- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Wellington—Halton Hills
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $120,269.09
- Government Page
- Apr/20/23 3:04:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when the object over Canadian airspace was shot down by an American F-22 on February 11, the defence minister said at the time that the process was sound and that it was NORAD doing what it is supposed to do. Yesterday, The Washington Post reported that, according to the Pentagon's assessment, Canada's military response was delayed by one hour, necessitating U.S. assistance.
How does the defence minister square her public comments with the Pentagon's assessment?
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- Apr/20/23 3:02:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, according to The Washington Post, the Prime Minister privately told NATO officials that Canada will never meet the military alliance's defence-spending target. However, that is not what the Prime Minister is telling Canadians publicly. Instead, he is saying that Canada is a reliable partner to NATO and a reliable partner around the world.
How does the Prime Minister square his private comments to NATO officials with his public comments to Canadians?
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- Jun/1/22 8:12:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would point out that I have been quite critical in recent years of the government's spending on official development assistance. I noted that in the period from 2016 to 2021, the Government of Canada actually reduced official development assistance by 10% compared with the previous government. Ambassador Bob Rae noted that in the report he did for the government that was posted in August 2020 on the Government of Canada's website. We are supportive of the government doing a better job in the areas of official development assistance, peacemaking and climate change, but we also believe the government needs to do a much better job in the area of military and defence commitments.
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- Jun/1/22 8:11:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think the government needs to manage Canada's relationship with Turkey better than it has been. This government has made a lot of mistakes in managing our relationship with Turkey. It made mistakes with export permits for drone technology, for example. I think it needs to improve its relationship with Turkey. It needs to make it clear to Turkey that we are interested in bringing Finland and Sweden into NATO.
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- Jun/1/22 8:08:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think that democracies need to work more closely together not just on diplomacy or the military, but also on economic issues. An example of that is precisely in Sweden and Finland. Finland is a global leader in telecommunications technologies.
The Scandinavian countries have long produced telecommunications giants, such as Nokia and others, that could help us develop 5G and 6G technologies that would help us build a secure national communications infrastructure to ensure that we were no longer threatened by authoritarian states, such as China, that have their own 5G systems through companies like Huawei, which the government has recently banned. I note that Sweden has a robust domestic defence industry. It produces the Gripen fighter jet.
There are many other economic strengths that Canada could take advantage of by working more closely with those two countries.
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- Jun/1/22 7:59:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Russia's war in Ukraine has actualized something that was once only theoretical. An authoritarian state led by an autocrat has attacked a democracy: It has demonstrated that it is willing and able to attack a democracy. It has made clear that democracies that stand alone and are not part of military alliances are most vulnerable. That is why it has become necessary to bring both Sweden and Finland into the NATO alliance.
This is an urgent matter. It is urgent because Sweden and Finland are now very vulnerable. They sit in between a period when they were neutral states and full NATO membership, which would guarantee their security and protection by other NATO members under article 5. That is why this debate is so important and why I hope the House will add its political support to the Government of Canada's decision to support Finland and Sweden's accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
It is also an urgent matter because now that Sweden and Finland have indicated that they wish to join the NATO alliance, Russian disinformation will no doubt accelerate through media sympathetic to Russian disinformation and through political actors sympathetic to Russian disinformation. That is why it is important that we here in the House speak clearly and categorically about our support for both Finland and Sweden's entry into the NATO alliance.
It is also important that the Government of Canada puts pressure on NATO members that are resistant to Finland and Sweden joining the NATO alliance. Both Turkey and Croatia have indicated concerns, if not outright opposition, to Finland and Sweden joining NATO. The Government of Canada must make clear, through its ambassadors as well as through discussions between foreign ministers and heads of government, Canada's position.
Canada supported Turkey's accession to NATO in 1952, and Canada should now ask Turkey to clearly support Finland and Sweden's accession to NATO in 2022. Canada should note that it supplies military equipment to Turkey, particularly key technology for Bayraktar drones. Canada supported Croatia's entry to NATO in 2009, and now Canada should ask Croatia's President Milanovic for his support for Finland and Sweden's accession into the NATO alliance in 2022. The government should note that continued opposition could have negative repercussions for Canada-Croatia relations, which could impact everything from youth mobility arrangements to the promotion of two-way trade and investment.
The Government of Canada also needs to make clear to Finland and Sweden that both Canada and Turkey work together to combat terrorism, and it should indicate that there are groups that both Canada and Turkey consider terrorist entities as listed under the Canadian Criminal Code.
