- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Essex
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $172,107.39
- Government Page
- Dec/13/23 2:10:50 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, as families across Canada anxiously anticipate Christmas Day, opening presents and having turkey, many families will not all be together.
Doctors, nurses and caregivers in our hospitals, long-term care homes and hospices will be taking care of our loved ones. Firefighters, police officers and first responders will be keeping our streets safe. Hydro workers will be working to keep the lights on our Christmas trees bright. Snowplow operators will work day and night to keep our roads clear and safe. Pilots, flight attendants and airport personnel will be working hard to get us to our destinations, so we can be with our families. Border security officers will work long shifts protecting our vast borders. Of course, our brave men and women in uniform, keeping Canadians safe both in Canada and around the globe, will sacrifice yet another Christmas with their families. The list goes on.
This Christmas, I ask Canadians to take a moment to thank those who serve so selflessly and who will miss their Christmas Day so we can be at ours.
Merry Christmas.
179 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, half of me wants to stand on a point of order and speak about this great colleague of mine for suggesting that perhaps he is better looking than I am, but we will let the public be both the judge and the jury on that.
Ironically, although I do not smell like smoked meat, I did appreciate the fact that he spoke about the firefighters in the field, because the truth of the matter is that I was a firefighter for seven and a half years. I put out many a wheat fire and grass fire, many of which were actually caused, unfortunately, by our farming industry, so I appreciate his bringing that up.
It brings me great pride today to stand here in this place on behalf of the fantastic residents of Essex, who sent me here. I say “thanks” to them.
Before I dive into the bill, in great support of the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands's private member's bill, Bill C-294, I do want to just send out heartfelt thanks and best wishes to the firefighters across Canada, who are battling, so dearly and desperately, the raging wildfires.
I have said it before and am proud to say it: My father was the milkman in Essex, with Lewis Dairy. As I always say, am I ever happy that my mother opened the door when he dropped off that milk to the house, because, otherwise, I would not be here today. The reason I say that is that I have heard many stories from my dad about how farming equipment, both in the dairy industry and in the grain industry, has evolved. I know it to be true, because I grew up on a farm.
I, myself, do sharecropping, so I have my own farm. I see the various utility equipment that goes onto a tractor or goes onto a combine. Bless my wife and my daughter for loving horses so much, all five of them. Now we are getting into hay. I suppose it is easy for me to speak to this because all the different farming takes a whole bunch of different utility equipment, to not only harvest but to also plant these crops. I look at this equipment and I look at the interchangeability, the opportunity to save a few thousand dollars, for a thrasher from one company to another that perhaps would not or could not interchange with a Case tractor, a John Deere tractor or a New Holland tractor.
I will then also take it one step further. Especially in Essex, where we are somewhat landlocked in that we are surrounded by three bodies of water, land is, quite frankly, at a premium. It is darn expensive, but it is really expensive, and almost unheard of, for our next generation of young adults not just to be able to afford a home and start a family but also to take over the family legacy, which is the farm. They need every opportunity, every possibility possible, to ensure that they can even begin to think about taking over the local farm.
I have two amazing sons and an amazing daughter. Both of my sons spend a lot of time on the farm. They are grease monkeys, and I am darn proud of them for being grease monkeys. They repair a lot of the farming equipment that, quite frankly, I break. Whether it is cutting the laneways or plowing in the headlands, there is always a screw, a nut, a bolt or a washer that just does not fit anymore. It gets worn out. The cost to repair that, the cost that our farming community goes through because something is not interchangeable, is absolutely astronomical. I think about when we blow a belt on that same utility that I cut the fence rows on. I am sure the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands would know how expensive a farming belt is, especially when one has to bring it in from overseas.
If we start today, if we start in this beautiful country today, to make the equipment interchangeable, the lives of farmers today and the future for the next generations will be that much easier.
My brother-in-law, Rob Reid, has been with the Ridgetown agricultural college, a subsidiary or sister college to Guelph University, for a number of years. He has been in charge of the dairy and the hogs, but he also does all the work with the college training students for future generations with regard to the equipment.
