- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
- Oct/20/23 11:47:51 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is actually repeating Liberal history, known as the decade of darkness. Soldiers and their families back then were forced to use food banks. There were slashes to training programs. They operated with old equipment and were sent to Afghanistan without proper boots or uniforms.
Now, this month, the headlines read, “Soldiers asking for donations to help with housing, food costs”; “Canadian Forces personnel leaving the ranks over lack of affordable housing”; and, “Federal government looking to cut $1 billion from National Defence budget”.
Our troops are out there fighting for our freedoms. Why is the Prime Minister attacking their economic freedom?
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- Oct/20/23 11:46:25 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight miserable years, our military heroes can no longer afford the Prime Minister. The NDP-Liberal government keeps driving troop morale down and their costs up.
A recently leaked report stated, “Increasingly, members will release (from the Canadian Forces) rather than relocate to an area they cannot afford or taking a loss on an existing home.” The Canadian Armed Forces are in a crisis and are short 16,000 people, but the Liberals are pushing people away and making things worse.
Why is the Prime Minister destroying our military?
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- Oct/18/23 3:29:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are discriminating against people of faith who want to pay tribute to our veterans. It is bad Liberal policy that is actually driving down morale in the Canadian Armed Forces.
It was reported that troops are leaving the forces in droves because of the lack of good, affordable housing. Sadly, military families are being forced to ask for donations to help offset the high cost of food and housing. After eight long years, the troops can no longer afford the Liberals or make that sacrifice.
When will the Prime Minister finally start supporting our troops?
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- Sep/29/23 11:43:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we learned yesterday that the Liberals are cutting another $1 billion from our armed forces. This is in addition to the $2.5 billion they already let lapse last year.
The Prime Minister has no problem wasting taxpayer money and running up massive deficits on things like the $116 million for McKinsey, $54 million on the ArriveCAN app or $20-million bonuses for the Bank of Canada executives. Let us not forget that the Liberals allowed $4.6 billion of abuse under their COVID programs. The Liberals waste money on just about everything but do not spend it on our military.
Why does the Prime Minister cut spending only when it hurts our troops?
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- Apr/24/23 3:01:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is called creative accounting.
The Prime Minister's incompetence has caused the worst public service strike in decades, and it is disproportionately hurting national defence. Our troops are not being fed, do not have heat or hot water, and are not being reimbursed for out-of-pocket meal expenses in places such as Poland.
It is said that an army marches on beans and bullets, and the incompetent Liberal government cannot even get that right. The Prime Minister does not consider the basic needs of our forces essential. He is literally leaving our troops in the cold and hungry. Why is that?
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- Oct/31/22 2:06:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the world is at a crossroads. The ongoing power struggle of dictatorships like Russia and China against western democracies is threatening our future and way of life. Russia's brutal and illegal war against Ukraine is the most obvious symptom of this threat. The communist regime in Beijing is weighing options on when to invade Taiwan. Both are challenging Canada in our Arctic.
Meanwhile, the Liberal government is refusing to invest in our military. It has failed to modernize NORAD and update our North Warning System. The Liberals are still making our forces fly obsolete fighter jets and sail archaic submarines. Most shockingly, according to retired General Rick Hillier, we have roughly half the number of troops we need. Our current chief of the defence staff characterized it as a crisis. I call it a catastrophe.
However, there is good news on the horizon. Our Conservative leader, the next Prime Minister of Canada, will put Canada first, give our troops the kits they need and restore honour and respect to those who serve our country in uniform.
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- Oct/3/22 6:02:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock, the whip for the official opposition.
I am honoured to be able to participate in the debate today and denounce the very crass move by the Russian Federation and President Vladimir Putin to annex both Donetsk and Luhansk, which have been at war with Russia for the last several years, and also now moving to annex Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
I want to say at the onset that Canada, Canadians and all of us here as parliamentarians will never accept Russia's claim to one square inch of Ukrainian territory, and that does not just mean Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. It also includes Crimea.
Crimea will always be Ukraine, and as Ukrainian forces are currently demonstrating in the war against the Russian Federation, in this illegal, tyrannical invasion by Putin and his proxies, they will continue to stand against the Russians and continue to make gains in winning this war. We know that the Ukrainian forces have been able to do this because of the tenacity, the patriotism and the valour of the people of Ukraine who are serving in the armed forces, in their militias, and are fighting to protect their country as well as their citizens. I know that each and every one of us here are so impressed with what they have been able to accomplish.
