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Context: House Hansard - 55 - Apr/7/22

Oct/18/22 10:30:35 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a very important issue. We have just heard that one of the impacts of the Russian war on the world is IT infrastructure. Another one is energy security. Think about Canada having the third-largest reserves of oil and natural gas in the world and about the German chancellor who came to Canada looking for help with potential energy sources and we could not provide that, unfortunately. With respect to our position as an energy power in the world, I wonder if the member has some comments on what Canada could and should do to help the people of Europe as they deal with this issue.

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Apr/7/22 10:09:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise today on behalf of petitioners from Saskatoon West. This petition is in regard to the unprovoked war on the people of Ukraine. Of course, we know that the war has triggered a human rights, humanitarian and displacement crisis, and the petitioners are calling for the implementation of visa-free travel. In my riding and in Saskatchewan there is a large contingent of people of Ukrainian descent, and this is very important to them. They note that a public poll done on March 9 showed that 85% of Canadians support the idea of visa-free travel for Ukrainians to Canada. The petitioners call on Canada to immediately waive all of these requirements and grant visa-free travel to Ukrainians.

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Mar/29/22 12:18:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to comment on a couple of things the member raised. One is that the current government's history is that if an idea comes from the opposition, it is not a good idea. The previous speaker mentioned the same thing. I am pleading with the governing Liberals to see that this is a good idea. May they please take it and use it. We are willing to give it to them and let them do whatever they want with it. The other issue the member mentioned was with respect to women. I want to highlight that also. Right now, this is primarily about women and children. We need to protect these women. We need to give them a place to live and a safe place to be. This is hugely traumatic for them and for their kids. We need to be here for them at this time, and I believe Canada can do that right now.

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Mar/29/22 12:16:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. First, according to the current government, money does not seem to be an object for anything, so I do not think we can say that money is an object. The Liberals have found ways to print money. I am not suggesting that is a good thing, but it seems to be the mode the Liberals operate in, so I would be surprised if they said that money was an object. We also have a very large civil service, so I would think we would have the ability to do this. I believe the minister has the authority to authorize special permits for people to escape if needed. I think it has been done before, so I think we have the tools and the resources we need to make this happen. If we do not have enough resources, I am quite certain we could add what we need to get it done. We have to be able to accomplish these things.

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Mar/29/22 12:14:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that question is one that we have asked multiple times at the immigration committee. I hear it from people every day. The simple reality is that when one has finite resources and one adds more work to the pile, something will not get done. That is just reality. All of us who have been in the real world have experienced that. We experience that in our own homes: If there is too much to do, something does not get done. All of us have to-do lists we have not gotten to. That is the case here also. I have heard many cases of other streams of immigration. I spoke a lot about Afghanistan. I think that one is falling by the wayside a bit. Certainly, in the normal stream of immigration, I can recall a man in my riding who was not able to see his wife and kids for two and a half years because he was waiting for paperwork. Those are the kinds of cases that I believe are going to suffer because of this. There are not enough resources to do all of this work at the same time. The good news is that I believe there could be more resources, if the will was there. Ultimately, we have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. We have to be able to deal with a crisis while we continue maintaining the regular work that has to be done.

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Mar/29/22 12:12:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that question points out the reality that is being faced right now. I have heard many stories of people who are wanting to get biometrics done, for example, and these biometrics are supposed to take a short time. When they call the office, they do not even have the ability to book an appointment because they are all booked for the next six-plus weeks. There is a tremendous problem with the immediacy of this issue. My colleague suggested getting some planes over there and dealing with the paperwork once people come here. As I said in my speech, these are women and children. Men are not even allowed to leave Ukraine because they are needed in the war effort. The risk to Canada is extremely low. I strongly believe that we can do things to get people out of the country, get them to a safe spot and then deal with paperwork and biometrics to figure out if they are terrorists or not.

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Mar/29/22 12:10:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for his statement. There may be a number somewhere that says two weeks, but my information comes directly from people we have talked to: people I have talked to and our office has talked to. It is actually quite fascinating. I was in my office last week and my office manager was speaking with a woman in Canada who is Ukrainian. She was speaking with her family. As we were conversing here, she was texting her sister who was in Poland. It just amazed me that we had the ability to communicate directly with people on the front lines of this conflict. When I say it is six weeks, that number is coming from those people. This is real information that I have from people I have talked to. The government may say one thing, but the information that I have seen and that I have heard from people in my constituency and from people fleeing the area is that it is many more than two weeks.

