- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
- Feb/26/24 2:02:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for over two weeks, millions of litres of raw sewage ran unimpeded from Winnipeg into the north Red River and Lake Winnipeg, and the Liberal government was missing in action. The sewage is polluting our iconic Lake Winnipeg, which is home to Manitoba's thriving inland commercial fishery and beautiful beaches and is a source of drinking water for many communities. The Liberals failed to support the province and the City of Winnipeg in mitigating this environmental catastrophe.
Canada's Conservatives have long fought to keep our waterways, lakes and oceans free from untreated sewage. As a government, we brought in stringent guidelines for municipal effluent. In opposition, we brought forward a bill to prohibit the discharge of raw sewage into our waterways by municipalities. Meanwhile, within days of forming government, the Prime Minister approved a dump of eight billion litres of raw sewage to be discharged by the City of Montreal into the St. Lawrence River.
It is disappointing to see the lack of urgency demonstrated by Liberal MPs in Winnipeg to this prolonged spill of untreated sewage. This is unacceptable. The Liberal government must stand up now to protect the Red River and Lake Winnipeg from future breaches.
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- Nov/28/23 11:07:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North is my neighbour in Manitoba. He should get out of the city more often to talk to some farmers. He says there is so much great stuff for farmers. I wonder why farmers are not voting for the Liberals if they are doing so many great things.
I would like to explain something to the member for Winnipeg North. When carbon taxes are put on the cost of growing our food, it increases the cost of food for everyone, whether it is because of the propane or natural gas used for drying grain or to heat the barns that keep our poultry and livestock warm. The member would just as soon let all those animals freeze to death and allow piles of crops to go unharvested because we would not be able to dry it and properly store it.
The policies the Liberals are pushing upon Canadians are creating food insecurity. He is doing no different than what Putin is doing in Ukraine in creating food insecurity. Why does the member of Winnipeg North hate farmers?
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- Nov/7/23 3:12:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Manitoba's new NDP premier has joined the course calling on the Liberals to pause the carbon tax.
After eight long years, everyone knows that the Prime Minister is just not worth the cost and that his Liberal MPs in Winnipeg are failing Manitobans. Yesterday, the member for Winnipeg North could have voted to take the tax off and keep the heat on for Manitobans; instead, he voted to leave his constituents out in the cold. Now the Liberals want to quadruple the carbon tax.
Why does the member for Winnipeg North always follow orders from the Prime Minister at the expense of his own constituents?
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Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise and close off debate today on Bill C-34, the amendments to the Investment Canada Act.
I just want to say that, earlier today, I was very disappointed that, when we had our vote on the carbon tax, on taking it off constituents in my riding who have to pay the carbon tax on home heating, as we were asking for the same type of consideration for Manitoba as was given by the Liberal government to those in Atlantic Canada, the government would not extend those considerations to people across the Prairies.
After eight long years of this government, Canadians from coast to coast to coast have had enough of this Prime Minister and his punitive carbon tax that continues to penalize Canadians, especially those low-income Canadians who are seeing everything up go in value. The cost of inflation is eating away at their paycheques. Their buying power in the grocery store, as well as in the housing market, continues to erode.
I do have some concerns with Bill C-34, which I had hoped would have been addressed through amendments that were brought forward by the Conservatives.
I just have to thank my colleague, the shadow minister of investment and industry, for the work that he has done on Bill C-34 in trying to strengthen it and make it better. It has been 14 long years since this bill was updated, eight of them under this Liberal government.
I think all of us have concerns that the government has not taken issues around foreign investment and how it impacts things like national security very seriously. We know that it has not protected our critical infrastructure, which is at risk here if it falls under the control of foreign entities, especially those that are owned and controlled by their states.
What we witnessed, right across this country, is that critical minerals continue to get bought by foreign entities and that those state-controlled operations, first and foremost, are beholden to the despots and dictators who control their countries, rather than produce those critical minerals for our supply chains here.