Ukraine will never accept the sham referendums, which were done at gunpoint. This goes beyond coercion. This is about military intervention going door to door forcing, at gunpoint, the people of the oblasts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to vote for the annexation. This is something that can never stand the test of time and must be denounced by every democratic nation around the world.
I am glad that we are here adding our voices to this debate to make sure that the international community knows clearly where Canada stands, more importantly, that the people of Ukraine understand that we are standing with them, and that the Russian Federation and those who are sitting in the embassy right now in Ottawa watching this debate know that we will never accept any of this tyrannical, dictatorial way that Russia has invaded Ukraine and tried to steal Ukrainian territory.
Here we are in 2022 and we are playing out old war games. A lot of people like to compare this to World War II or beyond, but it is unbelievable that it is happening in our lifetime.
The Russian forces have been put on their back heel. They have lost, it is estimated, over 100,000 soldiers already. They have lost materiel, tanks, artillery and supply chains because of the tenacity and the skill of the Ukrainian armed services. A lot of what we did when we were in government under Stephen Harper and what has been carried on with the current government was, over the last eight years, started with Operation Unifier. In training Ukrainian soldiers up to NATO standards, along with our partners in the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Australia and others, we have made these professional soldiers into a formidable force going up against what was thought to be one of the great superpowers in the world. They have proven the world wrong in what Putin and his war machine was going to do to Ukraine.
There is no question that we have witnessed war crimes. There is no question that there is a genocide being perpetrated upon the people of Ukraine, and that is why we have to continue to stand with Ukraine. We can never let down our guard on how the Russian Federation is behaving in the global sphere, especially within their spheres of influence in former Soviet states. That is why our role in NATO, our role in supporting Ukraine, can never weaken.
The Ukrainian forces have also been able to get a lot of materiel from Canada and other nations. It is because they now have a lot of modern equipment, as well as the planes and tanks they had in service and the equipment they already had in place, that they have been able to take the fight to Russia.
However, every time we hear President Zelenskyy, he asks us to send more, and we can send more. I know we have already sent over half a billion dollars' worth of materiel, including of lethal weapons and non-lethal weapons and of RADARSAT images that we have, which we used to provide under Stephen Harper and the Conservative government and which the Liberals cancelled but then reinstated after the war broke out on February 24.
As a lot of nations are starting to see their own supplies dwindle, Canada has to step up and do more. As we hear from President Zelenskyy and from the minister of defence in Ukraine, they are asking the west to send more supplies, including more artillery shells as they are running out and more bullets as they are running out. They need more sniper rifles. Guess what we build in Canada, right in Winnipeg? We build sniper rifles at PGW Defence. They are already starting to build more sniper rifles for Ukraine. Some of those are sitting there, unable to move, because the government will not buy them and send them. Why is the government not buying them? They are there. It is a small chunk of change when looking at the big scheme of things. The Ukrainian forces are standing on the front line, stopping these Russian marauders, these barbarians, from coming further into Europe and destabilizing the whole world rule of law that we have come to accept as the norm. We need to send them more.
They are asking for more armoured personnel carriers. Guess what we have in Canada? I just asked a question on the Order Paper about this: How many LAVs do we have available that we might be able to have in service that we can send to Ukraine? We are about to retire our entire fleet of armoured vehicles. The new Super Bisons that are to replace them are already built and sitting on a parking lot in London, Ontario, at GDLS. They just need to be certified by National Defence.
I know that the 39 LAVs that were sent or are in the process of being sent to Ukraine are actually coming out of that inventory, and I thank the government for sending them. Let us make sure they are equipped the same way that we equip our LAVs here in Canada for fighting in places like Afghanistan, as we did in the past. Let us make sure they have the 25-millimetre machine guns on them and the heavy armoured plating to withstand IEDs as well as artillery shelling. Let us keep and protect as many Ukrainian soldiers as possible, as they are in this fight against these barbarians out of Russia.
The government is saying it cannot do more. I asked a question on the Order Paper, which the parliamentary secretary responded to in the last couple of weeks. It was Question No. 705. They said that currently, in Canada, the older LAVs that we used in Afghanistan are still in service. There are 149 LAV II Coyotes and 140 M113s, which are the tracked LAVs and also the armoured personnel carriers that both the United States and Australia have now donated to Ukraine, so the Ukrainians already know how to operate these tracked LAVs. We can move these M113s over at any point in time. They can jump in and go. There are also 196 LAV II Bisons.
