- 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
- Oct/20/22 3:36:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.
The government is completely out of touch, and I do not say that lightly. There is a crisis unfolding in rural parts of our country, in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, a real crisis, a crisis the government is ignoring.
Here is the crisis. Ten per cent of Canadians heat their home with heating oil or with propane. That is 3.8 million Canadians. About a million and a half households in our country heat their homes during the cold Canadian winters with heating oil or with propane. That is a third of Canadians living in Atlantic Canada. That is over a million people living in the province of Ontario. They heat their homes with oil or propane, and the vast majority of them heat with oil.
What many people do not realize, and what the government certainly does not realize, is that these Canadians are in dire straits. They are facing a crisis this winter. The one out of 10 Canadians who relies on heating oil or on propane is going to be bankrupted by the cost of heating his or her home this winter, and here is why.
Traditionally, 90% of Canadians heat with heat other than heating oil or propane. They either use natural gas or some form of alternative. However, here is the reality for those 10% of Canadians who use heating oil or propane.
For a house that is heated with natural gas, for every dollar of heat that house uses in natural gas, for that same house located in an area where there is only heating oil or propane, it costs three dollars, three times the amount, to heat with propane and it costs four dollars to heat with heating oil, or four times the amount.
These figures I give to the House are before the global energy crisis that has hit global economies over the last year or so. This winter the figures now facing the 10% of our fellow citizens who heat with propane or heating oil are truly frightening and that is why this is a crisis. I went on the website yesterday of West Nova Fuels of Nova Scotia, and I will quote from its website:
[O]n average a typical house with four people in it should burn about three to four tanks of oil in a year to heat your home and hot water, about 2800 litres of oil.
That is now much it takes to heat a typical home in rural Ontario and rural Atlantic Canada: 2,800 litres.
I went on the website of a company called Crescent Oil in rural southern Ontario that services much of rural southwestern Ontario with heating oil. Its current price for the cost of a litre of that heating oil is $2. Some areas of rural Ontario and rural Canada have even higher per-litre costs for heating oil. Canadians will understand that if they are told that number two heating oil is diesel. That is what furnace oil heating oil is.
If people have driven around in Ontario in the last week or so, they will see that the price of diesel fuel is at record high levels because of shortages of distillates and other heavy crudes, and it is selling for about $2.35 a litre now in Ontario. Therefore, it is no coincidence that heating oil, which is diesel, is selling for $2 a litre. That is $2 a litre for 2,800 litres over a winter. That is $5,600 to heat a typical home in rural Ontario or rural Atlantic Canada. That is before the carbon tax and the HST.
There is a carbon tax of roughly 13¢ a litre on that heating oil. There is HST not just on the base cost of the heating oil, but also on the carbon tax, so that $5,600 it is going to cost to heat one's home this winter in rural Ontario or rural Atlantic Canada actually is closer to $6,739, of which $375 is the carbon tax.
The government's rebates do not cover these costs. A typical four-person family, mom, dad and two kids, living in these rural areas, heating with heating oil and driving to work in a two-income family and putting 25,000 kilometres a year on each vehicle, because there is no public transit in rural areas, which is the very nature of living in a rural area, will consume about 5,000 litres of gasoline in a year.
As well, in Ontario there is an 11¢ a litre carbon tax on that gasoline. That means someone who is paying about $550 a year in carbon taxes for commuting, and add to that the $375 they have paid on their heating oil to keep their home at a minimal temperature of about 19°C or 20°C, is looking at $925 a year in carbon taxes just on commuting and heating. That is not to mention all the carbon taxes that are embedded on shipping, groceries and other costs. The climate rebate of $204.88 a quarter, for a total of $819.52, does not cover the cost.
Out of the government's own admission, and we heard it from the previous member, two out of 10 households in this country do not get more back from the rebate than they pay in carbon taxes. The government is ignoring those households and ignoring the crisis facing these households. It is ignoring the astronomical skyrocketing costs it will take to keep one's house warm in rural Ontario and rural Atlantic Canada this winter.
The argument that this is somehow working as part of a plan to reduce emissions to combat climate change is bunk. Here is the proof. Liberals have not met a single target. They came to office saying that they were going to meet Copenhagen. We blew through that without meeting that target. They said that they are now on track to meet Paris, which is total baloney.