This year, I will have been happily be married to my lovely, loved wife Allison for 25 years, so I have known Rob for about 30 years. I have heard the stories, the trials and tribulations at the college. It has to really watch the money it spends, when it spends a whole bunch of money on one type of equipment, and five, six, seven or 10 years later, when half of the equipment comes to the end of its useful life, it has to buy new additions to that equipment. The tractor still works, but the plow or the thrasher or the planter needs to be replaced, and it is not interchangeable. Therefore, the college has to basically start from zero. What does that do? It not only costs the college, but, ultimately, it also costs the students. As if it were not tough enough to go to college now, and as if it were not tough enough to excite future young adults to get into farming and take over their family business, now the cost of tuition has just gone crazy, right through the roof. Therefore, this private member's bill only checks all the important boxes of what the future of Canadian farming looks like going forward.
I think about Vollans farm equipment business, just around the corner from my house, and about how many times I have taken my Zero-Turn lawnmower there if, as was previously mentioned, there was a nut falling out of the bottom, or there was a worn out U-joint. If it were not for Vollans, and I do not have a lot of money in my pockets here today, I would have a whole lot less money in my pockets, because it is so unique and so excellent in how it is able to adapt various pieces of equipment and put them together. However, we are now getting into the digital age, which allows for an interface of two digital systems coming together to put together two pieces of critical infrastructure needed to feed Canadians, put food on the table of Canadians and, quite frankly, to feed the world, as well as to make life much, much more exciting and more affordable for our farming industry.
Essex, as I mentioned, is a very small, landlocked, area, but it is a very vital area. As a matter of fact, the majority of the grain produced in Essex, and this should put a smile on a lot of faces here, goes straight to our distilleries. If members like Crown Royal, they will probably like the fact that we grow a lot of corn. Now that I have everybody's attention, they probably know just how important this private member's bill is.
To conclude, I am a very proud son of an amazing father who taught me a whole bunch about farming, as did my grandfather while he was still alive. I am proud to be partners with Greg Eisler, a fantastic farmer who farms my land alongside me. Also, I really want to thank, one final time, my dear friend, the member who represents Cypress Hills—Grasslands incredibly well, for bringing this private member's bill forward.
1303 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/8/23 4:23:18 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, as someone who was a firefighter for seven and a half years, I know a thing or two about firefighting. I also know we cannot always have all the resources at our fingertips, but we have other folks around us, from other municipalities, provinces and, quite frankly, across the country, who come to the firefighters' rescue.
As we are now seeing U.S. cities filling up with smoke, would the member agree with me that we have to use more of a national strategy and work with our partners in the United States to fight fires on both sides of the border?
104 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I think that was the second or third time the member has asked that question in the House. Here is the problem: The answer is that we do not know. I will tell why we do not know. It is because of the Canadian firearms advisory committee. Here we go again, one more time. “It is not as bad as people think it is. It is going to be okay. People should not worry about their firearms that take clips in the bottom, which are the same as top-loading. It is okay. We have a firearms advisory committee.” How could we possibly trust anything else that comes from the government that will not take away legal firearms?
122 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I rise today on an issue that is, quite frankly, very near and dear to my heart. It is near and dear because before Grandpa Jack passed away, I got to hunt with him for many years for deer on, ironically, Manitoulin Island. I am very blessed to still have the opportunity to meet my father at 4:30 in the morning at his house to go chase wild turkeys with my uncle Tom. I guess it is really near and dear to my heart because I am hoping that my grandson Levi, who just turned two years old a couple days ago, will have the same opportunity to enjoy the outdoors with his “Pip”, which is me.
Today, I stand in solidarity with law-abiding gun owners across Canada. For generations, my family has been hunters. My dad got his first gun at the age of five. He, as I did, grew up on a farm. Most farmers owned guns and most family members of the household learned how to use them. Besides supplementing their food supply, farmers used guns to keep predators from their livestock. From one generation to another, each was taught how to handle a gun safely and responsibly.