Speaking of supply chains, this foreign investment act fails to address our economic sovereignty and how that relates to our overall national defence.
If one looks at making sure that supply chains are protected, although Canada is a smaller economy compared to our allies, we still need to make sure that we are getting critical supplies to build everything within our—
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- Nov/6/23 3:10:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every day, the member for Winnipeg North gets up and all he does is talk and talk. Only the Liberals like it because he says absolutely nothing.
According to the Liberal rural affairs minister, the member for Winnipeg North failed to stand up and fight for Manitobans. Because of him, Manitobans have been left out in the cold. They cannot afford to heat and eat after eight miserable years of the Prime Minister and his punitive carbon tax.
Manitobans and the useless Liberal MPs are not worth the cost. Will the Prime Minister allow the member for—
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- Sep/29/23 11:01:50 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, fall is upon us, and in my rural Manitoba riding, farmers are wrapping up harvest with most crops safely in the bin. The fall calf run has started with roundup under way on our ranches. Commercial fishers are busy landing their catch on Lake Winnipeg.
This should be a time of Thanksgiving, but sadly, Canadian farm, ranch and commercial fishing families are being overtaxed and over-regulated by the NDP-Liberal government. This costly coalition is quadrupling the carbon tax, making it more expensive every time hard-working families fuel up their tractors, combines, trucks and boats.
These misinformed Liberals have unilaterally implemented draconian trucking and fertilizer regulations, which will lower farm productivity and increase food insecurity. When we tax the people who grow the food and tax the people who truck the food, it costs us more to buy the food.
After eight long years, Canadians cannot afford this Liberal mismanagement anymore, but better times are ahead. Soon there will be great Thanksgiving and celebration across the land when we get rid of these out-of-touch Liberals and replace them with a common sense Conservative government, which would put Canadians first.
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Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, in this budget, there is some money for our Great Lakes, Lake Winnipeg, Lake Manitoba, Lake Simcoe and every other lake across Canada. It is only $650 million spread out over 10 years. That is not an investment in making sure that we protect our freshwater lakes, which are a precious resource.
I was proud that over the time I was a member of Parliament in government, the Lake Winnipeg Basin got over $35 million, just for one lake. This government is not even going to commit that over 10 years for any lake in this country. That is what is disturbing.
I will just say this: The government's idea of reducing carbon emissions is to tax Canadians more, and as a rural Manitoban, as someone with an agriculture background, and as someone who has family that is still farming, I see the impact this is having on our seniors. I see the impact that this is having on farmers. Their costs of production continue to go up. The price of food gets more expensive, and it is all because of the government's tax plan, which is not a carbon plan.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North likes to come up here and cast aspersions upon us as Conservatives. The Liberal Party always stands for “tax and spend”. I need to remind the member for Winnipeg North that these tax dollars are not the money of the Liberal Party of Canada. They belong to Canadians. The best place to leave that money is in the pockets of Canadians. For the member to get up and pontificate and slander the Conservatives is unbecoming of any parliamentary speech. It is common for the member to do.
The member often tells me he likes to come up to my riding where he has a cabin. He should spend some time talking to rural Manitobans. They know the carbon tax, which is tripling, will cost $1,145 more per Manitoban than what they get back from the government. Those Canadians who live in rural areas know the carbon tax is hurting them, especially those who live on fixed incomes, like seniors.
He needs to talk to real Canadians outside the Ottawa bubble so he knows exactly what is happening in the real world.
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- Sep/27/22 1:19:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the question is, why does the government hate farmers? Why does the government think that taxes are going to fix these climatic natural disasters we have been experiencing? I do not see any correlation between increasing carbon taxes and reducing emissions.
Instead of producing more food and energy here and exporting to nations that are causing all the exposure to CO2 across the planet, why would the Liberals continue to undermine Canadian jobs, Canadian farmers and our own economy? I believe we have seen an escalation in these dramatic climate change events, such as the flooding we have continued to experience in Manitoba and the drought we have had the last two years, but not this year thankfully, across the eastern Prairies.