Emissions have been rising under the Liberal government. In 2016, the first full year the government was in office, emissions were 715 megatonnes. In 2019, the last year before the pandemic for which we have data, emissions rose to 738 megatonnes. Now, they dropped in 2020, but shutting down the economy is no way to combat climate change and reduce emissions.
I will go out on a limb here. I believe that in 2022, Canada's emissions will blow through that 738 megatonne level to a record high for the government. Do not take it from me; take it from Bloomberg. I was reading the news this morning and I came across an article Bloomberg just published today entitled “[The Prime Minister] Defends Canada's Minuscule Climate Progress”, with the subheading, “A bevy of climate policies championed by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have not yet translated into steep pollution cuts in the country.”
I want to quote from that article—
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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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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Niagara West.
I would like to quote a fiscal Conservative, who stated:
Canadians want to know that the principles guiding government are ones that they share.
Here are our principles.
First, governments created the deficit burden. And so governments must resolve it—by focusing first in their own backyards—by getting spending down, not by putting taxes up.
Second, our fiscal strategy will be worth nothing if at the end of the day we have not provided hope for jobs and for growth. We must focus on getting growth up at the same time as we strive to get spending down.
Third, we must be frugal in everything we do. Waste in government is simply not tolerable.
Fourth, we must forever put aside the old notion that new government programs require additional spending. They don’t. What they do require is the will to shut down what doesn’t work and focus on what can. That is why a central thrust of our effort is reallocation. Whether on the spending side or on the revenue side, every initiative in this budget reflects a shift from lower to higher priority areas.
...finally, we must always be fair and compassionate. It is the most vulnerable whose voices are often the least strong. We must never let the need to be frugal become an excuse to stop being fair.
That was former finance minister Paul Martin in his 1996 budget speech. He understood how to create jobs and growth: It was to focus on growth at the same time as getting spending down and not putting taxes up. It was to forever put aside the old notion that new government programs required additional spending.
This budget in front of the House today does the opposite. It increases taxes. It increases spending, and spends on consumption rather than on investment. This is an approach the current government has taken since it came to office in 2015, and it is not working. In fact, the government admits to this in its own budget.
On page 25 of the budget document, there is a chart entitled, “Average Potential Annual Growth in Real GDP per capita, Selected OECD Countries, 2020-2060”. In this chart, Canada is dead last. It is an indictment of the economic policies of the government over the past six years. While the budget pays lip service to jobs and growth, it does not have a credible plan to create them.
Here is what the CEO of RBC, David McKay, said recently about the government’s economic policies. RBC is one of the largest private-sector employers in Canada. He stated:
Tax and spend to me is like eating Sugar Pops for breakfast. You feel really good for an hour and you feel crappy by noon, at the end of the day. And that’s what tax-and-spend gives you. It doesn’t give you sustainable prosperity.
The budget increases taxes. In fact, it levies a new tax on significant financial institutions, which have been one of the few sectors of growth in the Canadian economy in recent years.
The budget increases government spending. It calls for more than $56 billion in new spending over the next six years. That comes on top of the additional spending that was announced in last fall’s economic update. That, in turn, comes on top of the additional spending announced in last year's budget. In fact, the government is now spending $70 billion a year more than it did before the pandemic hit. That is more than 3% of GDP, which is an incredible increase in government spending.
Despite all this new spending, the government is not allocating spending in the right places. For example, the spending does not reflect the need to strengthen Canada’s defence and security and the need to uphold our international commitments.
All of this new spending announced in the budget in last fall's economic update, and in last year’s budget, is not going to the Canadian military. First off, a big problem with the budget documents, in terms of transparency to Parliament, is that the government is proposing two very different and contradictory figures for military spending in the budget documents. One number it proposes is an additional $8 billion over the next five years, but elsewhere in the budget it proposes an additional $23 billion over the next three years. These numbers are not fully accounted for.
If we set aside the two different figures in the budget for military spending, even if we take the most optimistic scenario that the government has laid out in the budget, it still doesn't meet Canada’s international NATO commitments.