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Context: House Hansard - 47 - Mar/28/22

Mar/29/22 11:49:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a great pleasure to rise in this House today to speak to this concurrence motion on the grave situation before us in Ukraine. My constituents in Saskatoon West know that I sit on the House of Commons immigration committee. On this committee, we have been focused on several issues of importance, but none more so than the horrid war in eastern Europe and the humanitarian crisis being caused by Putin's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. The motion we are debating today is very simple. The immigration committee came together under the leadership of my colleague, the Conservative shadow minister of immigration, and asked the government to take in Ukrainians visa-free. That is simple enough, right? Unfortunately, every single Liberal on that committee voted against the motion. I hope today that the Liberals will change their minds and support this motion now that it is in front of the entire House of Commons. This motion was born out of the experience of government failures since August 15 of last year to help Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban. We do not want to see a repeat of what happened with Afghanistan replayed here with Ukraine, and indeed the two issues are very much intertwined. Before I get into detail about Ukraine, I must bring out some context about Afghanistan. None of us in this House asked for the Taliban to wipe out the legitimate government of Afghanistan last August when Joe Biden removed the last of the U.S. troops from that country, just as none of us in this House asked for Vladimir Putin to invade and wage war in Ukraine, creating the greatest mass exodus of people in Europe since the end of World War II, yet here we are. As one of the most fortunate and blessed countries on the planet, Canada has a role to play and must step up to the plate. If we listen to the government, we would hear that Canada's response, in the words of the foreign affairs minister, would be for Canada to be a convenor of meetings. We would send over a few World II bazookas and set up a couple of meetings in Ukraine. Of course, that pales in comparison to the Liberal response to the Taliban, a banned terrorist organization in Canada, conquering Kabul last year. Maryam Monsef, then Liberal leader for women's rights, no less, welcomed the Taliban as “our brothers”. I first want to put some context to this debate on Ukraine today. That context is Afghanistan. When Kabul was falling to the Taliban, our Prime Minister called a vanity election, hoping to get his sought-after pandemic majority. On that day, the world was in crisis, and all the Prime Minister could see in the mirror was his own vain image. Thousands of Canadian Forces members served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014, with the solemn loss of 159 Canadians and military personnel. These brave women and men fought to secure basic human rights, such as girls not being sold into sexual slavery and instead going to school. They also fought to eliminate the threat the Taliban posed to world peace. Of course, it was the Taliban that gave material aid and support to al Qaeda in planning and executing the 9/11 attack. Thoroughly embarrassed, the Liberals did promise to bring in 40,000 Afghan refugees. This included those who helped our armed forces while they were in the country, but the program established to bring them over to Canada has been a dismal failure. In eight months, the program has brought in less than 20% of the eligible number, and most of those brought in are in Canada because of private refugee sponsorship, not through the clumsy, overly bureaucratic IRCC process. Last night, I attended the Afghan committee and listened to painful stories from Afghanistan. The Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock. Girls have been banned from schools after the sixth grade and women cannot even travel on a plane without a male chaperone, yet Canada cannot get its act together. Here is one example. Friba Rezayee from the Women Leaders of Tomorrow works with elite women athletes. She has 15 female Afghan athletes who have been given full-ride scholarships to respected Canadian universities. The Liberals have denied them student visas because they are afraid that these women might stay in Canada in the long term. The Liberals will not allow elite women athletes to study in Canada because they might not return to a regressive Taliban. I guarantee that we will not see that headline on CBC News. Today many potential new refugees are currently in Europe, waiting for their go-ahead from IRCC and a plane ticket, but it is not happening. Indeed Greece, Crete and other EU nations are getting increasingly impatient with Canada as they bear the cost of housing and feeding these refugees who are meant for our country. As an MP and deputy shadow minister for immigration, I am fortunate enough to have been able to meet with many ambassadors, high commissioners and consuls general from other regions to discuss Canada's response to the refugee crisis. I had very fruitful discussions with President Biden’s consul general, Boris Johnson’s deputy in Ottawa and the Belgian ambassador. I have also met with the high commissioners from India, Ajay Bisaria, and Bangladesh, Dr. Rahman, to discuss these issues. I hear one unifying message from the diplomatic corps here in Ottawa: Get on with the job and get those refugees