- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $99,486.97
- Government Page
- May/24/24 11:34:21 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, also in 2020, the Prime Minister said, “Interest rates are at historic lows Glen.” Millions of people took out low-interest mortgages. Tuesday, his own bank regulators reported that homeowners renewing mortgages will now face a payment shock because of the high mortgage rates they got in 2020, increasing the risk of default.
After nine years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister misleading Canadians, will he finally admit he is not worth the cost to people who are losing their homes?
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- Apr/15/24 6:03:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to say one thing that I did not have the chance to say in my main speech.
It was published today that the foreign affairs minister was speaking with her counterpart in Israel. She said to him, “take the win”. Can members imagine?
I wonder what my friend from Winnipeg North would say if this happened in Canada, around Winnipeg. Should we de-escalate? Should we just take the win? We happen to have the technology to knock them down.
With friends like these Liberals, who needs enemies?
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- Feb/27/24 1:52:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, do you know the one thing Canadians actually want? They want their $60 million back. I have not heard a single Liberal member, including the member for Winnipeg North, say that they are going to do everything they can to get this money back.
I would like my colleague to give me her opinion as to why she thinks the Liberals are not even interested in getting this money back for Canadians.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to rise today to speak on Bill C-34.
Before I do, I would be remiss if I did not talk about the calamitous vote the Liberal members of this House took earlier today by excluding all Canadians from being treated fairly by pausing the carbon tax for Canadians all over the country. I come from Winnipeg, one of the coldest cities on the planet. Today, Liberal members from Winnipeg said no to Winnipeggers, while their Atlantic Canadian counterparts seem to be more effective than they are. They have the ear of the Prime Minister who I suppose was trying to save himself from his terrible polling results with this desperate measure by the government. However, at the end of the day the Liberals chose not to pause the carbon tax pain, which is really unfortunate for all Canadians.
As far as Bill C-34 is concerned, I want to say this. After eight years of the Prime Minister, numerous foreign state-owned enterprises have acquired interests and control in many Canadian companies, intellectual property, intangible assets and the data of our citizens. The government is doing too little, too late to protect our national economic and security interests with this bill.
Since the Liberals came to power, business investment per employee in Canada has dropped 20%. At the same time, business investment per employee in the United States has increased 14%. Per capita growth is at the lowest level since the Great Depression some 90 years ago and Canada has the most at-risk mortgage default portfolio in the G7. According to the National Bank of Canada, for the first time ever, business investment is now lower in this country than housing investment. When we think about all the manufacturing, oil production and everything else, investment in those things is lower than it is in housing.
The goal of the Investment Canada Act is to deal with foreign investors controlling Canadian industry, trade and commerce. Foreign direct investment creates opportunities, stimulates economic development and introduces new ideas and innovation to Canada. For Canadians, this means more high-quality jobs and a stronger, more sustainable economy.
Billions of dollars of Canadian natural resources, ideas, IP and land are being controlled by foreign entities. Huawei, a state-owned enterprise that feeds intelligence directly to China, was still working with many Canadian universities as of this past summer.
Another example would be taxpayer-funded dollars at Dalhousie University that are funding Tesla intellectual property and research and that IP is all going back to California.
In 2017, the Liberal government allowed a telecom company from British Columbia called Norsat to be acquired by a company called Hytera, which is a Chinese-based state-owned company. Conservatives demanded at that time a full national security review. The Liberal minister of the day refused to do one and approved the acquisition.
This sort of lax attitude toward issues of national security is clearly a problem. After eight years of the Prime Minister, numerous foreign state-owned enterprises have acquired interests and control in many Canadian companies, intellectual property, intangible assets and the data of our citizens.
The future of Canada needs to be protected in the airwaves, AI and quantum computing. It needs to be protected in our farms, food-processing plants, oceans and fisheries, as well as in developing Canadian LNG, which the world so desperately wants. The government is doing too little to protect our national economic and security interests with this bill. Canadians know the Liberals do not take sensitive transactions seriously and have failed to fully review transactions involving Chinese state-owned enterprises, putting the security of Canadians and the government at risk.
The minister is the minister of broken bills, which is why Conservatives are having to make more amendments to this piece of legislation. On his other bill, Bill C-27, the digital charter implementation act, after a year and a half he was forced to make amendments.
The Liberals missed the chance to think big and understand what is going on in the Canadian economy. This bill does not go far enough to address the risks faced by Canadians. That is why Conservatives worked to pass four significant amendments to ensure a rigorous review process—
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- Nov/6/23 3:07:59 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister plans to quadruple the tax on heat, gas and groceries, but then he decided to pause the pain for 3% of families in areas where he was plummeting in the polls and his MPs were revolting. The Liberal rural affairs minister actually said that if people in the Prairies wanted a pause on the tax, they should have elected more Liberals. However, here is the thing. The people in Winnipeg South Centre did elect a Liberal MP, and yet his constituents are not getting the pause.
Will the Prime Minister allow that MP for Winnipeg South Centre a free vote to take the tax off and keep the heat on for people in his community?
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- Nov/2/23 1:20:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I come from Winnipeg. In the winter, it is one of the coldest cities on the planet. Imagine how much energy it takes to heat a home when it is -30°C or -40°C at night. In the midst of an affordability crisis, how dare the government give a break to one part of the country and not to Manitobans? I wonder if my colleague could comment on the inherent unfairness of that.
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- May/9/23 10:32:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the words that come to mind when I think about the Prime Minister are “deny”, “deflect” and “delay”. If he rags the puck, maybe this will not be a big issue by the time the special rapporteur gets around to making his ruling.
