- Member of Parliament
- Caucus Chair
- NDP
- Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69
- Government Page
- May/21/24 5:10:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge that my colleague used the World Economic Forum in his speech to keep the Conservative base happy. I sometimes think that the current leader of the Conservative Party is really unhappy with the WEF because former prime minister Stephen Harper never let him go when he was a cabinet minister.
I want to know why my colleague is so tone deaf to the real cause of inflation. If we look at every single major corporate sector that is responsible for the prices that consumers pay, we will see that the increases in costs for shipping containers, fertilizer, oil and gas, and food retail all coincide with massive corporate profit increases over the last three years. Why do the Conservatives refuse to acknowledge this? Are they that intent on running interference in this place on behalf of their corporate Bay Street friends?
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- Apr/8/24 1:27:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, with respect to my Conservative colleague, in his remarks, he presented an incredibly myopic view of history.
In my time in this place, one constant feature of the House of Commons has been both the Liberals and the Conservatives pointing the finger over who was worse in government. It is like an extreme parody of pot meet kettle in this place about who had the worst record with scandals.
If we look at the Conservative record, the ETS scandal of $400 million was mentioned, but let us not forget the extreme outsourcing with the Phoenix pay system. If we remember, it was supposed to save the Canadian public $70 million and ended up costing over $2 billion. There are members of the Conservative caucus, who were present during the Harper government, who displayed such flagrant disregard for basic accounting principles that they do not have a leg to stand on.
It is clear that both the Liberals and the Conservatives have equally dirty hands when it comes to outpricing to consultants and flagrant disregard for taxpayers' money.
Given that the Liberals and Conservatives have both displayed such flagrant disregard for taxpayers' money, it is obviously a systemic issue. What proposals do the Conservatives have to fix a mess that both Liberals and Conservatives are equally guilty of making and have thus far been unable to fix?
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- Feb/6/24 3:45:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was wondering whether my colleague across the way could put today's Conservative motion in the context of two things: first of all, the massive cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency in 2012 by the previous Harper government and, second, the December votes of the supplementary estimates, in which the Conservatives voted against important line item spending for both the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency.
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Madam Speaker, I understand why he is uncomfortable with my speech right now. I am talking about a history of the Conservative government intervening and forcing workers back to work when we are talking about a bill, Bill C-58, which is designed to protect those collective bargaining rights. That is the context of my speech. I understand if he is uncomfortable taking a little walk down memory lane as we talk about Bill C-58.
We can also talk about 2012, when again the Conservative government intervened in a railway strike, demonstrating again it has no problem using a legislative sledgehammer against unions and workers. I hope on Bill C-58 its members stand up one day to vote in favour of this bill.
It was not just the government, because in the previous Harper government we had two private members' bill, Bill C-525 and Bill C-377—
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Madam Speaker, I noticed during the debate today that there has been a certain amount of avoidance from the Conservatives to talk about Bill C-58.
Going back to the Stephen Harper days, I can remember those two private members' bills. One made it harder for unions to certify and one subjected unions to more stringent financial controls than businesses ever had to deal with, as well as all of the back-to-work legislation. I am just wondering if my hon. colleague could talk about his time during those dark days and how the Stephen Harper government went after unions, went after workers with a vengeance, and how we still see some of the same crowd here today.
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Madam Speaker, I am happy to be standing up today to speak to this, but I want to express that there is a little part of me that is also disappointed. I am always in favour of discussing the great work that happens at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, but it needs to be said that, today, we were supposed to be debating Bill C-58, which I think is quite an important landmark piece of legislation. It is something that my party proudly supports. That bill is designed, of course, to make sure that collective bargaining is not going to be undermined by the use of scab or replacement labour. However, the Conservatives decided to move a concurrence debate on yet another committee report.
When we look at the Conservatives' history with labour relations, we can understand why they do not want to speak about Bill C-58. When they were in government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, they were not afraid to use back-to-work legislation. Indeed, when two Conservative members started speaking on Bill C-58 at second reading, they did not touch on the substance of the bill. I do not think they had anything to contribute. I do not even know if they actually support the bill. A party that is trying to rebrand itself as the party of workers now does not want to debate a bill that is protecting organized labour and the collective bargaining rights of workers. I will let Canadians make their own judgment on what that is all about.