settled in Canada. I want to turn to the specific motion we are debating today. Earlier this month, our committee, led by the Conservatives and supported by the other opposition parties, passed this motion calling upon the government to implement visa-free travel for Ukrainians fleeing Putin’s war machine. Unfortunately, Liberal members voted against this motion, going on record with their opposition to allowing Ukrainians coming into Canada. Indeed, the Liberal member for Surrey—Newton summed up Liberal opposition to this at the March 1 committee meeting when we were discussing this. He said: …Liberal members who are concerned about the security…concerned about bad people coming to Canada if there is a visa-free entry. …This is not going to go well, so please consider that and do not support this motion. Let us remember that we are talking about women and children. Men are not even allowed to leave Ukraine. Honestly, this is just a smokescreen for the government to slow down the process and keep people out. I know this, because I asked the Minister of Immigration directly about security concerns for Ukrainians coming into Canada when he came to the committee at the following meeting. Specifically, I asked him if the biosecurity checks that are being done at our embassy in Warsaw, Poland, would add extra processing time to the applications. His answer was that it takes only a few days and added negligible time to the processing of Ukrainians. This is simply not true. The reality is that it is adding up to six weeks to the process. It is so bad, in fact, that the Toronto Star reported that the Polish prime minister had to take Canadian media aside during our Prime Minister’s trip to Poland to underscore his frustration that these refugees were not being cleared through our embassy in Warsaw. When the Polish prime minister needs to complain about the lousy job the Liberals are doing, something is clearly wrong. The Conservative solution is simple: Do the security checks when these individuals arrive in Canada. These are women and children; the risk is very low. What would our Conservative solution accomplish? First and foremost, it would allow the people fleeing the war zone the opportunity to come to Canada in an expedited manner. Back in Saskatoon, as I talk to people who have family on the ground in Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia or wherever they may be in Europe, the stories they are telling me are of massive delays at Canadian embassies and consulates to get paperwork done, and that paperwork is for visas. It is to get the so-called biometrics done. Basically, it is fingerprinting and criminal record checking but on a larger scale and against a global database. Conservatives absolutely understand the need to keep undesirables out of Canada. However, we can do these criminal checks in Canada. Let us remember that we are talking about women and children. Canada can do better. On Thursday of last week, the Minister of Immigration appeared at our immigration committee. I asked him about the dichotomy between the treatment of Afghans and Ukrainians coming into Canada. I wanted know why only 9,500 of the promised 40,000 Afghan refugees have arrived in Canada after eight months. I wanted to know why he was also bragging about bringing in over 10,000 white Ukrainians to Canada in only three months. The minister said back to me, “the vast majority of people who want to seek safe haven in Canada actually [will] return to Ukraine.” Regarding Afghans, he said, “I hate to admit that the likelihood that people who are coming here are going to be able to return is just not there.” He believes that Afghans will stay in Canada permanently. On the other hand, he has every confidence that white Ukrainians will have no problem exiting Canada when the time is right. This boggles my mind. He basically admitted to his own systemic biases in gauging people by their skin colour. I am not the only person who caught this either. On Friday last week, The Globe and Mail did an entire news story on my exchange with the minister. This was its analysis: Opposition parties says the Liberal government’s streamlined immigration program for Ukrainians creates a two-tiered, racialized system that prioritizes Ukrainian immigrants over refugees from other conflict zones, including Afghanistan.… [The immigration minister] added that the government opted to offer streamlined immigration measures to Ukrainians, rather than a dedicated refugee program, because European counterparts and the Ukrainian Canadian community have indicated that most Ukrainians who come to Canada will want to eventually return home. This is not the case with people coming from Afghanistan, he said, hence the need for a refugee program. I can assure my constituents in Saskatoon West and indeed all Canadians that they can read between these lines and see that the minister is basically waving the white flag to the Taliban and saying that, unlike white Europeans, Afghans do not have the drive, desire or love of their homeland and would not return if conditions improve. I have managed many people over the years, and I have learned that the vast majority want to do a good job. I am sure that the hard-working staff at IRCC want to make Canada proud and do the best job that they can, but there are clear problems. Both Afghans and Ukrainians are being stalled by bureaucracy and piles of rules that effectively stop good people from coming to Canada. These types of problems fall firmly at the feet of leadership: the minister