The member for Winnipeg North says that we are playing politics. They are playing politics with the future of our democracy, and they should be ashamed of themselves for standing up in this House saying they are not.
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Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my friend from Winnipeg on his sartorial selections today. They look very good on him.
I have a question about the budget itself. The budget projects that this year, over $40 billion will go to interest on the debt, to wealthy bankers and bondholders. That is almost as much as the $50 billion being spent on the Canada health transfer.
How does the member justify the Liberals giving almost exactly the same amount to wealthy banks and bondholders as they are to Canadians for health care?
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Winnipeg North. It is always nice to get a question from a fellow Winnipegger. I love the Prairie pragmatism of his question on what amendments might we put forward.
The purpose of my speech and the speeches we have heard from our side of the House today is to point out the flaws in the bill. We will support the bill to get to committee stage and it is at committee stage where we can have a fulsome discussion with the experts about these flaws and come up with serious, practical amendments that make this bill even stronger. I think my colleague from Winnipeg North would agree it is in everybody's interest to make this bill as strong as possible.
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- Dec/14/22 4:03:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, “I am encouraged, excited and optimistic about how we can strengthen our federation in ways we have strived to achieve as a nation for decades.” These were words from the speech delivered just this year on his private member's bill. Jim was a nation builder and a gentleman, but most of all, Jim was a true mensch.
It is not easy for members to get their bills passed around here. It is a rare accomplishment. It is a blessing Jim lived to see his bill pass the House. His bill was the building of a green economy in the Prairies act. It just passed the House last week.
Although it is a rare accomplishment for any MP, for Jim it was one of many great accomplishments in his life. Jim was a husband, a father, a politician, a journalist and an accomplished musician. In fact, he was an oboist who played with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra. He would always greet people with a great big smile, and he was always interested in how he could help them. As a politician, he was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in 1988 as the MLA for Fort Rouge and then Crescentwood in Winnipeg, where he served as the deputy leader of the official opposition for the Manitoba Liberals.
Jim left provincial politics in 1992 to become a well-respected editorial writer and columnist. In 1998, he co-founded the Business Council of Manitoba, where he served as its president and CEO until 2015.
It was in 2011 when he and I first met. I had decided to run in the 2011 provincial election, and I asked to meet with him in his capacity as head of the Business Council of Manitoba to discuss its policies. He immediately agreed to the meeting, and I am pretty sure we met for over two hours that day, debating the nuances of the Manitoba economy and the importance of well-developed policy. In fact, I remember a long discussion over whether the provincial sales tax should be increased from 7% to 8%. Of course, as a good Tory, I argued against this increase. In the end, a gentleman throughout, Jim agreed to disagree with me on that one.
During that meeting, Jim and I also discussed his admiration for former Manitoba premier Duff Roblin. Jim admired Roblin for bringing in transformative education reform in the 1960s, and of course everyone admired Premier Roblin for getting the Red River Floodway built, what Manitobans affectionately call “Duff's Ditch.”
During that meeting, Jim told me that he and Premier Roblin were in fact close friends. Premier Roblin had just passed away. Jim also told me he had assisted Premier Roblin in the writing of his memoir and was a close confidant of the former premier. Even then, Jim was building bridges. Premier Roblin was a Progressive Conservative and Jim was a Liberal, but it did not matter what one's political party was for Jim. What mattered was what could be accomplished together.
When Premier Roblin passed away in 2010, Jim gave the eulogy, saying “throughout his long stint in public life, Roblin never had an ill word to say about anybody...Civility and respect were never compromised.” Today, I am saying that about Jim.
In 2015, 23 years after he left the Manitoba legislature, Jim was elected as the member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre, a role he cherished. He loved serving his constituents and he loved solving problems. He served in cabinet as Minister of Natural Resources, Minister of International Trade Diversification and special representative for the Prairies.
It goes without saying that Jim had the respect of all members of the House regardless of their political affiliation. He was a fearless advocate for the interest of Winnipeg, Manitoba and Canada.
Just three weeks ago, I was with him at the grand opening of The Leaf at Diversity Garden in Assiniboine Park in Winnipeg, where he spoke optimistically about the future of Winnipeg. Jim was always an insightful and thoughtful speaker, and I always enjoyed very much listening to his words.
Jim was also a strong supporter and well-respected member of Winnipeg's Jewish community. He would regularly attend community events and give remarks. He was a fighter against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, but in true form, always the bridge builder, he joined Winnipeg's Arab Jewish Dialogue, where members of both communities would meet regularly together to discuss and try to solve issues.
In the speech Jim gave about his bill, he started it by talking about how he had won the private member's bill lottery. He said, “one does not plan in life to win the lottery, but when one does, one is left with decisions about how to take advantage of the good fortune.” I think it is safe to say that all Canadians won the lottery for having Jim share his life with us. It was our good fortune.
On behalf of my Conservative colleagues, I want to offer our sincerest condolences to his spouse, Colleen Suche, his children, grandchildren and his extended family.
In Judaism, there is a concept called tikkun olam. It literally means repair the world to make it a better place. There can be no doubt that Jim Carr left this world a far better place.
May his soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life and may his memory be a blessing.
[Member spoke in Hebrew and provided the following translation:]
Blessed are you, Lord, our God, king of the universe, the judge of truth.
[English]
Jim will be missed.
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- May/5/22 3:10:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just last year, the NDP voted with the Conservatives, not just once but four times, for the production of the Winnipeg microbiology lab documents, which the Liberals have still failed to provide. Just last week in the foreign affairs committee, the NDP flip-flopped and voted with the Liberals to shut down the committee's inquiry, blocking production of those very same documents. What did the minister promise the NDP, to make it complicit in yet another Liberal cover-up?
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