I know a tax has not changed one single thing, while emissions continue to rise. If the government wants to get serious, let us invest in the technology that reduces emissions rather than tax Canadians on their hard-earned dollars.
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- Sep/27/22 1:09:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the amazing member for South Shore—St. Margarets.
I have been looking forward to participating in today's debate to prove once again that the Liberal government is so misguided it actually thinks taxation would cause us to fix climate change. However, its own record shows that it continues to drive up emissions while costing Canadians more by raising carbon taxes on everything we do, not just a certain part of our economy but everything we do, whether it is heating our homes, feeding our families or driving our kids to sports.
We need to address how this is hurting us, especially in my province of Manitoba. I can tell the members across the way in the Liberal Party that the net cost to Manitobans, the fiscal and economic impact is $1,145 per household. If we look at the average cost per household in what we define as the middle class, it actually goes up to $1,600 per family. That is atrocious. The Liberal government is pickpocketing the middle class to the tune of $1,600 and making life more unaffordable.
We are talking about a carbon tax that is going to triple from where it is today, more than triple. It is going up to $170 a tonne. Right now it is at $50. That would keep driving up the costs of everything we do: the cost of living, our affordability, whether or not we could afford to go out and buy a new car or a new home. Everything would be impacted. I really feel for the people in my riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. We are a rural riding. People have to drive great distances. It is not like the people who live in a city who can just drive across town to take their kids to a hockey game. We often have to drive hours to get to the next-door community arena so the kids can play sports or to go to the school to watch a basketball game that the kids are participating in. Everything continues to add up.
Canadians who are living on fixed incomes, like our seniors, are the most impacted by the Liberal government's failed policies. We know that often in rural areas we have to drive for doctor's appointments, and specialists are always in the big cities like Winnipeg. That means getting in the car, driving down the highway and paying more and more just to go see the doctor, never mind if they have to go to Winnipeg or an urban centre for shopping or to visit family.
This is impacting our seniors. The Canada pension plan index continues to lag way behind what is happening with the cost of living. It has been exacerbated because of the carbon tax. It is falling farther behind.
I do not think the Liberals understand this, but the lifeblood of Canada is diesel. Everything we do is based on diesel, including the food we grow, the crops we transport and the products we ship around the world. The food is farmed with a tractor, and later it goes onto a truck, a train and a ship. We need to make sure that we are protecting the competitive advantage we used to have as Canada. We need to be protecting our food growers in this country. However, the Liberals are trying to put them out of business.
The Canada trucking industry said that, last year, the carbon tax cost the trucking industry $528 million. They are expecting that next year it would cost the trucking industry $1.2 billion in extra carbon taxes, and in 2030 it would go up to over $3 billion. Those costs are going to be built into the costs of everything we buy. Whether it is shipping clothing across the country, shipping produce in from offshore or shipping our own farm-raised products to markets across this country, it is going to mean higher costs for food for every single Canadian.
I do not know how the Liberals figure they are going to get out of that. Maybe they are going to take more of Canadians' tax dollars to try to buy their votes back, which is a Liberal thing to do, but we are undermining affordability for Canadians. We are undermining the productivity of our industries right across the board with this carbon tax, and we are diminishing our competitive advantage in the world market.
We are an exporting nation. We have to export to create jobs. We have to export to get rid of the surplus goods we produce here, including our agriculture products.
When the carbon tax first came in, it cost an average farmer $14,000 a year. It has gone up since then, and now the Liberals want to triple the cost of how much people pay in carbon tax to put fuel in their tractors and trucks, and to use natural gas to dry their grain and heat their livestock barns. Whether they have poultry or hogs, they have to be able to heat those facilities, and every time they do that, the government is saying, “Gimme, gimme, gimme. I want my carbon tax.” It is not going to change the farmers' habits. It is a necessity of how we raise our food.