and his senior staff. I urge the minister to review this bureaucracy and make immediate changes so that those at IRCC can do the work they want to do and make Canada proud. Marcel, from Saskatoon West, wrote to me after that Globe and Mail article was published. I want members to know what he said, because it is relevant to today's debate. He said, “Thank you for raising this issue...I complained...at election time that it was criminal that getting Afghanis who helped the Canadian Forces had been delayed by the Bureaucrats and the Liberals.... Today's paper states about half of those approved are still being kept out. We should charter planes to bring them here and do the paperwork later. All those who helped the Canadians can be identified by past and present members of the forces.” Marcel's point was that the Afghans we are trying to get out helped us through the two-decade war. Canada was in that war because we are part of NATO, and the U.S. invoked article 5, which ensures mutual defence. When one NATO member is attacked, we are all attacked. What is happening in Ukraine has a lot of people talking about NATO and Canada's role in NATO. People in Saskatoon West are asking me what I believe should be done for our defence posture in our budget. To that end, I put a motion on notice in the House just last week. Motion No. 55 reads as follows: That, given the ongoing war of aggression in Ukraine and the possibility of the war spilling over into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) defended territory, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) make at minimum the NATO requirement of defence spending investments of 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in budget 2022 to bring the budget of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) into line with NATO requirements; (b) focus this funding on expanding Canada’s war fighting capabilities; (c) authorize the departments of Public Works and Government Services and National Defence to make capital purchases for the CAF on an urgent basis using national security grounds and waving bureaucratic red tape; and (d) immediately enter into an agreement with the United States of America to use Canadian territory for the deployment of its ballistic missile system and provide funding and operational personnel for such a system based within in its territory. The first and second parts of the motion are pretty straightforward. When our Prime Minister was in Brussels last week, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that all member nations have until June to provide their plans to him to reach the NATO target of 2% of GDP for defence spending. Our defence minister immediately left that meeting and shot that idea down. The government's coalition partner, the NDP, has said that it will veto any increased defence spending, so it looks like Canada will once again miss this target. The third part of the motion to cut red tape and authorize the purchase of military equipment on national security grounds is something that has not happened since Prime Minister Harper. When Canada needed tanks or new heavy-lift airplanes for the war in Afghanistan, the government invoked the national security clause and the equipment arrived within months. Today, when we look at what we can provide for the war on Ukraine, we do not have much. Our military cupboard is nearly bare. When our governments go to buy helicopters, fighter jets or new naval vessels, it takes decades. The process to start building the new naval frigates started in the early 2000s, and not one plank has been laid. The process to buy the fighter jets started at the same time, and only yesterday did the government announce that it would begin the process to buy the planes that Harper wanted to buy in 2006. What about those helicopters? Yes, they are the ones that Brian Mulroney ordered in the 1980s and were cancelled by Jean Chrétien. Then they were reordered and finally arrived only a few years ago. Unfortunately, they are all out of service because of cracks in the airframe, but, hey, that is the government's red-tape military procurement system. The final section I have in there is on Canada joining the U.S. ballistic missile defence system. Do members know that Canada is the only NATO country not protected against Russian nuclear attack? The technology in this system is proven to shoot down incoming ICBMs. It would not catch all of the nuclear warheads, but it would certainly limit the damage. Why is Canada not a member? The Americans were willing to pay and man the system after all, and all we needed to do was allow them to set up some stations in our Arctic territories. However, under the Paul Martin Liberals in 2005, Canada told President Bush that we thought Putin was a nice guy and would never harm a fly. What I am proposing is that we get back to the Americans, tell them Canada made a mistake, and that if we need to pay and man the stations in the Arctic, a real partnership with the U.S.A., we will do it. Even with the war in Ukraine, I am not under any delusion that the NDP-Liberal government will support this motion, but I want my constituents back in Saskatoon West to know that I am putting these ideas forward for them. Saskatoon has one of the highest Ukrainian diaspora populations on the planet. After Ukraine and Russia, the Canadian Prairies are home to the world’s third-largest Ukrainian population. I grew up behind the garlic curtain in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. The Yorkton area has a very