- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Dufferin—Caledon
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $136,309.03
- Government Page
- Dec/12/23 12:23:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the party that complaints that points of order are disruptive makes a ridiculous point of order.
I will go back to my point, which is that my decision as a Conservative to vote against this agreement is a principled decision. I will not stand for trade agreements having carbon pricing or taxes, because who knows what the Liberals are going to do next time. I get to do that. As we know, this legislation is going to pass, so there is no harm being caused by that.
When we look, for instance, at what happened with the waiver of the export permit that the government granted for a gas turbine, that caused significant harm to Ukraine. President Zelenskyy said, “If a terrorist state can squeeze out such an exception to sanctions, what exceptions will it want tomorrow or the day after tomorrow? ...it is dangerous not only for Ukraine, but also for all countries of the democratic world.” President Zelenskyy called on the Liberal government to change its decision.
The Liberals say we should listen to President Zelenskyy on the trade agreement, but Conservatives get to disagree with them on that. We think it is not a good trade deal. It is not good for Ukraine and not good for Canada. However, President Zelenskyy saying that the Liberal government should not grant the export waiver that is aiding Russia is somehow no big deal, there is nothing to see here. Their hypocrisy on this is really astounding.
Then the government turns a principled vote in the House of Commons against including carbon taxes, carbon leakage or carbon pricing in a trade agreement for the first time ever into somehow aiding Russia or Vladimir Putin. Not only is that language despicable, it is completely unhelpful to the debate. Liberals saying Conservatives are supporting Russia is giving Russia some kind of a win.
Conservatives, of course, are not saying that. We are saying it is a terrible decision and the decision helped Russia pump gas, which has helped fuelled its war. President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian ambassador said that. Those are their words, not ours.
If we look at who is actually causing harm to Ukraine, it is the Liberal government in its decision to grant that export waiver. Many Liberal members stand and claim that Conservatives are doing terrible things to Ukraine as a result of our principled decision. Where were they on this decision? They are not there, which, to me, is deeply hypocritical. Ukrainian Canadians know exactly which party supported the export of that gas turbine. If that was all, I would say that is pretty bad, but not absolutely awful.
However, let us look at what else has happened. There are now media reports that Canadian detonators are in Russian mines. That is a complete lack of export control by the government. We know that Liberals are not very good at doing much, but to allow Canadian detonators to find their way, as the media has reported, into Russian mines is inexcusable. They say our principled vote against the bad things they put in this trade agreement is somehow aiding Russia and Vladimir Putin, but they exported a gas turbine used to pump Russian gas to fund the war and Canadian detonators have found their way into Russian mines that are used during the war. If we compare these things, some things are desperately harmful to Ukraine and other things do not cause any damage whatsoever.
If that was all, Conservatives would say it is terrible, though not absolutely awful, but there is more. Canada is the only G7 country that is not offering wartime insurance to businesses. Liberals say Canada is there to help rebuild Ukraine, but they will not put wartime insurance in place for businesses right now. Therefore, any businesses in Canada that want to help Ukraine during the war do not have wartime insurance. Every other G7 country has it. This causes real damage to Ukraine and they have the audacity to say that our principled vote against the trade agreement is somehow aiding Vladimir Putin. These three decisions the Liberals made are aiding the Russian war effort, so their hypocrisy on this is really stunning.
At committee, we tried to improve the trade agreement. The Ukrainian ambassador said recently that they could use, in the future, co-operation on energy security. As we pointed out at the committee, there is nothing in this trade agreement on energy security. It is shocking.
Ukraine needs energy security. Why would we not include a chapter on energy security? I know the Liberals and all their proxies say that has never been in a trade agreement before, so we cannot put it in. Carbon pricing and carbon leakage were never in a trade agreement before either. Clearly, we can put things into trade agreements that have never been in them before.
They are going to ask why it is not in there. It is because when we negotiate a trade agreement, two sides decide what they are going to put in them. The Liberal government's priority was carbon taxes, carbon pricing and carbon leakage. We know the Ukrainians want energy security. The ambassador just said it recently on the news. Why was there not a chapter on energy security in the trade agreement? We can only conclude it is because the Liberal government did not want to put anything in the trade agreement on energy security. We can come to no other conclusion.