This is having a huge impact, and to add insult to injury, the Liberals are charging GST on top of the carbon tax. It is a tax on a tax, and it is something the Liberals love to do. It is not about adding value; it is about adding tax. It is about putting more in government coffers and doing nothing with it to fight climate change.
We should be investing in best practices to fight climate change, such as carbon sequestration, which we can do on farms. Actually, with the fertilizer mandate that is coming forward from the Liberals, where they want nitrogen fertilizer to be reduced by 30% because they think this will reduce emissions, members can guess what happens.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. James Bezan: Madam Speaker, if the member for Winnipeg North wants to listen, he will actually find out why the Liberals' policies are so misdirected. It is because they are going to force more and more farmers to try to farm more land. However, guess what we cannot produce in this country. We cannot produce more agricultural land. What we are not farming now is not farmable, but what will happen is that crop production is going to push into what is right now marginal land for pastures and grass and supporting our ranching industry, which is very sustainable, from a climate basis. These are carbon sinks, but now we are going to be forced to till them at lower productivity with less fertilizer, which reduces the potential of that land even further.
I know the member for Winnipeg North thinks he can dig in any part of the country out there and is going to grow potatoes, but he cannot. There is only certain land that can produce potatoes or root crops, but especially when it comes down to growing cereals, soybeans, corn, wheat or canola. We have specific land capabilities, and if we are going to farm that marginal land, we are destroying wildlife habitat. If we are going to farm that marginal land, we are removing carbon sinks and being detrimental to the overall climate change policy.
This is very short-sighted on behalf of the Liberals, and it is something that continues to worry me. As the leader of the King's official opposition said this morning, the Liberals brought forward this policy even though they have been promoting, for the seven years they have been in government, to buy local because it would reduce the cost of transportation of the food we eat. Reducing the transportation distances and using less fuel to get it into urban centres will be good for the climate.
What happens with this model of carbon taxing and tripling the carbon tax is that we are putting the local farmer at a huge disadvantage and allowing individuals who are producing in non-regulated countries around the world, such as those in Latin America, those in South America and China, to bring those food products here. That, to me, is unconscionable. It should never be allowed to happen. Our own food security is being undermined by the Liberals and we have to stop it now.
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- Sep/15/22 2:25:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am honoured today to be able to rise and join with all my parliamentary colleagues in paying tribute to Queen Elizabeth. On behalf of the constituents of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, I want to offer all of our heartfelt condolences to the royal family and to all of the Queen's loyal subjects.
A lot of us have been talking about how the monarchy touches our ridings. I can tell members, being the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, that we are home to Lower Fort Garry, which was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada, and the residence of the governor for the Hudson's Bay Company is located a bit south of the modern-day City of Selkirk.
The fort is in great condition, and every year we gather at the fort to commemorate the signing of Treaty No. 1 with the Anishinabe and the Ojibwa people, the first peoples of the land, who signed in 1871 with Canada, as Manitoba was a new province in 1870 and had just joined Confederation. The first numbered treaty in western Canada was signed.
From reading some history on Chief Peguis, Peguis First Nation, Sagkeeng First Nation and Brokenhead Ojibway Nation, which are in or alongside my riding, I know that Chief Peguis, who was one of the original signatories, always took it to heart that when he signed the treaty, he was signing with the Crown, Queen Victoria. All his sons took the name “prince” because he saw himself as an equal signing a treaty with the monarchy. That is something that still resonates to this day with our first nations.
Queen Elizabeth, when she ascended to the throne on June 2, 1953, at the young age of 25, upon the death of her father, King George VI, promised to serve the people of the country of Canada, of the kingdom, for her whole life, whether it be long or short. I can tell members that she did that with grace and dignity, with humility, with a heart of service, and through her entire career of 70 years she set an example, a standard, for all of us in public service.