The world changed on February 24. Russia attacked Ukraine, beginning the first war between states in Europe since 1945. In doing so, autocratic states such as Russia have made it clear that they are prepared to attack democracies abroad and here at home.
Other governments have realized that the world has changed. That is why, on February 27, Germany did a U-turn on decades of foreign and military policy. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who heads a centre-left coalition, announced that Germany would immediately begin increasing defence spending to meet and exceed the 2% NATO commitment, beginning with an immediate infusion of $140 billion Canadian in new military spending.
The German government understands that the world has changed. The Liberal government does not.
NATO members have had a long-standing commitment to spend 2% of gross domestic product on the military. As I've just mentioned, Germany will be meeting that commitment. Canada’s closest allies already exceed that commitment, including the United States, the United Kingdom and France. Canada does not, and the budget contains no measures for us to meet that NATO commitment. In fact, in the latest NATO data, Canada ranks 25th out of 29 member states of NATO, in terms of our contribution to our defence and security.
That was not always the case. Canada was once a leading contributor to the alliance. More than 1.1 million Canadians served in the Second World War, and over 40,000 paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives in defence of this country. For decades, throughout the 1980s and well into the early 1990s, Canada exceeded the 2% commitment. Canada spent more than 2% of its gross domestic product on defence.
Here is why that lack of defence spending should concern us all. There is no greater guarantee of peace and security in this world than military strength.
In fact, before 1945, in North America, both Canada and the United States had no standing militaries of any scale to deter aggression. In the century before 1945, our histories were replete with bloody and costly wars that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of our citizens in defence of democracy, freedom and the rule of law.
That is why, since 1945, we have pledged to never again go through that horrific period in history, as we agreed to establish standing militaries of sufficient size to deter the aggression we are seeing around the world and, potentially, the aggression we might see in the Indo-Pacific region.
The greatest guarantor of peace and security is a strong and robust military. Because the government is not allocating enough spending to Canada’s military, it is leaving Canada exposed and vulnerable in a violent and unstable world.
As Mr. Martin understood almost three decades ago, the budget should create jobs and growth by getting spending down and not by getting taxes up, and by forever putting aside the old notion that new government programs require additional spending. What spending does take place should take the form of investment, rather than consumption.
The government, though, has forgotten the lessons of the 1990s. Taxes and spending are up. New programs have not come from reallocation but from additional spending, and this spending comes in the form of consumption, rather than investment.
Despite all this additional spending, the government's budget does not uphold our NATO defence spending commitment, as outlined in the Wales Summit Declaration of 2014.
For all those reasons, I cannot support this budget.
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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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- Mar/3/22 10:16:35 a.m.
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moved:
That the House:
(a) condemn President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation for their unprovoked, illegal attack and invasion of Ukraine;
(b) stand with Ukraine, the people of Ukraine and Canadians in the Ukrainian community; and
(c) call on the Government of Canada to undertake measures to ensure new natural gas pipelines can be approved and built to Atlantic tidewater, recognizing energy as vital to Canadian and European defence and security, allowing Canadian natural gas to displace Russian natural gas in Europe, and being consistent with environmental goals in the transition to non-emitting sources of energy.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Centre.
The attack on Ukraine by the Russian Federation is the first European war between countries since the Second World War and a serious violation of the international order and our collective humanity. This attack threatens not only Ukraine, but Canada. Canada's defence and security has always been inextricably linked to that of Europe. The attack was in Ukraine, but the threat is also among us.
Since Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec in 1608, the outbreak of major wars in Europe has always involved Canada. The Seven Years War, which many consider to be the first global conflict between Great Britain and France, led to the conquest of 1759. What we call the War of 1812 was actually a subsidiary of the Napoleonic Wars. Canadians know well the price that Canada paid in the First World War and the Second World War in Europe, and 100,000 Canadian war dead can attest to that.
The attack represents a second threat to Canada. It came on the heels of an autocratic pact between the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China that threatens the rules-based international order in place since 1945.
Canada contributed to establishing this international order, and it has been the basis for the longest period of peace and prosperity in modern times. The disintegration of this international order will threaten peace and security here in Canada.