Turning to the report that we are discussing today, the grocery affordability report from the agriculture committee, I am proud to say that this report issued from a motion that I brought at committee. I want to thank all members of that committee for granting a unanimous vote; I think they were feeling the political and public pressure of the moment from Canadians from coast to coast to coast, who had been feeling the pinch over the last two years on the spiralling, out-of-control grocery prices. We know these prices have been going up higher and faster than the general rate of inflation.
As a part of this, we have had the opportunity to question the grocery CEOs. We had them as a part of the original study, which we are doing now. The agriculture committee is now revisiting this issue, and we have had a chance to reinterview the CEOs. When we talked to the grocery executives, whether it was Michael Medline or Mr. Weston of Loblaws—
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- Nov/23/23 6:41:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will tell my colleague how bad it was. It was so bad that the Conservatives fell to third place in the 2015 election. My riding is not known to be a Liberal stronghold, but they actually got second place because of how bad the Conservative government was.
Do members know that the current leader of the Conservative Party really motivated me to run for office because he was Harper's spokesperson. He was there front and centre, putting in the policies that wreaked such havoc in my community, and I am glad to say that we are finally in a place, in a minority Parliament, where I have the opportunity, as my community's representative, to bring in some concrete fixes.
We are only just getting started. We have a lot more to do, but I am glad to serve with a 25-member caucus that, every single day, is coming to this place to make the lives of Canadians better from coast to coast to coast.
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- Nov/23/23 6:35:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my great neighbour to the north, the member for Nanaimo—Ladysmith. It really is such a pleasure to serve in this House with her. I was first inspired to run back in 2015 because of the actions of the Harper government. I saw exactly how the policies and legislation enacted under that regime were affecting my constituents. I am glad that not only in 2015, but in 2019 and 2021, I have been returned to serve their interests.
What I mentioned in my speech is that we did not get here overnight. This is the result of consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments pursuing neo-liberal economic policies, and that has gotten us to where we are today. There is a solution. We do not have to look very far back. We could look at the post-World War II era. The federal government was directly involved in the construction of new housing to accommodate returning veterans and to also help rural communities, like mine in Lake Cowichan, that were experiencing incredible resource booms and needed to have the workforce housed.
We have had similar situations now, but we need to get the federal government more actively involved in building those units.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge and his Conservative colleagues are asking Canadians to believe in a fairy tale. They want people to believe that all these problems with housing magically started over the last several years or at least since 2015. In fact, it goes on a lot longer, with the current government, the Harper government before it, the Chrétien government and the Mulroney government. What we are seeing today is the natural conclusion of 40 years of neo-liberal economic policy. This did not happen overnight.
Similarly, when the Conservatives go after the carbon tax but completely ignore the fact that corporate profits are at the highest level ever, which is a key driver of inflation, it is a shame to their constituents and a shame to the political discourse in this chamber.
I have a question on Bill C-56. Does the member at least agree that these measures strengthen the Competition Act and remove the GST? Will he support them? Will he agree that the motion today is thanks to the hard work of the NDP driving the Liberal government to do better, and in fact that the Conservatives have been, again, sitting on the sidelines doing nothing?
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- May/15/23 12:06:57 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, to hear the Conservatives complain about time allocation is incredibly rich given what we saw from the Harper government. When a government bill was being debated in the House for the very first time, the Harper government would give notice of time allocation on that same day. The Conservative Party has no leg to stand on when it comes to this particular issue.
Ultimately, this bill started its journey in the Senate. We are now at third reading. We are at a stage where members have acquainted themselves quite well with this bill. I think it has some very important aspects, and I am proud of how our team was able to strengthen the bill.
For this particular bill, with the ways the New Democrats strengthened it, it is important for the House to arrive at a decision so members can make their opinions known on it. Could the minister expand on some of the reasons for this?
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Mr. Speaker, this place sometimes demonstrates that it has a very short memory. I have to call out a comment that was made by the previous Conservative speaker talking about a guillotine motion.
It was common practice, during the days of the Harper government, to introduce a notice of time allocation on the very first day of debate of its government bills. It did not even give the House the courtesy of debating a bill for a few days. A time allocation was announced within the first hour of debate. Let us just call out rank hypocrisy when we see it. I am no fan of it being used either way, but to ignore our history is most egregious.
Does the minister have a comment on that? I would welcome it.
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