The Canadian government should do as the United Kingdom government recently did, and provide interim security guarantees to both Finland and Sweden in the interim period where they are the most vulnerable before their accession to the NATO alliance to counter any plans that Moscow may have to try to block and intimidate these two countries.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ann Linde, Sweden's foreign minister, on May 5. We discussed Sweden's application to join NATO, Russia's war in Ukraine and its implications for defence, energy and Arctic sovereignty. It was clear during our discussion that it was in Canada's interests as well for Finland and Sweden to join the NATO alliance. Their membership would help bolster Arctic defence and security in a region that Russia considers its most strategically important. It is a region in which Russia has invested considerable resources in recent years.
Finland and Sweden also have robust militaries that could bolster Canada's contributions to the military alliance. Finland demonstrated its fighting spirit during the Winter War of 1939 and 1940, when brave Finns fought back advancing Soviet tanks by running up to the tanks with tar-coated bombs and slapping those bombs onto the track treads of those Soviet tanks, disabling them.
They used nothing more than their bodies and simple, homemade, handmade bombs to stop the Soviet army in its tracks and they eventually repelled the invaders.
The Swedes have a robust domestic military industry. They produce the Gripen fighter jet. Therefore, it is in Canada's interests that both Sweden and Finland join the alliance, helping us to bolster our military capabilities both here and abroad.
Finland and Sweden and their desire to join NATO have demonstrated how much the world has changed since Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24. For some 200 years, Sweden has had a policy of neutrality. This is longer than the confederation of Swiss cantons. It is longer than Switzerland's policy. Its position of neutrality dates back to 1812, when it lost territory to Russia as a result of the Napoleonic wars.
The fact that after two centuries of neutrality Sweden has formally applied to join a military alliance reveals how much the world has changed in the past three months, and that should be a wake-up call for the government. The world has changed, but the government has been slow to react to that change. Russia's invasion of Ukraine makes it urgent that the Canadian government meet its commitment to spend 2% of Canada's gross domestic product on our military. This is something it committed to before the most recent budget. It is something the most recent budget fails to deliver on, and our allies are increasingly making note of our failure to uphold our defence spending commitments.
Just this past week, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen said, “In the public discourse leading up to the release of the budget, the rhetoric from senior Canadian government officials implied that there would be a significant increase in defence spending.” He added, “It’s fair to say that although $8 billion is more money, it was a little disappointing as matched against the rhetoric that we heard leading into the release of the budget.”
Finland and Sweden understand that the world has changed, and that is why they are urgently seeking to join NATO. Germany understands that the world has changed, which is why Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who heads a centre-left coalition, announced on February 27 a dramatic U-turn in decades of German foreign and defence policy by immediately committing to increase German defence spending to well beyond 2% of gross domestic product, with an immediate commitment to spend $140 billion Canadian on German defence spending. Other NATO allies understand that the world has changed, but the government has not and it has been slow to react.
Let me finish by stating clearly and categorically that we as Conservatives support Sweden and Finland’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I encourage all members of the House to do the same to ensure that the Parliament of Canada adds its clear voice of support to the Government of Canada's decision to support Finland and Sweden's accession into the NATO alliance.
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- Jun/1/22 7:58:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
I am in support of concurring in the fourth report of the Standing Committee of the Public Safety and National Security, which expresses its strong support for Finland's accession and Sweden's accession to the NATO alliance, and which calls on all NATO members to approve their application for NATO membership as soon as possible.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24 was an illegal act of war. It was an unprovoked attack on a European democracy. It marks the first war between European states since 1945. It shattered the relative peace and security that we in the western alliance have enjoyed for the last eight decades, since the end of the Second World War.
Russia's war on Ukraine has actualized something that was once only theoretical. An authoritarian state led by an autocrat directly attacked—
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- Apr/5/22 12:22:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Louis-Saint-Laurent.
President Putin and the Russian Federation are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
Reports from Bucha last weekend of dead Ukrainian civilians with their hands bound behind their backs and others buried in makeshift pits have shocked the world, and these war crimes in Bucha are not all of it. We have seen numerous credible reports of Russia deliberately attacking civilians in other parts of Ukraine. The UN has officially confirmed thousands of civilian casualties, and no doubt the unofficial number is much higher.
There are other atrocities as well. The Russian military has deliberately destroyed hospitals, schools and apartment buildings. It targeted a Mariupol theatre full of civilians that was clearly marked, and visible from the air, with the Russian word for children. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights concluded that Russia deliberately attacked the Mariupol maternity hospital.
Beyond these war crimes, day after day and week after week for the last five weeks, we have been barraged by countless photographs, videos and reports detailing Russia's indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas. Major Ukrainian cities are being levelled. Mariupol, once home to some half a million people, is now 90% destroyed. In Kharkiv, a city once home to 1.4 million Ukrainians, some 600 buildings have been destroyed. The list goes on. The data and images have come so fast and furious in the last five weeks it is hard to process all of it, but one thing is abundantly clear: The world has changed, and Canada must change with it.