large Ukrainian population, which is why I thought that garlic was one of the food groups. Borscht, perogy, holopchi, I ate very well in Yorkton. I recently learned that my own ancestry is tied to Ukraine. My heritage is Mennonite. My Mennonites started out in the Netherlands; then they moved to Prussia, and then they were enticed to move to Russia by Catherine the Great. She offered them freedom in exchange for their work in developing vast farms, because they were known as great farmers. My grandfather always called himself Russian and labelled his town of birth as Schönfeld, Russia. However, what I recently learned was that my grandfather was actually born in Ukraine. His birthplace, while called Russia at the time, was actually very near Zaporizhzhia, the heart of the current fighting in southern Ukraine. I finally understood my love of Ukrainian food and of Ukrainian people. Many Ukrainians also live in Saskatoon West. Their families came here when our province was first settled, and the government was providing land to be farmed. Many others had grandparents and parents flee to Canada during the Holodomor, Stalin’s holocaust and mass starvation of the Ukrainian people. Even today, there are many Ukrainians who are immigrating right now. The Ukrainian language is very much alive and well in Saskatoon. I have had a chance to meet with many constituents of Ukrainian descent over the past several years and to talk about issues common to all Canadians. We talk about taxes and government spending. Inflation is a hot topic right now. We talk about health care, the pandemic, crime and everything in between. It has only been recently, though, that we have begun talking about the old country and their relations and ties back in Ukraine. It is heartbreaking to listen to the stories they relay from the front lines. It is also heartwarming to know that many of them are prepared to do everything possible to support Ukraine against Putin’s war of aggression. Even in Saskatoon, I have spoken with young men who could not wait to find a flight to get back to Ukraine to help fight against Putin. Oleksandr from my riding wrote to me and said the following: “Hi Brad. I am Ukrainian immigrant. I am in Saskatoon since 2006...I am glad to meet with you (though I am just a journeyman welder in Canada, former Ukrainian engineer. Resident of Saskatoon. I am not a leader of a community or anything like this, so you don’t really need me other than to learn from me about this ridiculous fact of this old vicious attack against Ukraine”. Oleksandr’s letter told me that he wanted to send a money wire transfer back to his family, but because of the policies of the Liberal government in Ottawa, he was barred from doing so. This is just another example of the Liberals making bureaucracy a priority over the people of Ukraine. What I will tell Oleksandr and all my constituents is that I am in Ottawa and I will continue to fight for you and will continue to stand up against this incompetent Liberal government to ensure that the concerns of Ukrainians are heard. I do not know what the future holds for Ukraine and Afghanistan. I fear that in both instances it will not be good. Democracy and human rights may once again prevail in both countries, but the human cost will be high. What is Canada’s responsibility to make sure peace happens? We fought a war in Afghanistan and a lot of Canadian blood was spilled and treasure spent. In Ukraine, the stakes are even higher. Reports put daily military causalities higher than the entire wars in Iraq and Afghanistan inflicted on U.S.A. and NATO allies in two decades. The belligerents of Russia and Belarus directly border NATO countries, while NATO supply lines of military equipment into Ukraine have become legitimate targets for attack. President Biden said the following, “Direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent.” Those are scary words, for sure. Let me finish with these inspirational words from Ukrainian President Zelenskyy when he addressed this Parliament two weeks ago: “We are not asking for much. We are asking for justice, for real support, which will help us to prevail, to defend, to save lives, to save life all over the world.… Please expand your efforts to bring back peace to our peaceful country. I believe that you can do it and I know that you can do it.” These are inspirational words. Let’s heed them. Peace to Ukraine. Slava Ukraini.

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Context: House Hansard - 21 - Feb/1/22

Mar/28/22 1:22:45 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-8

Madam Speaker, this really highlights how some MPs lack the ability to understand how the world works and how business works. We do not have to mandate things. We do not have to tell companies or countries to do things. We have an opportunity. We know there is an opportunity to supply oil and natural gas to the world. The world is asking us for this. We need to supply that. If we allow the market to work as it is supposed to, we would have pipelines that are supplying that oil and supplying that natural gas, taking the opportunity that is there in front of us and creating jobs, creating wealth and creating tax revenues for this country. Because some of us in the room do not understand how the real world works, we get confused and we try to impose things and all of a sudden things fall apart and we are lacking and missing out on opportunities that we could have for the residents of Canada.

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