The Coyotes, the Bisons and the M113s are all sitting here. It is a great inventory and all about to be replaced with brand new Super Bisons, the LAV 6s, coming out of GDLS in London, Ontario. Why are we not taking these now and getting them over to Ukraine as they have Russia on the back heel, retreating away from territory? Why are we not making sure they can win this war? The only way this ends well is if Ukraine wins this war. We have to push Russia out of every inch of the country, and we know that we need to also add to that.
I have been calling on the government since this war broke out in February to send more of our medical hospitals. We have Role 3 hospitals in the Canadian Armed Forces. For the COVID-19 pandemic, the government purchased another dozen mobile hospitals, which are still sitting in containers. We should be shipping them over there to make sure we have triage capability for the soldiers who are getting injured on the front lines. The most critical time is to get them into the hands of a doctor and a medic in a good facility, who can save lives after soldiers have been traumatized through very bad battle wounds.
Let us continue to support Ukraine. Let us make sure Ukrainians get the materiel they have asked for and the defensive weapons they need, and that we continue to stand together to make sure Ukraine is victorious.
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- May/10/22 10:07:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to present e-petition 3917, signed by over 2,000 Canadians, who are drawing the attention of the House to the unprovoked war in Ukraine by the Russian Federation, how war crimes have been committed in the region by the Russian Federation, and how Vladimir Putin, as President of Russia, has threatened Ukraine, Canada and our allies with retaliation, including using nuclear weapons, which is a great risk. There are 1.4 million Canadians who identify themselves as being of Ukrainian heritage, myself included. The petitioners also draw to the attention of the House that Canada has participated in NATO missions all over the world.
The petitioners are asking the government to immediately provide to Ukraine bulletproof vests and helmets, to make sure that our Canadian Armed Forces are on high readiness and ready for rapid deployment, and to look at supplying lethal weapons and other supplies to Ukraine, and that NATO and our allies continue to help close the airspace over Ukraine to provide humanitarian corridors and, ultimately, provide peacekeepers to bring stability to the country.
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- Apr/27/22 4:52:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, again, it is a perfect illustration of how the Liberals will say one thing but do something completely different, and it continues to undermine the economic prosperity of individual Canadians across this country. Instead of offering things as simple as tax relief, all we get is more ridiculous spending that is unnecessary, and it is ultimately undermining the government's ability to support Canadians from coast to coast to coast.
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- Apr/27/22 4:48:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the member for Winnipeg North that under Stephen Harper, when we were at war in Afghanistan, there was defence spending. This is before the Liberals cooked the books on how we calculate the amount of money that is allocated to national defence by adding things like the Coast Guard, veterans' pensions and other things that are spent under foreign affairs, not under defence. If we had added those numbers in, we would have been well over 1.5% when we were at war in Afghanistan.
When we pulled out of Afghanistan, defence spending went down because we balanced the books. The government here continues to spend recklessly. This means that the debts and deficits of today are going to be the taxes of tomorrow on our kids and grandkids, and we know the Liberals still have not made the investments, because the money they promise does not get spent.
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- Apr/27/22 4:37:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to be able to rise today and address the budget, which I will call “the good, the bad and the ugly”. I am expecting Clint Eastwood to walk through the doors and the music to play.
I will say this, just to address the speech. There is a section of this budget that I agree with. The good part is that the government is promising to give Ukraine $500 million and to provide weapons that are so desperately needed right now in the war against Russia. We need to make sure we send whatever lethal weapons Ukraine has been asking for. I am glad to see the government has made this announcement and will be out there on the market buying up as many weapons as possible.
I know, for example, that there are lethal weapons being built in Winnipeg by PGW Defence Technologies, which builds sniper rifles. It has already done business on its own directly with the Ukrainian government in the past, and has also sent sniper rifles over very recently. I believe those high-quality sniper rifles being made in Winnipeg would be very valuable to the Ukrainian armed forces, and buying more of those weapons with this $500 million would be welcome news.
I have been advocating this for quite some time, going back to early March, right after the invasion started. There is an inventory of Canadian military equipment that is sitting around and that is about to be retired and turned into museum monuments at war memorials and legion halls across this country, but we do have light armoured vehicles, such as the Coyotes and the Bisons. There are 32 armoured ambulances in the Bison configuration that can easily be used and shipped over to Ukraine.