We support the actions taken to date by the Government of Canada, but more needs to be done, which is why we have introduced our motion today. One of the most important things we can do is understand that energy is vital not only to our economy, but also to our defence and security and to the defence and security of Europe. Russia understands this. It has used natural gas to intimidate and coerce European democracies. Russia supplies 40% of Europe's natural gas and uses this to intimidate Europe and Ukraine, threatening to cut off supplies. If supplies are cut, people will freeze, factories will shutter and Europe's economy will grind to a halt.
Not only does Russia understand this, and not only does it understand that energy is vital to its defence and security, but so does the European Union. In 2015, the European Commission introduced measures to try to diversify energy away from Russia. The commission said, in reference to Russia's use of energy to intimidate and threaten European democracies, in a document titled, “A Framework Strategy for a Resilient Energy Union with a Forward-Looking Climate Change Policy”:
Energy policy is often used as a foreign policy tool, in particular in major energy producing and transit countries.
The commission said:
As part of a revitalised European energy and climate diplomacy, the EU will use all its foreign policy instruments to establish strategic energy partnerships with increasingly important producing and transit countries or regions....
It also said:
The [European Union] will continue to integrate Norway fully into its internal energy policies. The EU will also develop its partnerships with countries such as the United States and Canada.
We need to understand, as the Russians and the Europeans do, that energy is vital not only to our economy but to our defence and security. We need to understand what others have long understood, which is that energy is also a foreign policy tool, particularly in major energy producing and transit countries.
Since the first week of December, the Biden administration has been trying to rally natural gas-producing allies and partners around the world, such as Norway and Qatar, to ensure that additional natural gas supplies can be brought online in the event that Russia cuts the gas to Europe. While Canada has participated in these conversations, Canada has not been able to provide any assistance.
Canada is the world's fifth-largest natural gas producer, but we are unable to get natural gas to tidewater to provide assistance to European democracies. We cannot get natural gas to tidewater because we cannot get pipelines built. That inability to get pipelines built is now not only impacting our economy. It is now threatening our security and defence here at home, and the defence and security of Europe.
The government must introduce measures to get new pipelines approved and built to transport Canadian natural gas to the Atlantic coast so we can displace Russian natural gas in Europe.
This is an urgent matter affecting the safety and security of Canadians. It is also an important issue for the defence and security of European democracies.
I know that some might say that exporting liquefied natural gas to Europe is inconsistent with our environmental goals. They would be wrong. Exporting liquefied natural gas is consistent with environmental goals in the transition to non-emitting sources of energy. One of the biggest things Canada and the world can do in the next decade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in order to meet the Paris accord targets, is to replace coal-fired electrical generation plants with natural gas-fired electrical generation plants. Canada can play a role in that transition if we can build natural gas pipelines to tidewater to export liquefied natural gas.
The government's own data shows that coal-fired electrical generation plants are two times more greenhouse gas intensive than natural gas plants, and Europe and many other countries in the world still rely on coal-fired electrical generation plants. Getting our natural gas to tidewater is not only an economic imperative or a defence and security imperative, but it is also an environmental imperative.
We condemn President Putin and the Russian Federation for their unprovoked, illegal attack and invasion of Ukraine. We stand with Ukraine, we stand with the people of Ukraine, and we stand with Canadians here at home with ties to Ukraine. We must use all of the tools available to us as a country to defend Ukraine and Europe against a vicious authoritarian onslaught.
Some of the things that the Canadian government can do to support democracies in Europe are recognize that Canada has immense energy resources, recognize that energy is vital to Canadian and European defence and security, recognize that natural gas is consistent with environmental goals in the transition to non-emitting sources of energy, and undertake new measures that ensure natural gas pipelines can be approved and built to Atlantic tidewater. If we can build pipelines to get Canadian natural gas to tidewater, we can displace Russian gas in Europe, thereby countering the threat from the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin and strengthening democracy in Europe and here at home in Canada.
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- Feb/28/22 8:52:51 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will share my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
The attack on Ukraine by the Russian Federation, ordered by President Vladimir Putin, is the first European war since the Second World War and a serious violation of international law and our collective humanity. This attack threatens not only Ukraine, but also Canada, because our security has always been inextricably tied to that of Europe. Canadians know well the price we paid in two world wars in Europe. A hundred thousand Canadian war dead can attest to that.