The attack on Ukraine by President Putin and the Russian Federation is the first European war between states since 1945. This attack threatens not only Ukraine but Canada. Our security has always been inextricably linked to that of Europe's. Since Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec City in 1608, the outbreak of major wars in Europe has always affected Canada.
The Seven Years' War, which some call the first major global conflict, a war in Europe between Great Britain and France, led to the conquest of Quebec in 1759. What we call the War of 1812 was part of a broader European war: the Napoleonic Wars. Canadians know full well the high price paid in the First World War and the Second World War in Europe. Some 100,000 Canadian war dead can attest to that. Most of them are buried in northern France and the Italian peninsula.
It is clear President Putin and the Russian Federation's unprovoked and illegal attack on Ukraine is a challenge to our peace and security here at home in Canada.
This attack also threatens Canada in a second way, because it comes on the heels of an autocratic pact between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, which threatens the rules-based order that has existed since 1945. This is an order that Canada was instrumental in establishing, an order that has ensured the longest period of relative peace and prosperity in modern times and an order that, if successfully challenged by the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, threatens the peace and security of 38 million Canadians here at home.
President Putin and President Xi's autocratic pact was signed just ahead of the invasion of Ukraine, on February 4 of this year. It declared each other's support for their respective positions on Ukraine and Taiwan, and it stated that there are “no forbidden areas” and “no limits” between China and Russia. It is the most detailed and assertive alliance between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China ever. It is a challenge to the international order that has existed since 1945, and it threatens our peace and security here at home. The world has changed and Canada must change with it.
The events of the last decade make clear something else. We can no longer live in splendid isolation on the north half of this vast continent, assuming that we are protected on three coasts, by three oceans and on our southern border by a superpower. It is true that, since the founding of Quebec in 1608, we have lived under the protection of one empire or another for over 400 years. For much of our history, we have lived under the protection of the French and British empires. When the French empire fell in North America on the north half of this continent in 1759, the Royal Navy and the British empire provided protection until August 1940. In that month, during the early dark days of another war, a Canada-U.S. defence pact was signed in upstate New York, in Ogdensburg, that set in place the protection that we have enjoyed since 1940.
Since then, we have lived under pax Americana, but no longer. It is clear that the United States is no longer willing to shoulder the burden of Canada's defence and security and that of the NATO alliance. That was made clear by President Obama in 2014 during the NATO Wales Summit, which resulted in the Wales Summit Declaration that called on Canada and other NATO members to increase their defence spending to at least 2% of GDP by 2024. It was reiterated by President Obama in this very chamber in 2016 when he called on Parliament to meet the Wales Summit Declaration goal. It was reiterated by President Trump loudly on numerous occasions during his administration, and it has been reiterated by the current Biden administration.
The world has changed and Canada must change with it. We can no longer count on another country to take care of our defence and security here at home. It is time for us to get serious about our defence and security and our contribution to the defence and security of the NATO alliance. That is why we have introduced this motion in the House today. The government needs to increase defence spending in the budget. There is no priority more important to any Government of Canada than the safety and security of some 38 million Canadians living here at home.
The government needs to fully uphold the obligations Canada made in the Wales Summit Declaration of 2014 to increase defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product in two years. While the government has been decreasing defence spending in recent years, there remains only two short years to fulfill the Wales Summit Declaration.
Let me close by saying that in fulfilling our obligation to the NATO alliance, we can contribute not only to the defence of Europe but to our own defence and security here at home. Canada, like Ukraine, shares a border region with Russia: the Arctic Ocean. Russia considers the Arctic region its most important theatre. It has spent considerable resources to strengthen its capabilities in the Arctic, and it is time that we took Canada's Arctic defence and security seriously.
We need to modernize NORAD's early warning system. We need to fix our broken military procurement system and acquire new equipment for the Canadian military, as well as additional equipment for Ukraine's military. We need to accelerate the national shipbuilding program. We need to purchase the F-35 jets. We need to join ballistic missile defence in the face of Russian hypersonic missile technology. We need to work in closer co-operation with Scandinavian allies and the United States in Arctic peace and security. If we do these things, we can provide Ukraine with lethal weapons and ensure a future Bucha, a future Kharkiv and a future Mariupol will not happen. If we do not do these things, we are weakening the democratic alliance and potentially losing our sovereignty in our own north.
The world has changed and Canada must change with it. If we rise to the task like previous generations of Canadians, we can strengthen both our democracy here at home and abroad and ensure that our children can continue to live in peace and security.
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