to get vaccinated. Specifically for truckers, our leader has been calling for measures to accommodate truckers since before Christmas. However, there is something deeper here, and it is what is causing tens of thousands of Canadians to honk their horns in support of the truckers and is at the root of this whole thing: People are tired of lockdowns. On this, I believe the protesters share the feelings of a great many Canadians.
The question in a nutshell is this: How do we get back to normal? I have always supported and encouraged vaccinations, and a great many of these protesters are vaccinated. In fact, we know that about 90% of truckers in Canada are vaccinated, but Canadians are tired. The government actions so far have had undesired side effects. There is tremendous division in our country. Good luck to someone who is on a surgery waiting list right now. Loneliness and mental health have brought much despair to people, causing suicides to go up. In short, we are giving up on all the things that give us life, and it has been two years. We are into the umpteenth variant, and thankfully, they are getting less deadly as we move forward, but people just want to know where we are going from here.
On vaccinations, Canada's stated goal is to achieve 80% of adults vaccinated for diseases like the flu, and COVID is no different. Here is the good news: We are there. Canada has greater than 80% of our population vaccinated, which is among the highest percentages in the world. Last July, the Prime Minister said that the country should be aiming to get more than 80% of the eligible population vaccinated if we're going to be safe.
We are there. We have achieved our goal. Let us celebrate and start working to dismantle some of the restrictions.
Let us look at Saskatchewan. We have taken a “less lockdown” approach here. We have had no restrictions on restaurants and no gathering limits for the past few months. Rather than having government restrictions, we have empowered our people to do their own rapid tests and make their own decisions about whether to gather or not. The result of this is that the COVID situation in Saskatchewan is the same as or a bit better than everywhere else in Canada. In our experience, strict government regulations and restrictions are not a factor in the results. In fact, more loosening is coming to Saskatchewan very soon. The Premier said that Saskatchewan will be ending our proof of vaccination policy in the very near future. Why is that? It is because the policy has achieved the goal it set out to reach. We have been successful at getting people vaccinated.
To come back to the truckers' protest, they want to know when this is going to end. They want to know that all this sacrifice has been leading somewhere. Many scientists now agree that we need to learn to live with COVID. That is what the truckers are asking for, and most Canadians would agree. Let us find a way back to a new normal. Instead of creating a division, it is time for our leaders to step up and lead.
On Ukraine, Canada's overseas foreign relations are also looking very tired. Once a trusted ally and reliable partner, Canada has been reduced by the Liberals to being a bit player with little to offer our allies. Now we are facing something we have not seen since World War II. We are moving from peace to the prospect of war in Europe. Our allies in Ukraine are asking us for help, and we are offering hollow words, gestures and hashtags when our friends and allies are asking for much more.
There is a significant Ukrainian diaspora on Saskatchewan. Over 16% of Saskatoon's population is of Ukrainian origin. Canada has the third-largest ethnic Ukrainian population on the planet. I grew up in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, which has a very large Ukrainian population, and community get-togethers as a kid always involved awesome food like borscht, perogies and cabbage rolls. Of course, in Saskatchewan we are very proud of Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn, who is of Ukrainian heritage.
Conservatives are fully supportive of Ukrainians throughout Canada and the democratically elected Government of Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine.
In my riding of Saskatoon West, the Ukrainian community has reached out to me. On Sunday, Martin Zip, president of the All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Brotherhood, wrote to me as follows:
I call on you to support:
1. Accelerating a NATO Membership Action Plan for Ukraine;
2. Increasing sanctions on Russia to deter further aggression against Ukraine;
3. Ensuring that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline never becomes operational;
4. Increasing the provision of military equipment and defensive weapons to Ukraine;
5. Extending and expanding Operation UNIFIER, Canada's military training mission in Ukraine.
After our pushing the issue, the Liberals finally agreed to extend the training mission, Operation Unifier, by three years, and they also provided a $120-million loan, but this falls very short of what our friends actually asked for. What about the other requests?
The Conservatives are calling for providing lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine. Ukrainians are facing a much larger, much better equipped Russian army right on their doorstep. In their hour of need, they are begging their allies for support and equipment. Other nations have answered the call. The U.S., the U.K., Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, the Czech Republic are all there. Where is Canada? We are sending tweets.
We also need to restore the RADARSAT imaging that was previously provided when we were in government. It provides key world-class intelligence information. It is a very simple thing that we can do to help our friends in their hour of need.
What about their request for sanctions? Sanctions on American and European goods and services technology could do significant damage to the Russian economy. We could remove Russia from the SWIFT banking system. We could imposed Magnitsky sanctions on the individuals holding the wealth of Putin and other Russian leaders. This would freeze their assets outside of Russia.
Our tired Liberal government needs to step up and help our friends in their time of need. I long for the days when Canada was a real leader on the world stage. I remember when Prime Minister Harper looked Putin in the eye and said, “Get out of Ukraine.”
Today Canada is missing in action. What do Ukraine across the planet and truckers here at home have in common? It is a tired Liberal-NDP government in Ottawa that has run out of ideas. The throne speech said, “Canada must stand up on the pressing challenges of our time”. With nearly six months of pressing challenges, including truckers, Ukraine, inflation and the housing crisis, there is very little engagement and very little action. This is a tired government, intent on creating division rather than on leading. It is time for us to step up and lead. It is time for the last and final chapter of the COVID era.
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