The Conservatives tried to fix that. We brought forward a motion at committee to expand the scope of what could be included in the review of this trade agreement to allow for energy security. Every single Liberal member on that committee voted no, which is the exact opposite of what the Ukrainian ambassador was just asking for.
When we talk about what is causing harm, there is only one wrecking ball going through this and it is the wrecking ball of the Liberals because they exported the gas turbine, they will not grant wartime insurance and Canadian detonators are somehow finding their way into Russian mines. I ascribe all of that to gross incompetence because we see gross incompetence from the Liberals on virtually every single thing they touch right now here in Canada.
If that was all, we could say that it is not such a big deal. However, there were eight amendments at committee that we tried to use to improve the free trade agreement so we could actually find a way to support it. One of the amendments that I put forward would have delayed the coming into force of the agreement until the references to carbon pricing and carbon leakage were removed. If that had been done, I would have found a way to vote in favour of it, but that was voted down like every single amendment was voted down that we put forward to make this trade agreement better.
This included an amendment to strengthen co-operation on matters relating to nuclear technology, including the export of Canadian nuclear equipment, expertise and uranium to Ukraine. Ukraine has lost 50% of its electricity-generating capacity as a result of this war from Russian bombing. Would it not have been great to put in this free trade agreement co-operation on expanding nuclear capacity?
I know, everyone is saying surely the Liberals voted for that. It is what Ukraine needs, it is what the Ukrainian ambassador asked for. No, people would be wrong. Liberals voted against it. They want to include their ideological obsession with carbon pricing and carbon leakage, but they do not want to vote for co-operation in nuclear technology, and co-operation on energy to provide energy security.
The other issue is this: There could have been co-operation on LNG capacity in Ukraine and increasing Canadian LNG exports. As everyone knows, Russia's war machine is primarily funded by the exports of gas.
Ukraine is sitting on the third-largest proven reserves of LNG in all of Europe. Imagine a Europe that is getting its LNG exclusively from Ukraine, as opposed to getting LNG from Russia. Imagine if Ukraine got the revenues from being able to export LNG to Europe and to other parts of the world to help it fight the Russian invasion. This would be a double win. It would cut off the blood money that is going to Russia and it would increase the revenues of Ukraine. It would have more money to fight the war.
Surely, Liberals voted for the trade agreement to include LNG co-operation, right? It would be a win-win for everyone. No, they did not; they voted against it, because the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party have an ideological obsession with carbon taxes, carbon prices and carbon emissions.
Even to the detriment of a country in the middle of war, a country fighting for its very survival, what is the most important thing for the Liberal government? It is carbon tax, carbon price and carbon leakage. Even in this context, Liberals cannot get out of their obsession with the carbon tax, which is something that absolutely would have helped Ukraine.
I will move on to some of the amendments that were put forward. We put forward an amendment on the donation of Canadian military equipment because we have equipment somewhat past its functional life but not completely unusable. This could be exported to Ukraine and refurbished so it could have more Canadian military equipment to help in its war. Again, surely Liberals voted for that because it would be a direct benefit to Ukraine. No, they did not. Then they have the audacity to say to us that if we vote against this free trade agreement somehow it is a win for Russia and Vladimir Putin. The hypocrisy is really unbelievable.
There are more and more amendments that were put forward—
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- Dec/12/23 12:05:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what actually has harmed Ukraine was the government's decision to grant a waiver to export a gas turbine. It is interesting. The Liberals use President Zelenskyy's name all the time in support of their cause to try to score cheap political points. President Zelenskyy had a few things to say about that waiver.
If a terrorist state can squeeze out such an exemption to sanctions, what exemptions would it want? Moreover, it is dangerous not only for Ukraine but for all countries of the democratic world. Zelenskyy called on the Canadian government to reverse that decision. The Ukrainian ambassador went on to say that Russia is using energy as a weapon in Europe and all over the world and this money and fuel were going to support the war in Ukraine. Do the Liberals regret that they actually aided President Putin in his war by exporting that gas turbine?