When she passed away on September 8, I know all of us were shocked and saddened by her passing. We will never see anything like Queen Elizabeth again. For most of us, she is the only head of state that we have known. I am 57 years old, and all I have ever known is God save the Queen. Now we have to learn the new words: God save the King. We are going to have to change all the nomenclature that we have in our institutions. It is now the Court of King's Bench instead of the Court of Queen's Bench, and people are King's Counsel now and not Queen's Counsel. All the acronyms are going to change.
We have talked about her service, and as the former shadow minister of national defence and former parliamentary secretary for national defence, I have always been incredibly impressed with her bravery and service during World War II in the army as a mechanic and as a truck driver. It was something that she was still doing until just prior to her death. She loved to be out on the land. She loved to be on the farm and she loved to be with her horses and dogs, and she loved driving her Jeep.
The former prime minister, the Right Honourable Boris Johnson, said in his tribute in the Westminster Parliament a few days ago that when he went to meet the Queen in Balmoral Castle while going through the transition of a new government forming in Britain, she actually took him for a drive. She jumped in the Jeep and she drove the truck. She was driving it. It was a standard, a shift stick, and she was hitting every gear and moving the clutch. Who would have thought that just a couple of days after that she would pass away so quickly?
We are honoured that we got to call her our head of state. We are always in awe of everything that she accomplished in her lifetime. She commanded respect around the world because she always put service and dedication to others above self.
King Charles III has renewed his mother's promise to serve as long as he lives. I know that all of us as Canadians from coast to coast to coast join in this grief along with the royal family.
We often talk about the 22 times that the Queen came to Canada, and a number of times those visits by the Queen, as well as Prince Philip, had an impact on my family. When my two older brothers were teenagers in the good old 4-H program, a youth program focused around those of us in the agriculture sector, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were at the first international livestock judging competition. Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip went to the Agribition in Regina in 1977, and the 4-H people got to have supper with Prince Philip. It was a big thing at our supper tables as to how to properly eat. Which order do the forks go in? What do we do with our buns? There were all these discussions about protocol when it came to dining with a member of the royal family.
On six of the 22 times that Queen Elizabeth came to Canada, she came to Manitoba. During her Golden Jubilee in 2002, on the steps of the Manitoba legislature, a young girl presented flowers to her. It was my niece Holly. It is something our family is incredibly proud of. She got to meet Her Majesty and present the flowers. October 8, 2002, will always be marked in her memory and our family's memory.
The Queen returned to Manitoba in July 2010 to unveil the cornerstone of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, the first Canadian museum to be established outside of the capital region. She brought with her the cornerstone that came from the same region of England where the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. She was dedicated to human rights. If we look at her career and the work that she did all over the world, we see that often it was focused on protecting human rights. She made sure to point out, when she was unveiling that rock, that the Magna Carta is where our modern parliamentary democracy was established, where civil liberties came into play, and where we, as commoners, finally had a franchise in our own governance. That was something she wanted to make sure was focused and centred in our own Canadian Museum for Human Rights.
As Canada and the world mourns our beloved sovereign, we also look to the future. I had the pleasure to meet her son, King Charles III, who now sits as King of Canada, a number of years ago, in March of 2006, during Commonwealth Day celebrations in London. I was there with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association's Westminster Seminar. We attended and got to meet King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla. I can tell everyone it was something I will never forget. He was incredibly engaging and very easy to speak to.
May King Charles be blessed with wisdom and exercise justice and mercy, and may he live long. May Queen Elizabeth II rest in peace. God save the Queen and God bless Canada.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member for Nunavut. I have some familiarity with her riding. My mother was born in Chesterfield Inlet and spent a number of years up in Pangnirtung. It is a part of Canada that I really love.