My dad passed his knowledge and love of hunting to me and my two brothers. Traditions are important. We need look no further than to first nations that support these very same traditions. Hunters today still eat what they hunt and share with their wild-game-loving neighbours, just as I did Saturday night at the Gosfield North Sportsmen club's wild game dinner back in my riding.
Hunters respect nature. We are the original conservationists. We hunt according to seasons, designed to cull the herds, to curtail the behaviours of predators such as coyotes and to preserve wildlife.
Prior to my election as the member of Parliament for Essex, I was an outfitter operating in the Far North. I had the honour and pleasure of working with many first nations guides. Camps like mine, scattered across Canada's vast terrain, help preserve a traditional way of life. We bring resources and jobs to the local communities.
Interestingly enough, my riding of Essex is home to the Jack Miner Migratory Bird Foundation. Jack Miner was an avid outdoorsman and hunter who founded a sanctuary for the conservation of migrating geese and wild ducks. I suppose I could dedicate this entire speech to his list of achievements, but suffice to say, he became world-renowned. As the Right Hon. Pierre Trudeau said of him, “Jack Miner, with his vision and determination is largely responsible for those conservation measures in existence today.”
As I said previously, hunters are the original conservationists. They are also law-abiding citizens. Every gun owner in Canada has to go through rigorous certification and training. Our guns are stored under lock and key. We hone our skills at licensed shooting ranges, and we transport our guns in the prescribed way.
Our government knows that the smuggling of illegal guns across the U.S. border is the true source of gun violence in Canada, yet no matter the facts, law-abiding gun owners are the ones negatively impacted by this new proposed legislation. Why is that? Is it ignorance? Is it government overreach? Is it virtue signalling to their voter base? Is it all of the above?
Sadly, the proposed new gun law restrictions are based on emotion, not on facts. Bill C-21 is divisive. It pits rural Canadians against urban Canadians. It serves no practical purpose because it ignores the real source of gun violence. It trifles over types of guns, which only serves to show how profoundly uninformed the government truly is.
Bill C-21 inexplicably also captured, or had the potential to capture, the airsoft and paintball industries in its net, thus jeopardizing these recreational activities and the businesses that go along with them. It is often hard to relate to something that one is indifferent to. However, beyond curtailing our own passions and pursuits is something more fundamental: the erosion of our charter rights and freedoms under the guise of public safety.
Law-abiding gun owners are the low-hanging fruit for the government's obsession with exercising more and more control over the lives of Canadians. Bill C-21 exploits the fears and emotions of Canadians without any bearing on the facts. It is yet another in a long line of such laws that represent a slow and steady erosion of a gun owner's charter rights and freedoms enshrined in our Constitution. My hope is to cast Bill C-21 in a light that even Canadians who are not recreational gun owners could find a point of agreement on regarding what the government should do and, equally importantly, should not do to address gun crime.
Canada is a democracy. The people elect their government, and the government serves the people. The Constitution of Canada is based on the rule of law. As long as citizens are obeying the laws of the land, they are to be free to go about their daily lives. For the government's part, those we elect to govern us are to only pass laws that are necessary and beneficial.
Furthermore, the onus is on the government to prove that any restrictions on a citizen's liberty are necessary and beneficial. Every law that is restrictive in its nature must be thoroughly scrutinized, and we must make a compelling case for its justification. There should be no benefit of the doubt, no ignorance masquerading as facts, no cynical appeal to emotion.
Our Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What happens when our laws become unjust, as Bill C-21 is? Even more alarming, what happens next? Will this open the floodgates? Is the real goal to end gun ownership entirely? The fact is that those who commit violent crimes using a gun do not obey the law, any law, no matter how restrictive. They always find an illegal way to acquire firearms, chiefly by smuggling. The government knows that.
To my point about the need for balance to ensure that laws are just, when regulations become too restrictive for the law-abiding and enforcement too lax for the criminals, the law becomes unjust. That is exactly what has happened with firearms owners in Canada.