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- Nov/22/23 7:17:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to speak on behalf of the great residents of Dufferin—Caledon.
I am going to focus my remarks today on two of the recommendations in this report. It is incredibly timely that we are having this concurrence debate with respect to this report from the committee. I want to start with recommendation 12, which is, “That the Government of Canada not grant a sanctions waiver to Siemens Energy Canada Limited for Nord Stream 1 pipeline turbines as long as sanctions remain in effect.” I am going to go into why that is significant.
First of all, it granted that waiver in contravention of what the committee recommended, which included Liberal members of that committee. It is relevant because that went to a pipeline that aided Vladimir Putin. It aided his ability to export oil. He funds his illegal war in Ukraine with the energy exports and the money he gets from energy exports.
As we debated the free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine, Conservatives took a principled position to vote against that free trade agreement not only for what is in it, but because the Liberals are trying to export the misery of the carbon tax. I know trade agreements are about imports and exports, but what we should not export is the misery of a carbon tax on Ukrainians in the middle of a war. That is one export I bet Ukrainians do not want.
Why is that so relevant? It is relevant because Conservatives took a principled position to vote against it due to that and many other aspects of this trade deal. It is a bad deal. We voted against it. We are His Majesty's loyal opposition. Opposition is an act of loyalty. Therefore, when we vote against a piece of legislation in our capacity as the official opposition, we are doing it as an act of loyalty. To have Liberal members accuse us of aiding Vladimir Putin as a result of that is beneath contempt. It is despicable.
We should consider that the committee had six Liberal members who put a recommendation forward not to grant a waiver to give a turbine to a Russian pipeline that would pump Russian oil, and they went ahead and did it. Then they have the audacity to stand in this chamber and say Conservatives are aiding Vladimir Putin, the ones who invited a Nazi into the chamber when the President of Ukraine was here. The Liberals say we are aiding Vladimir Putin. It is unconscionable for them to go there.
They granted the waiver for that permit, which enables Vladimir Putin to pump more oil. That puts more money into the Russian war machine. They say our act of loyalty as the opposition is aiding Vladimir Putin. This is disgraceful, even by the standards of the disgraceful conduct of the Liberal Party routinely all across this country and, in particular, in this chamber.
Now I will turn to recommendation 14, which is, “That the Government of Canada continue to provide significant military, financial and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine so long as Ukraine must defend itself from Russian aggression.” That is what the committee recommended, including six Liberal members, it should do. Yesterday, at the international trade committee, which is studying this free trade agreement, I put forward a motion to expand the scope of what could be included in the review of this legislation. I did that because Conservatives wanted to include increased munitions exports to Ukraine. This would be real help. We wanted to include Canadian industry helping Ukraine increase its domestic capacity for munitions manufacturing.
It is relevant because, right now, Canada only sends to Ukraine 3,000 rounds of munitions per month. Does that sound great? Maybe, but Ukraine goes through 3,000 rounds of munitions in one morning, every morning, and the ratio of soldiers being able to survive a war with the ratio of the number of munitions that can be used is directly correlated.
By not doing what they should do, which is increase munitions production and help Ukraine increase more munitions, it will cost the lives of Ukrainian soldiers and aid Vladimir Putin in his vicious, illegal war in Ukraine.
Now, let us go back. The Liberals are actually doing things that are harmful to Ukraine. They are exporting a turbine that is used to increase Russian revenue from oil and gas. I do not know what the definition of helping Vladimir Putin is, but if I wrote the dictionary, that would be in there.
On munitions, how did the Liberals vote on my motion at the committee to expand the scope of the review to include munitions? Let us guess. The Liberal member for Richmond Centre voted no. The Liberal member for Brampton East voted no. The Liberal member for Brampton South voted no. The Liberal member for Ottawa—Vanier voted no. The Liberal member for Nepean voted no. However, they have the audacity to say that Conservatives voting against them trying to export their most disastrous policy in Canada, the policy of deep misery, of two million Canadians going to a food bank, of seven million Canadians eating less healthy food—
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