The reason we can use these vehicles to provide armoured personnel carrier protection to Ukraine is that the replacement LAVs, the new super Bisons that are being built in London at GDLS, are almost complete. The parking lot is full of new LAVs. They just need to be accredited by the Canadian Armed Forces. Taking those Bisons, Coyotes and our M113 tracked LAVs and sending them to Ukraine would provide much-needed protection, especially for the civilian domestic defence force that has been stood up with recruits from across Ukraine as they battle against the Russian aggressors.
I have also been working with people here in Canada who want to buy Role II mobile field hospitals, which Ukraine has requested. Unfortunately, the government here has yet to provide those hospitals. We have extra Role II hospitals that are sitting in containers. They were purchased for the pandemic and were never used, so we could be moving them over. There are some mobile field hospitals that are available for sale in the Netherlands. Again, they are ready to go. The Government of Canada could buy those off the shelf and move them over there in under a week. I hope it will consider that and get it done, because Ukraine desperately needs them and has asked for them as part of the shopping list it has given to NATO countries around the world.
Finally, there is the issue of the Harpoon missiles. We had defence and industry experts in Canada who came forward and said that we have over 200 unused Harpoon missiles sitting in inventory. There are launchers sitting on one of the ships that are under refurbishment right now. We could send over a whole cache of truck radar systems, all built here in Canada, with our excess Harpoon missiles that are sitting in inventory, to help protect Odessa from the onslaught that is taking place from the Black Sea. The more we can eliminate the Russian navy's ability to bring its forces to the coastline, the better off Ukraine will be, and the more protected.
I welcome the $500 million. I encourage the government to do more and make sure we are repurposing some of our existing assets. We do not have to actually go there and put cash on the table, just send those and donate them to Ukraine, as well as the $500 million that is approved in this budget.
Unfortunately, that is the only good thing in this budget, and I am not going to be able to support this budget, because of the bad and the ugly that are still in there.
The bad is that the current government continues to print money like it is going out of style. The Liberals have increased the deficit again this year by another $52.4 billion, which has taken our national debt to $1.2 trillion, and all of that has not been entirely tied to, as they would like to say, pandemic spending to support the economy. We know there have been many situations where this budget is about unnecessary spending. It has put increased money into circulation, devalued the Canadian dollar and driven up interest rates and inflationary pressures on our economy.
Canadians are now worse off because of the reckless spending by the Liberal-NDP coalition. They know that they have to deal with higher food prices and higher fuel prices, and that continues to increase the cost of living. In Manitoba alone, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's own numbers, Manitobans are now $2,000 poorer just because of inflation created by the government.
I know they will try to argue that there are supply chain issues. They will try to argue that this is an international phenomenon, but, at the same time, we are talking about 6.7% inflation rate. That is higher than in so many other countries in the G7 and the G20, and it is because of excess government spending and putting too much cheap Canadian money into circulation, which has taken inflation out of control.
The other bad part of this budget is that there is no help there for farmers. We are seeing higher input costs because of inflationary pressures. We are seeing higher input costs on farmers because of the carbon tax, which affects everything from diesel fuel to fertilizer prices. We are seeing that the Liberals continue to push farmers farther and farther down into the deep red hole on their balance sheet because they do not care about protecting our farm families.
They may, as a government, expect that they will be able to import cheap food from elsewhere, but why do we want to make our farmers less competitive on the international market? Why would we not let our beef, pork, grain and oilseed producers flourish and be competitive on the world market? Instead, we are increasing their input costs to such a level that they will never be able to compete on that global scale.
We expect government to actually care about our farmers, our farm families and our rural communities and give them relief from things like the carbon tax, give them relief from rising excise taxes on fuel, give them relief from the increasing costs of fertilizer. We need to know if the government will ever commit to helping out our farmers.
In my riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, our farmers last year dealt with a very devastating drought, the fourth year of dry conditions, and again, the help from the federal government was next to nil. We know that there is no help in the budget for farmers who dealt with that drought, whether it was trying to buy feed for their livestock or having major shortfalls in crop production.