However, this will not end with firearms owners. A government's appetite for control is only whetted by each new measure of control it seizes from its citizens. The only ones who can curb this appetite are the citizens themselves. Maybe hunting is not someone's thing, but they should be concerned nevertheless.
We have seen what the government does with emergency powers under the Quarantine Act. Three weeks into the pandemic, while Parliament's sole focus was providing families and businesses the income support they needed, the Liberal government sought powers that would have given it unfettered control of the public purse until the end of December 2021. The Conservatives fought back then, forced their hand and have remained vigilant since.
Since then, the Liberals have resisted accountability, rushed programs through Parliament and issued an order in council on gun control, which is the basis for Bill C-21. When Parliament finally returned to its full function after months of being shuttered, the Liberals gave us the WE scandal, ethics committee filibusters and then prorogation to avoid scrutiny. The government has proven itself incompetent, unaccountable, unethical and power hungry time and time again to advance an ideological agenda propped up by its informal coalition partners, the NDP.
Recreational gun owners are being scapegoated. I can assure members that it will not end with law-abiding gun owners. The government's sole focus should be an economic recovery plan and another to reopen our society, all rights restored.
To summarize my key points in closing, first, law-abiding gun owners are not the source of gun violence and should not be the government's scapegoats. Second, the government needs to focus on stopping the trafficking of illegal guns across the border. Last, let us uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and cast this bill and every bill in this House in its bright light.
1383 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/13/23 3:01:39 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal Prime Minister, legal firearms owners want the government to stop harassing them and target the criminals who are the real problem. Crime is up 32%, and violent gang murders are up 92% after eight years of Liberal government. The Liberal Prime Minister is responsible for the Criminal Code and for securing the very borders that illegal guns are smuggled through.
Will the Prime Minister fix what he broke, reinforce border security and keep the smuggled guns out of the hands of criminals?
90 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I spoke with Joe this morning, a local hunter and manufacturer of parts for legal hunting rifles. He recently purchased a CNC machine and hired skilled trade workers. Now the Liberal government is threatening to shut the doors on his business and take away his firearms. One must assume that hundreds of thousands of dollars for CNC machines are part of the buyback program that does not exist. While law-abiding Canadians are on the right side of history, the Liberal government is the outlier.
When will the Liberals stop targeting hunters and farmers like Joe?
98 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/20/22 11:53:49 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, volunteer firefighters across Canada are called away from anniversaries, birthday parties, their jobs, family and Christmas dinners to respond to emergencies and save people's lives. They do this proudly and we thank them for their sacrifice. Unfortunately, retention for these firefighters is very low for municipalities because the cost and burden are so high.
Will the government respond to their emergency and give them gas tax relief for municipal budgets?
73 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- May/13/22 11:52:50 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, although the legal firearms community is not surprised, it is once again disappointed by the NDP-Liberal government. Its gun registry 2.0 will not impact criminals and gangs responsible for gun violence. There are 2,300 businesses like Ellwood Epps that will be forced to hire more folks, which is yet another administrative burden, to do the government's work. Canada has a red tape law. I expect the minister to make the cuts.
Why do these businesses have to keep records for 20 years when Canadians have to keep tax returns for only seven years?
99 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Mr. Speaker, this morning I had the honour to speak in support of Bill C-224 in the House, a bill that recognizes the importance of bringing awareness to certain types of cancers that firefighters face each and every day. As a former firefighter, I want to thank the brave men and women who protect us all. We appreciate everything that they do to keep our families safe.
It is hard for us to say goodbye to friends that we have lost and perhaps even tougher to say goodbye to someone like my friend, Darrell Ellwood, who passed away on Christmas Day 2011 from cancer and was laid to rest on January 14, 2012. Darrell's story is one of far too many, a life taken far too soon.
To the International Association of Fire Fighters, I say I will continue to work vigorously in the House to ensure that those who have sacrificed so much, whose spouses and families have lost so much, are not lost in vain.
169 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