I have travelled around a bit in Nunavut, and I know how far apart places are and how expensive it is to get from one community to another. Their voices need to be heard just as much as the voices of somebody living in downtown Toronto or Winnipeg or here in Ottawa. We have to make sure that we find ways to better communicate with our constituents and ensure that they are getting the representation they deserve.
As I mentioned in my comments earlier, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, a northern riding in Manitoba, covers two-thirds of the province of Manitoba. In my riding, I have 70-plus communities, 32 municipalities, two first nations and 27 Métis locals, and I need to get around to them. It is difficult for me to get to every one of those communities over a year once or twice, and that is in a riding of 26,000 square kilometres. When we look at northern Manitoba, the Northwest Territories and Yukon, we see they are very challenging, and we always have to consider them as we make these types of decisions.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent.
I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-14, which talks about preserving provincial representation in our House of Commons. This is fundamental to who we are as Canada. It defines us as being equitable in how we treat Confederation. Ultimately, this is about ensuring that the overall basis of having equal representation by population is adhered to.
This act would not take away the addition of seats in faster-growing provinces such as Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia, but would ensure that slower-growing provinces, such as Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, some Atlantic Canada provinces and Quebec, are not shortchanged in the seats they currently have. It goes without saying that all members of the House want to ensure that the numbers we currently have for each province are respected.
If population growth in Manitoba had not kept up over the last number of years, especially if we look back over the last two redistribution periods, and if we had kept to the strict rule of representation by population, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and other provinces may have lost seats. The voice of each province counts. Although representation by region is more adequately represented in the Senate, we need to ensure that all voices from all regions of Canada are heard here. It is for that very reason that I am standing in support of this bill. I want to ensure that Manitoba never loses a seat beyond the 14 it has.
If we look at representation by population, the average riding in Canada currently holds about 100,000 people. My riding of Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman is currently at 109,000. It is at the upper end of the range that is allowed in redistribution, as ridings can be a maximum of 10% above or below population averages within each and every province. The average in Manitoba is now at 100,000, which is about the national average. The bill would ensure that each and every one of us here will represent about 100,000 people so that our voices are equal.
However, we know that in periods between the distribution of ridings and boundary commissions redrawing where boundaries fall, and because of new developments, faster growth in some areas and economic opportunities, riding populations often increase dramatically. We know that some of the ridings in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. represent 140,000, 150,000 or 160,000 people, so we need to make sure that we add seats and members of Parliament to those provinces so that we have an equal number of people represented per riding. That is only fair and something we need to do.
When the Conservatives were in government back in 2011, we brought forward the Fair Representation Act, which set in stone the formulas that are used as we go forward with redistributions by boundary commissions. They are ongoing right now. In Manitoba, we are waiting to hear in the next week from the boundary commission regarding how it is going to redraw boundaries in Manitoba. It is highly probable that some regions of Manitoba will see boundaries change.
One of the ridings in Manitoba where I do not believe the boundaries should be changed too dramatically is the riding of Churchill—Keewatinook Aski. Geographically, that riding represents two-thirds of the province of Manitoba. Although its population has dropped by a couple of thousand people since the last redistribution, I believe the ability to represent that large a geographic area, which gets into remote, rural and northern communities, is incredibly difficult for the member who currently represents the riding, and for any member in the future, for that matter.
There are several first nations there that are fly-in only. Churchill, for example, is only accessible by rail or air. Until recently, before we had the east side road built up on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, all of the first nations in that area were only accessible by winter road, by boat or by plane. It is therefore important that we take some of these conditions into consideration as boundary commissions consider their work.
Back in 2011, we added 30 new seats because we were caught in a system that dated back to 1985. Ridings were set at 308 for the entire country for that entire time. Ensuring that we can match the number of seats in the chamber with population growth is something that I find necessary and is something that realistically looks at how things are changing in our great nation.