The ugly part of this budget is the way the government continues to treat our Canadian Armed Forces. Our members in uniform deserve to be given the best equipment and the best support, and have a warrior culture that is out there actively recruiting and rebuilding our Canadian Armed Forces. We are 10,000 members short as it stands today, and the government seems not to care about making sure that we have a critical mass of soldiers, sailors and aircrew across the country to serve here at home and to be able to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves around the world, including what we are seeing happening in Europe. Although the Liberals talk about increasing spending and getting it up to about 1.5% of GDP, it is still far short of what NATO members expect of us. Our NATO partners are asking us to spend 2% of GDP, and it is not happening in this budget.
On top of that, the government continues to fall short in spending and buying new equipment. Procurement has been well short of satisfactory. We know that in this budget there is a $15-billion gap between what the government is promising to do and what is actually in the Department of National Defence departmental plans for the next year. We know they already have $12 billion lapsed over time that should have been used to buy new ships, new planes and other equipment for our Canadian Armed Forces members.
It just comes back to the fact that the Liberal-NDP coalition has not made the proper investments in national defence, at a time when the world is getting more and more scary. We are witnessing what is happening in Europe with the Russian aggression in Ukraine, and we are always concerned with other nefarious actors on the world stage who are watching and seeing what Canada does, as well as our allies. We need to do more, not less.
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- Apr/5/22 3:53:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need to continue to isolate Putin and the Russian regime on the world stage, including taking them off the UN Human Rights Council. We need to make sure Putin and everyone who is responsible for using rape as a weapon and committing the atrocities against civilians in Ukraine, which are being documented, are all pulled in front of the Hague and face the International Criminal Court for committing these atrocities.
Who would have thought that we would be talking about the definition of “human rights” and about war crimes in our modern age, but here it is in our generation. It is sickening.
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- Apr/5/22 3:51:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, first and foremost, the world changed in 2014. As for the investments in the Canadian Armed Forces, without continuing to rely upon the peace dividend after the end of the Cold War, it was time to start making those major investments. That is why Prime Minister Harper signed on to the Wales Summit pledge that we would hit that 2% of GDP. It took the full-scale invasion of Ukraine to get there now.
We have to fix the procurement system. That is the only way we can ensure we get equipment delivered faster, and we can get the kit that is required. We need to use the Defence Production Act as much as possible and ensure that there is not a misappropriation of dollars in things like defence procurement. A lot of the things that we are talking about, including NORAD modernization, are going to require us to buy off the shelf. A lot of companies around the world make it and that is the way we are going to get the best kit for our troops.
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- Apr/5/22 3:49:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is inherent upon all of us to start talking about this publicly so that Canadians realize it is a necessary expense of their tax dollars to make this investment, a huge investment. It is going to take billions of dollars and, in some estimates, upward of $60 billion to make the investments on an annual basis in the equipment, the bases that we need, as well as the wings that need to be modernized to deal with the new threats that we have.
The Soviet Union came to a sudden halt because it went bankrupt and with great diplomacy by a number of world leaders. That has been turned on its head, and not just by what we are witnessing right now with the full invasion of Ukraine. This war started in Ukraine back in 2014 with the annexation and illegal occupation of Crimea by Russia and the war in Donbass. It has been eight years of war and all allies have been slow to rise to this occasion to prevent what we are dealing with right now.
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- Apr/5/22 3:38:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to stand today to discuss increasing NATO spending to 2% of GDP here in Canada as part of our national defence. I will be splitting my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. He is someone who has served our country with valour and integrity. He is someone I incredibly respect, and I know his comments later on will be something we should all be paying attention to.
This is also the first chance I have had to get on my feet since we have witnessed the atrocities being committed in Ukraine: the war crimes that are being uncovered north of Kyiv as the Russian forces have retreated back to Belarus. When we look at the images from Bucha, Irpin and Motyzhin, we know that what we are witnessing are some very sickening war crimes that have been committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
We do not even know the extent of the atrocities that have already been carried out in Kharkiv or Mariupol. We witnessed, in Kharkiv, the bombing of a maternity hospital where women, children and infant babies were killed and maimed. In Mariupol, Russians dropped a large bomb on a theatre where so many were seeking refuge. They had clearly marked in the parking lot that there were children there. The Russians still bombed that theatre, killing hundreds of people by some accounts.
We all have to be concerned with what Russia's intent is in Ukraine. There was an article that came out of one of the newspapers, RIA Novosti in Moscow, that said that Russia had to de-Ukrainianize Ukraine, and tried to associate that with de-nazification. That sends a clear message of where the Kremlin is sitting, where Putin is taking this war and what his entire intent is, which would result in a genocide.