This attack, coming on the heels of an autocratic pact between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, threatens the rules-based international order that has existed since 1945, an order that Canada helped establish. It is an order that has ensured the longest period of relative peace and prosperity in the modern period. It is an order that, if dissolved, threatens Canada’s peace and security here at home.
We support the actions taken to date by the Government of Canada, but more needs to be done. The government should expel Russian Ambassador Oleg Stepanov and recall Canadian Ambassador LeClaire from Moscow. It should seek Russia’s removal from multilateral fora such as the G20 and OSCE.
Diplomatic isolation is needed because diplomacy did not work. In fact, President Putin used diplomacy for his own purposes to disinform and distract.
The government should direct the CRTC to adopt a new policy to terminate licences of state-controlled broadcasters that spread disinformation and propaganda, so that Russia Today, RT, can be removed from Canadian airwaves, as should other authoritarian state-controlled broadcasters operating here in Canada. We must get serious about the disinformation and propaganda spread by proxies of Russia and China here in Canada.
The government should also immediately implement visa-free travel for Ukrainians wanting to come to Canada, as member states of the European Union already have done.
We must be clear-eyed about these proposed measures. We must be clear-eyed that these proposed measures are not going to stop the invasion in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed that the measures announced to date by the Government of Canada are not going to stop the invasion in Ukraine. We must be clear-eyed that a middle power like Canada can only do certain things to counter the threat from Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. If we are clear-eyed, there are two things we can do.
First, we must understand that energy is vital not only to our economy, but also to our security. Russia understands this. Canada has not. Russia supplies 40% of Europe’s natural gas and uses this to intimidate Europe and Ukraine, threatening to cut off supplies. If supplies are cut, people will freeze, factories will shutter and Europe’s economy will plummet.
Canada is the fifth-largest natural gas producer in the world, but we cannot get gas to Europe to assist European democracies, because we cannot get pipelines built. Getting natural gas to Atlantic tidewater is vital not only to our economic interest, not only to our environmental interest, but it is also vital to our security interest. We were an arsenal for European democracy decades ago. We can be energy for European democracy today.
We must understand that Russia considers the Arctic its most important region. It has spent considerable resources there in recent years. Canada, like Ukraine, shares a border region with Russia, the Arctic Ocean. We no longer can afford to take our security for granted. We need a robust plan to defend Canadian Arctic sovereignty and security that includes purchasing F-35 jets, modernizing NORAD’s early warning system, fixing our national shipbuilding program, joining ballistic missile defence, and closer co-operation with Scandinavian and American allies in the Arctic region.
The world has irreversibly changed in the last week. We must get serious about the threats presented by China and Russia. That starts with treating energy as vital not only to our economy, but also to our security, and treating seriously the Arctic as crucial to our sovereignty and to our security.
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- Feb/7/22 9:04:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
Canadians have the right to protest. Protest has long been part of our democracy. It is so important that we enshrined it in the Constitution, in the four fundamental freedoms enumerated in section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
All Canadians have the fundamental freedoms of conscience and religion, free speech and expression, association, and peaceful assembly. The freedom to protest in the public square, whether on a sidewalk, in front of a legislature or in a public park, is a fundamental freedom. If Canadians want to, individually or in groups, protest by walking up and down Wellington Street or by standing around the centennial flame in front of Parliament, they are free to do so.
Millions of Canadians over many decades have exercised this fundamental freedom, but what Canadians do not have the right to do is to blockade. There is no right to blockade. There is no right to blockade a street. There is no right to block a highway. There is no right to blockade an international border crossing. There is no right to blockade the construction of a new pipeline, nor is there a right to blockade a rail line. There is simply no right to blockade.
Canadians do not have the right to harm other people or to interfere with the freedoms of their fellow citizens. While freedoms are fundamental, they are not unlimited. Freedoms are limited by what harm they do to other people, and freedoms are limited by how they interfere with other people's freedoms.
We are a nation rent asunder: west against east; rural against urban; the unvaccinated against the vaccinated. We are a nation divided because of a lack of leadership, leadership that begins at the top. The Prime Minister needs to reflect on the language and rhetoric he has used over the past six months, which has so divided this country.