When we look at places such as Quebec, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, population does not always keep up. We need to make sure that this representation does not slide down past where we are right now. I would hate to see the provinces of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, New Brunswick and P.E.I., which is guaranteed four seats in the House of Commons, go back to when they joined Confederation and lose seats. In reality, for P.E.I., we would only have one or two members of Parliament based on population, but the voices of members who represent P.E.I count. We sometimes have to balance population with regional and provincial areas of interest. We need to be focused and open-minded at the same time as we talk about the changes in our boundaries.
We respect the independent boundary commissions and the work going on right now. They are going to provide opportunities for Canadians to look at how they redraw boundaries. I know there are a lot of discussions taking place over some of the commissions' reports that have already been released, including for British Columbia, Saskatchewan and other provinces. However, there is going to be an opportunity for the commissioners who drafted the first reports to hear from Canadians, whether they are community leaders, those in municipalities, us parliamentarians or those who have a very strong interest in how we conduct ourselves and how we represent areas in our regions.
When we look at our electoral districts, it is important that we look at what is important from a municipal standpoint. Rurally, boundary commissions sometimes cut municipalities in half and put half a rural municipality or half a community in one riding and half in the other. I have always advocated for the fact that it is best to keep municipalities in one riding so they are completely captured within one riding. It is better for working with members of Parliament.
We also want to make sure we look at trade corridors and communities of like interest, communities that are, for example, all agriculture-based or maybe resource-based. Maybe they are indigenous. Those communities should be lumped together to ensure that their vote matters and that through their members of Parliament, they are heard loud and clear.
I know we are not looking, for some of the issues, at whether this is a permanent solution or just a patchwork. We are concerned that this is coming up late, as boundary commissions are already completing their work, and we wonder if this is going to delay that work.
I will end with this. I am looking forward to a response from the government on how it will ensure that we are not disturbing the critical work that boundary commissions are doing right now.
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- May/12/22 12:13:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to stand today to talk about the re-establishment of the Canada-China special committee and the work we need to undertake with respect to our relationship with China.
I want to thank my colleague from Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for his very strong intervention, and indeed all members of the House as we consider taking on this important work.
The month of May is Asian Heritage Month, and I want to recognize all the great contributions that Asians and Chinese Canadians have made to this country. I want to mention the Hon. Philip Lee, who was the lieutenant governor of Manitoba, and the great work he did in representing the Crown in Manitoba, which he did with dignity and grace. He was an excellent representative of the Government of Manitoba.
Earlier this week, a number of my colleagues were outside on the front lawn talking about the 30th anniversary of Falun Dafa, which is known as World Falun Dafa Day. We talked about all of the great contributions that Asian Canadians are making to Canada. We can look at how Falun Gong practitioners have come here and how they practise what they preach: truthfulness, tolerance and forbearance. They have brought those qualities and values to Canada and made us a better country.
Unfortunately, Falun Gong practitioners in China are being persecuted, arrested, subjected to illegal organ harvesting, which is disgusting, and brutalized by the communist regime in Beijing. They expect us to use this committee to get to the bottom of what is happening under the communist regime and to stop it by sanctioning those who profiteer from this disgusting illegal organ harvesting. We need to make sure there is legislation coming through. There is a bill coming from the Senate, Bill S-223, that will address this issue and hold to account not just those who are committing the atrocities in China, but those around the world who are paying for and benefiting from those organs in a way that would be considered illegal in Canada. We need to put a stop to it.
As we look at the work that this special committee on Canada-China relations can do, it can dig down into the human rights abuses that are happening, not only to the Falun Gong practitioners I have mentioned, but also to the Uighurs, Tibetans, Christians and other minority religious groups throughout China that have been completely ostracized by the regime in Beijing. We know they are not allowed to practise freedom of religion. We know they have not been able to assemble peacefully because they will be arrested and ultimately end up in prison or in forced labour. We are seeing more and more the Chinese government using people of ethnic and religious diversities as forced labour, and we have to make sure that no Canadian companies are profiteering or using supply chains that involve this type of forced, illegal labour.