As the person who sponsored the Holodomor memorial bill in the House, along with Raynell Andreychuk, a former senator who sponsored it in the Senate back in 2008 to recognize it as a genocide, I would never have thought that we would be talking about genocide in Ukraine not in historical terms, regarding the famine that happened in 1932-33 and that was created by Joseph Stalin and his communist thugs, but in modern times: right now, in Ukraine in the year 2022.
This clearly demonstrates that our world has changed, and that the security threat that is facing western democracies is in flux and in peril. We had the Cold War peace dividends we were able to collect on after the fall of the Berlin wall, and the move of former soviet states to turn into free, liberated, democratic and independent countries such as Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Moldova and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, among others.
We thought we were onto a new world peace and only had to worry about small state actors, terrorist organizations and transnational criminal organizations from a standpoint of national security. However, with the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin and his Russian thugs in the army, we know the world has changed. NATO is now more important than ever since the end of the Second World War.
Essentially, the collective security in Europe and the transatlantic sphere has gone on high alert. We have to deal with this Russian threat right away. NATO members are trying to help Ukraine in every way possible so that it can win this war. The only way this war ends in Ukraine is when Ukraine beats Vladimir Putin and his Russian military back across the border.
Ukraine has been asking NATO and asking Canada for more weapons. We could be sending them more things for their coastal defence purposes, like the Harpoons that we have here in Canada and the launch systems. I know there have been proposals made to the Minister of National Defence on how we can take some of our batteries and move those over there with Harpoon missiles so that we can protect Odessa from falling and protect that coastline so Russia does not get in there and take control of the entire Black Sea coastline from Moldova all the way across to Donbass.
They have also been calling for armoured personnel carriers. We know that here in Canada we have some light armoured vehicles that are in the process of either being retired or very soon will be retired with their replacements already in production or completed production. We could be sending our Coyote LAV IIs right now. Our Bisons and our M113 LAVs could also be going over there. We are talking about armoured personnel carriers and fighting machines that have proven themselves in Afghanistan and that can be very well used by the Ukrainian military and self-defence forces.
They have been asking for help. As the Conservative Party leader said after the President Zelenskyy speech, we have to put into place the protection of humanitarian corridors so that those who can flee from harm's way can get out and so that humanitarian supplies can get into those cities that are being besieged.
Just last week, we had five Ukrainian members of parliament here, and when we met with them and when they did their press conference, they were very clear that they needed all these tools, plus they needed to get fighter jets and anti-air defence weapon systems. We know that, even though Canada does not have any of those systems to give, we can go and buy them and give them to Ukraine, so that they can protect their own airspace and secure those corridors so that people can leave.
It is important that Canada spends its 2% of its GDP on national defence in the light of the new security threat, not just to NATO but here at home, as well as in the Indo-Pacific region. We have to be spending and contributing at that level if we are going to be taken seriously when we are sitting at the table. Because we have not been serious about investing in our military and our national defence, we are not a serious consideration when we are talking about how to better serve and protect NATO and NATO allies. We are not getting invited to new tables such as the recent Australia-U.S.-U.K. treaty, where they are doing more security and national defence together in the South Pacific and throughout the Pacific region, for that matter. That is because they know that we have not been there to step up with our own investments in national security, so why would we be investing in things like the South Pacific?
Security starts right here at home and that means we have to invest heavily in our NORAD systems as well. NORAD modernization is important. We do hear that the government has finally made a decision to buy the F-35s. That is the fighter jet that is best to serve our NORAD and NATO missions. It is also the fighter jet that the Royal Canadian Air Force has been asking for over the last 12 years. It is one that Canada has invested in heavily since the Paul Martin government when we originally signed on to the Joint Strike Fighter task force. We have been making annual commitments and payments into that program, so this is the right plane for our air force. It is the right plane for our allies, and it is the right plane for Canada's aerospace industry.
We have to invest in that, as well as the North Warning System and low earth orbit RADARSAT. The Nanisivik naval base is still not open after six years. The icebreakers have to continue to come, as well as the submarines that have under-ice capabilities. As the member for Kingston and the Islands said, ballistic missile defence was part of that NORAD mission and that is why that also plays into investing in our military so we can do more at home, as well as do that NATO mission with new surface combatants, as well as new recruiting and investing in more heavy-lift capabilities so that we can do what is right for those who serve us.