He has used rhetoric that has referred to over three million unvaccinated Canadians in disparaging terms, rhetoric that suggests that those who disagree with him are not Canadian. This rhetoric has poured rhetorical fuel on the fires of division that are pitting one Canadian against another: friends against friends; family members against family members; the unvaccinated against they vaccinated; those in favour of mandates against those opposed; and those calling for an end to restrictions against those in favour of restrictions.
While many have fanned the flames of division in this country, they are not the head of government. They are not the prime minister of a G7 country. The Prime Minister's rhetoric in the last six months is unbefitting the high office of this land that he holds. Instead of bridging divides and reducing tensions and lowering the temperature, he has demonized the other.
It is time for the protesters to end the blockade in Ottawa and the blockade at the border crossing in western Canada. It is time for the protesters to go home to their families and their communities. We have heard their concerns. We have met with some of them, and it is now time for them to go home. Their concerns have been heard loud and clear. No doubt, in the coming weeks, their concerns will be debated here on the floor of this democratically elected legislature.
Canada is a country founded on the trinity of a belief in freedom, democracy and the rule of law. In a free and democratic society, the rule of law must be upheld. In this case, the governments in this country have delegated the enforcement of the law against blockades to the police. I encourage the protesters blockading here in Ottawa and at our international border crossing to follow the direction of the police.
In a democracy, only the state is authorized to use force, including lethal force, to uphold these fundamental freedoms that we enjoy and to uphold the rule of law. We have delegated this use of force to law enforcement. In our democracy, citizens are not entitled to use force. As citizens, we settle our differences through the ballot box or the court system. We do not settle them through force.
We all bear responsibility for the current divisions in this country. We all have a responsibility to reflect on how we got here. I grieve for my country. Instead of peace, order and good government, we have chaos, disorder and poor government. While many democracies are under pressure, both from domestic and foreign forces, Canada has been particularly buffeted by an inability to respond.
The pandemic has laid bare the state of our institutions, and they are weak and ineffective. For most of the last year, we did not have a Governor General because of scandal. Eight of the most senior members of the Canadian military were forced out in scandal. The former clerk of the Privy Council resigned in scandal.
We have a military procurement system that cannot procure, and we have payroll systems that cannot pay. We have a Parliament that cannot do its job, because the government defied four orders of the House and its committee for the production of documents.
We have a debates commission that, in the last two elections, ran what are almost universally acclaimed as the two worst sets of election debates since election debates were first held in this country, in 1968. The People's Republic of China interfered in the last federal election and spread disinformation through proxies, leading to the defeat of several candidates, and nothing has been done.
We have some of the highest levels of household indebtedness in the world, and governments in this country are not far behind. Less than two years ago, some provinces in this federation had trouble raising cash on debt capital markets to pay police officers and nurses, and the federal government had to step in to bail them out. We have the second-worst health care system among leading economies of the OECD, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
Greenhouse gases have continued to rise each and every year that the current government has been in power to a record high level in 2019, the last year for which we have data. In the early months of this year, it looks like we will once again break through records with record-high levels of emissions. We have not met our NATO commitments in decades, and now Russia is about to invade a democracy in eastern Europe. Now, we have a national capital in paralysis and the seizure of an international border crossing, which is the hallmark of a sovereign state.
We have gotten to this place because we have not been serious. We have not been serious about the rule of law. We have not been serious about ensuring our democratic institutions reflect the diversity of views in this country. We have not been serious about domestic policy. We have not been serious about foreign policy. It is time we got serious.
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- Feb/1/22 3:51:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the member for Yellowhead.
The government's foreign policy is not serving the country's interests nor its values, and the Speech from the Throne we are debating today does little to address this shortcoming. It does little to address Canada's decline on the world stage. The Speech from the Throne makes no mention of a foreign policy review.
We have not had a significant foreign policy review in this country for almost 20 years. Countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia have regular foreign policy reviews. These are anchored around white papers that set out the government's foreign policy, its defence policy and its foreign aid policy. They guide the whole of government in implementing the government's policies in those spheres of foreign affairs.