We have talked about supply chains. If we look at what has happened in Canada during the pandemic, the supply chains have been disrupted, partly because so much of that is coming out of China itself. We need to have sovereign control over a lot of those supply chains. We need to make sure we are working with our friends and allies around the world so we can have dependable supply chains, so we can get the electronic chips that go into the cars that are now sitting at parking lots and auto dealerships around the country; they cannot move because they lack some of the computer chips that are needed to operate the vehicles.
We know that supply chains were disrupted when it comes to PPE and that we were scrambling because of the unwillingness of mainland China to bring forward any of the supply we so desperately needed. We need to look at how we can strengthen our supply chain and work more with our allies and trading partners without having Chinese companies, which are often controlled by the state, coming into that supply chain and disrupting it. For our own economy, for our own citizens, it is important that we have control. It is about national security.
One of the biggest disappointments in the past six years under the Liberal government, and now the Liberal-NDP coalition, is that Huawei is still out there as a potential supplier of 5G technology to our mobile cellular system and Wi-Fi systems. We know Huawei has been tied to espionage around the world. That is why our Five Eyes partners, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, have all banned Huawei from their mobile systems, yet here we are, still waffling because the government cannot make a decision. That is despicable. We need to make these decisions.
We can look at how Huawei in particular has worked, even here in Canada. When I was parliamentary secretary for national defence, we took over the Nortel campus, when Nortel unfortunately closed its doors, and made that into the new campus for National Defence. It took years to clean out all the switches and wiring installed by Huawei, which had the ability to spy on Nortel, and ultimately on National Defence as it took over these buildings. National Defence was not there when this was originally installed in the Nortel campus, and it was not meant to be used against National Defence, but with National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces moving into the Nortel campus, the dynamics changed completely.
There is a huge track record by Huawei of not being trustworthy. It is under the Communist Party of China's control through its own charter as a corporation, and it has to co-operate with the Government of China when it wants Huawei to spy on other nations, corporations or individuals. We need to be very forthright in how we deal with it.
One of the things the committee should look at is how Canada can insert itself in some of the national security conversations that are happening on a global scale. In the Pacific, there is already what is called the quadrilateral dialogue, which involves India, Japan, the United States and Australia. Canada is not part of that discussion, and it should be.
This committee should look at how Canada can get involved in these conversations to strengthen the Indo-Pacific region, how we can make sure we counteract some of those geopolitical games that the communist regime in Beijing has been playing in the South China Sea, how it has been rattling sabres to scare Taiwan, and how it has installed a new administrator for Hong Kong and continues to violate the democratic and civil liberties of the Chinese community in Hong Kong, which includes 300,000 Canadians. We need to make sure we deal with this at the special committee on Canada-China relations.
The other organization that was just set up is being built around a national defence co-operation agreement called AUKUS, which includes Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. They are co-operating not just on intelligence sharing, which the Five Eyes has done, but also on national defence issues, including empowering the Australian navy with submarines, as well as on greater training, co-operation and collaboration among those three allies of Canada.
We should be part of that group. It may be too late for us to get in, and maybe there needs to be a path forward on how Canada can become part of that security agreement, but we are a Pacific nation. As a Pacific nation, we should be more involved in defence issues in the South Pacific, and indeed in the Indo-Pacific region, to counterbalance what is happening with the Chinese geopolitical sphere and the way China is trying to influence and potentially use force as it builds up its military to levels we have never seen.
Finally, when we look at China through this committee, we also need to look at how China is being used as a back door to take Russian goods and enrich the Russian military machine that we see waging war in Ukraine today. We need to make sure we are counterbalancing that, by looking at China and trying to get it to move away from enriching Putin and his kleptocrats. We need to make sure we get more sanctions on Russia, and that includes talking to China about how it should participate in the rule of law under the international agreements we have and isolate Russia, rather than enriching it so it can wage war on the great people of Ukraine.
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