It is our troops, the best of the best that Canada has to offer, that deserve to have fighter jets in the air, warships on the water and submarines under the ice, so that they can serve us not just here at home but protect the world around the entire globe.
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- Apr/5/22 3:33:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I did not realize the member for Kingston and the Islands had such an obsession with me. He referred to me so often in his speech that I am not sure if I should be flattered or concerned.
I want to just point out that we are the ones who brought forward the motion, and when I heckled him it was because he had said it was his motion. This is the Conservative Party of Canada's motion to make sure the government is committed to spending 2% in the upcoming federal budget.
The Liberals talk the game, but they do not play it, and the only thing they have delivered on time and on budget is 17 used F-18 fighter jets. The member talks about going into ballistic missile defence. Will he commit that the Liberal government will actually sign to ballistic missile defence as part of NORAD modernization? Will he also admit that, by adding in the Coast Guard and veterans' pensions, the Liberals have padded the numbers they have today versus the numbers we had when we were in government, when we were spending to meet our commitments at NATO and in Afghanistan?
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- Mar/28/22 5:02:24 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for the question and acknowledge that he recognizes that I am the biggest proponent for the F-35 and have been for a long time. It is better late than never that he showed up to the party. I can tell him that this is the right plane for our Royal Canadian Air Force. This is the right plane for our NORAD mission. This is the right plane for our NATO mission, and it is the right plane for the Canadian aerospace sector.
This is a serious investment and one that should have happened six or seven years ago. Instead, the Liberals played politics with this until now when they realize it is the only choice. I will call it the Liberal government because members dithered and delayed on it, but nonetheless I am glad that the NDP government made the right decision.
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- Jan/31/22 7:05:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have to say that it has been incredibly disappointing to see the minister go over empty-handed on her trip to Ukraine. She did, after her return, announce $120 million of financial assistance, which I know is welcome, but we know for a fact that there have been demands from the Government of Ukraine for the last several years for more military help, including the provision of lethal weapons.
We know that one of the very first things that the Liberal government did when it came into power several years ago in 2015 and 2016 was stop the provision of RADARSAT images. The people of Ukraine and the Government of Ukraine could actually see what the Russian forces were doing in places like Crimea and Donbass, which is sovereign Ukrainian territory but is now illegally occupied by the Russian Federation.
When will the minister actually provide the kinetic energy and military might that is required for Ukraine to fend off this potential Russian invasion? When will the Liberals provide those lethal weapons? When will they restore the use of RADARSAT images, which are world-renowned and would really help with the security situation on the ground?
Will they actually stand with Ukraine rather than just offer empty rhetoric and half measures?
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- Dec/7/21 4:56:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, who is someone I am honoured to serve with. As a veteran, he has done numerous missions and tours in Afghanistan and I am looking forward to his comments later. I know that sometimes he can be a little “rough” around the edges, but we are looking forward to his comments.
I am glad to be able to speak to the motion we brought forward on this day of supply, which is asking to set up a special committee to look into the crisis in Afghanistan and get our friends, allies and citizens out of Afghanistan after it fell to the Taliban; to find out what lessons we can learn so we do not make these mistakes again; and to find out why this was not made a higher priority by the government.
It should not have been a surprise to the Prime Minister or anyone in cabinet. We know that on May 2, 2019, CSIS presented a report that said that if the United States decided to withdraw from Afghanistan, the Taliban would recapture the entire country, including the city of Kabul, in very short order. That report was in 2019. Then, of course, Donald Trump, when he was still president of the United States, announced on February 29, 2020 that he was officially withdrawing and winding down U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Of course, the coalition that Canada had been a part of in Afghanistan would not be able to be sustained without the U.S. in theatre.
The question becomes this: If CSIS warned, based upon sound intelligence, that Afghanistan would be quickly captured by the Taliban, and Donald Trump announced the withdrawal in February 2020, why did the government not act? Instead of planning for the withdrawal and making sure we got our interpreters out before the country started to fall under the control of the brutal Taliban and the harsh conditions that exist there today, we could have been moving people out. Instead, the Prime Minister planned for a selfish and unnecessary, $650-million election. That is despicable.