The United States goes through a similar process through the state department in order to anchor American foreign policy to ensure consistency and clarity. It also provides the capacity to respond to changing circumstances, but we have not done this. In fact, the last time I can recall a significant foreign policy review was in 2004, under the previous government of then prime minister Paul Martin, when Jennifer Welsh was tasked with taking a look at the government's foreign policy. Since then we have had no significant policy review, and the results are showing.
We have had five foreign ministers in less than six years in the position of the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We have had ministers propose a foreign policy based on responsible conviction, a policy that lasted for a mere year or so before it was replaced with the policy of Canada as an essential country, outlined in a speech given to this House, which was supposedly the government's anchor for its foreign policy, its white paper, which guided the whole government's foreign policy. As a result, Canada's position on the world stage has diminished. That is an incontrovertible fact.
In 2015, the Prime Minister came to office, telling the world that Canada is back. After the government made an attempt to secure a UN Security Council seat, the results came in, in June of 2020. Canada lost that bid for the UN Security Council seat, as it had done a decade earlier, and it lost with six fewer votes than it had won a decade earlier. That is six fewer countries that see Canada as a world leader on the international stage.
In foreign aid, the government came to office promising to do better to help the world's poorest, but in the first five years of being in office, foreign aid was cut by 10% based on the internationally accepted measure of overseas development assistance as a percentage of gross national income, the target number being 0.7% of GNI. Under the government, foreign aid was cut from 0.3% of GNI during the 10 years of the previous government, to 0.27% of GNI in the first five years that this government was in office.
On climate change, the government has failed to meet its climate change commitments. In fact, we have some of the highest per capita emissions in the world. Even south of the border emissions have declined over the last number of years, but in Canada, for each and every year the government has been in office, emissions have risen. In fact, in 2016, the first full year that the government was in office, emissions in Canada stood at 708 megatonnes. They have risen each and every year from that point.
In 2019, the last year for which Environment Canada has data, emissions rose to 730 megatonnes, an increase of 22 megatonnes. No doubt this year we will once again go to record high emission levels because the data that is coming in on oil and gas, and other fossil fuel consumption in this country is indicating that Canada is trending to record high levels of fossil fuel consumption. Again, on climate change, the government has failed to deliver.
The Liberal government came to office somewhat naively, promising to reopen Canada's embassy and re-establish diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, but it quickly realized once in office that it was not going to be able to do so.
On the major issue facing the world today, of the rise of authoritarian governments in places such as Russia and the People's Republic of China, the Liberal government has been either incoherent or naive. On China, the government's policies have been utterly and completely incomprehensible. Here are a couple of examples of what I am talking about. David Vigneault, the head of CSIS has been saying since December, 2018, that China presents a threat to Canada in national security and in intellectual property in five sensitive areas, such as 5G telecommunications, quantum computing and biotechnology.
It has identified Huawei as a threat to our national security and intellectual property, but the government has yet to act. It has yet to take action to restrict or ban Huawei from our telecommunications networks. In fact, it is unilaterally alone and isolated on the world stage in this regard. Four of our closest intelligence and security partners, New Zealand, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, have already taken measures to restrict or ban Huawei from their telecommunications networks.
The Huawei issue highlights the incoherence of the government. In May, 2019, then public safety minister Ralph Goodale indicated that the government would make a decision on Huawei before the 2019 election. Several months later, in the summer of 2019, he reversed course and said that the government would not be making a decision before October 2019, and then that the decision would be after 2019.
Over two years have passed since that time, and still there is no decision on Huawei. In fact, last fall the Prime Minister was asked by Global News if a decision on Huawei was coming. The Prime Minister indicated at that time, in late September or early October, that a decision would be forthcoming in “several weeks.” It is now several months since the Prime Minister indicated that, yet we have no decision on Huawei.
On a new framework on China, the government promised to come forward with something during the year 2020. Apparently that was kiboshed before it got to the federal cabinet for approval. Under the direction of the minister, two foreign ministers ago, we got the three Cs on China: to challenge, co-operate and compete. That then morphed into the four Cs, with the fourth C being co-exist.
That was replaced in the Speech from the Throne with an allusion to a new policy coming forward on the Indo-Pacific Region that would include China. This is apparently forthcoming. I am skeptical about the government delivering on a new policy and a new framework on China.
On Ukraine, the Liberal government has been naive. Ukraine has asked for lethal defensive weapons. The government has failed to deliver. Diplomacy not backed up by the threat of force, and in very limited and in very controlled circumstances, is simply empty talk and rhetoric that weakens our ability to stand up for our interests and values.
Russia has two tools of hard power: its military force, and its ability to cut off natural gas to western Europe. Russia supplies 40% of the gas to the European Union, and is using this as a weapon in order to get its way in Eastern Europe and to threaten Ukraine. This government is part of the discussions about how to ensure that global natural gas supplies are there for Europeans if the Russians decide to cut off natural gas.
For all of these reasons, the Liberal government's Speech from the Throne does nothing to address Canada's decline on the world stage and the need to come forward with a coherent foreign policy.
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- Jan/31/22 9:16:26 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Lakeland.
Canada's security is inextricably linked to that of Europe and it has been for centuries. Once, the conflicts between the French and British empires had a direct impact on us here on this continent, and conflicts between the Spanish empire and other empires have had a direct impact on the security on this continent. Today, our security is inextricably linked to that of Europe.
In the last century, in the First and Second World Wars, Canada's security was inextricably linked to that of Europe. We all know the names of places where Canadian blood was shed in defence of this country and its values, names like Passchendaele, Vimy Ridge and the Battle of the Somme. We can think about the Second World War and the names that are indelibly etched into the minds of Canadians, names like Juno Beach, Normandy and Arnhem. In fact, it was Canadian soldiers who, in 1945, liberated the Netherlands. Some 7,000 Canadian soldiers died in the canals, the fields and the villages of the Netherlands liberating the Dutch from the tyranny of Nazism.
In the 20th Century, some 100,000 Canadians died defending this country in two world wars: 60,000 Canadians died on the battlefields of France in the First World War and some 40,000 Canadians died around the world during the Second World War, most of them in Europe. Almost all of those Canadians are buried in graves that dot the Normandy coastline, the fields of Normandy, the Netherlands, Italy and many other places throughout Europe.
After the First World War, because of the blood that had been shed, Canada began to gain her independence. The Balfour Declaration led to the Statute of Westminster and eventually to Canada's independence from the United Kingdom.
After the Second World War, because of the high price we paid, we were a founding member, in 1949, of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Canada played and continues to play a key role in peace and security across Europe. In fact, Canada has contributed to every single NATO mission since the alliance’s inception in 1949. We are one of only two countries that are non-European members of the NATO alliance, and now NATO is being threatened. An estimated 130,000 Russian troops are built up on the Ukrainian border, and we have a government that has failed to take any real action to support Ukraine.
We are facing a situation today of grave consequence. While the government, on January 21, announced a loan of $120 million to Ukraine, and while it recently announced the extension and expansion of Operation Unifier, it has failed to grant the key request of the Government of Ukraine, which is to provide lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine for its defence. The United States has provided some $650 million in defence equipment, $200 million of which is lethal aid for Ukraine. The United Kingdom has supplied lethal aid and lethal weapons in the form of anti-tank weapons. Others, such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Czech Republic, have also provided lethal weapons.
Diplomacy that is not backed up by credible threats to use military force, and in limited and rare circumstances the use of that force, is naive talk and empty rhetoric. That empty talk and rhetoric will result in damage to Canada's security and the security of Europe and Ukraine. That is what a previous generation of Canadians understood in 1945 when they created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization out of the bloodshed that had happened in the previous 50 years. That is not something the Prime Minister understands. He has said this will only be solved through diplomacy, not through the threat of force to defend democracy.
I urge the government to get off of its naive position, defend the rules-based international order and ensure that lethal defensive weaponry is provided to a democracy, to Ukraine, in order to uphold that order.
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- Dec/7/21 6:28:42 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Forest Lawn.
My first question is on Afghanistan. Many Afghans are trying to flee the country. The state of Qatar has a unique and special relationship with the Taliban. Has the government had a démarche with the state of Qatar to request that it intervene with the Taliban to allow persecuted minorities and Afghans who assisted Canadian soldiers to leave the country?
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