Many of us on this side of the House and even members on the other side were getting contacted by veterans of the Canadian Armed Forces. They were pleading with all of us to get their friends who were over there out. These were people they served alongside, who supported them as interpreters and drivers and made sure their base camps and forward-operating locations were safe and secure. They served together. They were a team. We lost 158 Canadian soldiers, and over 40,000 served. Our Canadian veterans who served developed great relationships and considered their allies to be brothers and sisters in arms. To then see the government turn its back on these allies was so disheartening.
The true heroes throughout all of this have been those veterans. I would like to mention guys like Corey Shelson, Tim and Jamie Laidler, General David Fraser and General Denis Thompson, among others who have really done yeoman's service in organizing and getting people out of Afghanistan. In particular, because I and my office have been working closely with him, I want to highlight Robin Rickards from Thunder Bay.
Robin has had multiple tours in Afghanistan. He started contacting me over six years ago regarding getting these interpreters out of the country. Under the previous Conservative government, we had a special immigration program for Afghanistan interpreters. It got filled up; people quit applying and it wound down. We were able to get a few more out after that, as the Leader of the Opposition mentioned this morning in his speech. However, the reality is that people like Corey just would not quit, and they forewarned the government and us as members of Parliament. I know the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River worked incredibly closely with Robin as well.
Every time any of us contacted cabinet, whether it was the minister of defence, the minister of immigration, the minister of foreign affairs or the Prime Minister himself, it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Nothing seemed to happen until the fall of Kabul in the middle of a federal election.
These veterans, through the Veterans Transition Network and many other NGOs, raised money to fund the safe houses. Generous donations came in from veterans, current serving members and Canadians at large. They chartered flights, bought airline tickets and continued to build both the air bridge and the land bridge to safe havens for those who were left behind. Of course, because they were relying on generosity and because things started to heat up so desperately, the money for those safe houses started to run out. On behalf of those veterans, a number of us asked in this House and in writing if the Government of Canada would give the organizations $5 million, so that we could keep the safe houses open and keep those interpreters and their families, the hundreds of people who were in the safe houses, safe in Kabul. The government callously said no. Five million dollars is a drop in the bucket around this place, and it would have gone a long way to protecting Afghan interpreters who were waiting to be processed as applicants to come to Canada.
The people in the Veterans Transition Network really did a lot of heavy lifting. They were part of the group that identified and made sure that the people making claims to come to Canada as refugees had served with our forces and had all their documents in order. They were reaching out to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to get all the applications processed, but unfortunately all of that kind of went up in smoke when the fall of Kabul happened. We saw the complete chaos that occurred at the Kabul airport.
Since that time in the middle of August, when we saw the chaos and craziness that happened, our allies, like Germany and the United States, have continued to move out the refugees and citizens at risk, as well as interpreters and support staff to their armed forces, without any problem. They have been chartering flights in and out of Kabul non-stop. That is why the United States is already sitting on something like over 40,000 refugees in the mainland.
However, we are not seeing that happen here. Why is the Government of Canada not chartering those flights or at least making sure there are tickets on commercial aircraft for all those applicants who are sitting there waiting in Kabul or Kandahar to get out?
The Liberals talk a good game. We see the minister of immigration almost throw his shoulder out every question period here, patting himself on the back for getting 4,000 Afghan refugees out so far. The Canadian Armed Forces identified over 23,600, yet IRCC has processed only 14,675 and there are only 4,000 here so far. That means there are 9,600 Afghan refugees, interpreters, LGBTQ community members, and ethnic and religious minorities like the Hindi, the Sikh and the Hazaras, all sitting there waiting to be processed. They made the applications, yet red tape seems to be holding them back.
I have to thank my staff. They have been dealing directly with Afghan refugees, with our interpreters and our friends and allies, including Canadian citizens who are still trapped in Afghanistan. Some of them had to leave Kabul when the safe houses closed. They went back to their homes only to find that they had either been burnt down or were being lived in by the Taliban themselves. There were actually notices issued to arrest them. I know some went back, saying, “If I turn myself in, maybe they won't kill my family and they'll execute only me.”
We have so many stories of people who served with our forces, who served as journalists and who have been left behind and given up on Canada. That is not the Canada we are supposed to be. We are supposed to be the Canada that, because of the great work of our men and women in uniform who go out there and right the evils in the world, stands up for those who cannot stand up for themselves. Those people sacrificed blood and treasure in serving Canada. Let us support our veterans and let us bring home those Afghan allies who served with us.
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