- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Board of Internal Economy
Deputy House leader of the government
- Liberal
- Kingston and the Islands
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,228.33
- Government Page
- Feb/15/24 4:31:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he was not elected to come here and then develop plans for four years to run on four years later. He was elected by his constituents to come here and try to put forward policies to make their lives better.
The idea, when members are in opposition, is not to just stay there and do absolutely nothing, hoping that they get a turn to be on this side of the House. What they need to do is actually start trying to influence policy and make it better.
Can the member not understand that?
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- Feb/15/24 4:30:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if I understand this correctly, from what I just heard, the most important thing for this member is political opportunity and gain, not to advance the best interests of Canadians.
I have news for that member. He was not elected to come here and spend—
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Mr. Speaker, I have never been elected to a provincial legislature. I do not know what the member is talking about. He is wildly incorrect, but he can please tell us more.
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- Dec/8/22 4:27:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have asked my question for the member a number of times and I hope he will answer it, because nobody else seems to want to.
Conservatives ran on pricing pollution. The member was elected in September of 2021. When his constituents went to the ballot boxes to cast their votes for him, they were under the impression that he and his party were in favour of pricing pollution. Now, time after time, Conservatives bring forward motions to the contrary.
Can the member please try to explain to the House and Canadians why Conservatives are suddenly taking a different position on this than the one that they ran on?
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- Nov/15/22 5:15:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sorry if the member finds something insulting. What I find insulting, quite frankly, is that when we are trying to participate in debate, which is the reason we come to this House to represent Canadians, Conservatives and the Bloc, by the member's own admission a few moments ago, would decide that it is funny to stand up and walk out of the room in order to force a quorum call.
Is that why he thinks people elected him to come here, to play little games like that and skirt around procedural rules? Does he really think that is what his purpose in this House is?
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- Oct/25/22 4:53:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we heard in the preceding question and answer period that the Bloc's preferred model in Canada is not to have a monarch but, instead, to have another elected head of state. In essence, the member before this member was suggesting that we should be electing a president, so we would have a prime minister and a president.
Could this Bloc member confirm that is indeed the position of the Bloc Québécois? Could he explain why they did not include that in the motion today?
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- Oct/19/22 6:13:44 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Winnipeg North.
Before I get going, I just want to take a quick opportunity to acknowledge my parliamentary secretary assistant, Kelly, who is celebrating his birthday today. Kelly has been a volunteer of mine since he was in high school. As a matter of fact, in the summer of 2015, when we were running against the Conservative government and Stephen Harper called an election in the middle of the summer, most of us were saying to ourselves, “Why is this election so long?” It was one of the longest elections in Canadian history.
Meanwhile, Kelly was celebrating the fact that Stephen Harper had called the election on or for his 18th birthday. On October 19, 2015, Kelly turned 18, registered to vote and cast his first ballot. He has been part of my team ever since, and is my parliamentary secretary assistant. I just want to wish him a happy birthday.
I was trying to think of what I was going to talk about as the debate was ensuing this afternoon, and I was not quite sure. Then the member for Peace River—Westlock got up and spoke, and it became very clear to me what I was going to talk about. I find it very interesting and very rich that the Conservatives on the other side of this House always hearken back to the days of the good old Conservatives, who fought for climate. Indeed, if we talk about the Progressive Conservatives, individuals like Flora MacDonald, who came from my riding, from back in the 1970s and 1980s, were Progressive Conservatives who cared about very important issues.
The member specifically spoke about two issues, and I will reference them as well. First, on the protection of our ozone layer, he is absolutely right. I think it is lost on a lot of people, the incredible work, through the leadership of Brian Mulroney, back in the 1980s, when it came to the ozone depletion and our approach on how we were going to solve this globally. I will read something from CBC:
They predicted that continued use of CFCs would completely collapse the ozone layer by 2050. Without ozone protecting us from the sun's UV rays, skin cancer rates would skyrocket.
Faced with that dire outlook in 1987, 46 countries agreed, in Montreal, to dramatically limit the use and production of CFCs.
Mulroney signed the protocol. So did Reagan, often considered the ur-Republican. Even Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of British Toryism, got on board.
If members can believe it, led by Brian Mulroney, a Progressive Conservative, those countries literally saved the planet by protecting the ozone layer. The member is absolutely right when he hearkens back to the Progressive Conservatives and the role they played.
He also talked about acid rain. Let me read a quote, also from the CBC, about acid rain:
In 1990, Bush signed an update to the Clean Air Act that included regulations on emissions that were causing devastating acid rain in the U.S. and Canada. The Canadian government had spent a decade trying to get Washington to address the issue, but were met with resistance—until Bush.
This is the legacy of Brian Mulroney and the Progressive Conservatives. They fought for the environment. They did not care where the problem originated. They looked at it as a global problem and saw Canada's responsibility to lead the way, and on two occasions Brian Mulroney did exactly that.
Right after talking about the incredible work of Brian Mulroney, what did the member for Peace River—Westlock do? He asked why we would bother trying to get rid of plastic straws, because we are not using plastic straws; our plastic straws are not ending up in the oceans; it is other people's plastic straws. He asked why we had to use paper straws because other people are irresponsible. That is the Conservative Party of today. That is their approach. Their approach is not the Brian Mulroney approach or the Flora MacDonald approach of the 1980s. That is what we are faced with right now.
I would remind the member that Stephen Harper, the next “Conservative” prime minister to come from this place, did absolutely nothing.
I put it in quotes because we all know, and it is glaringly obvious, that ever since Stephen Harper came along the Conservative Party, the Progressive Conservative Party, that could elect somebody in Kingston and the Islands, Flora MacDonald, no longer exists. They can take the name and the colour, but what we have over there is the former Reform Party of Canada. That is what we have. We do not have the Brian Mulroney Conservative Party that cares about the environment. For the member for Peace River—Westlock to suggest that Conservatives have always been there to fight for climate, to fight for the environment, is incredibly rich because it draws no comparison to the party of today.
Then, when we think that we got to the furthest point possible with Stephen Harper, members across the aisle are even less progressive than Stephen Harper. If we will recall, it was Stephen Harper who said that pricing pollution makes sense. Why would that not make sense to a Conservative? We are literally talking about the economic model and how to incentivize market decisions through the economic model and the principles around an economy.
One would think that if anybody understood that in the House, it would be Conservatives, who purport themselves to be the saviours of the economy, the party that understands economic principles and how an economy works. Conservatives cannot even support a basic principle of understanding that, when we put a price on something, it will change and incentivize choice in the marketplace. Stephen Harper understood that. Stephen Harper is on the record having said it makes sense to put a price on pollution.
Where are we today? We get the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle who comes along as the next leader and goes completely against that. Then we get the member for Durham, who, to his credit, and I almost felt sorry for him at times, recognized that he was dealing with a party that did not support this because it is motivated from an angle of denying climate and wondered how he would work with it. He set up this Air Miles-type program of trading off options and then getting to pick a prize at the end, a bicycle or something. He tried at least to build it into an economic model of some sort.
Then, of course, we get to the current leader of the Conservative Party, an individual who, time after time, gets up and harps on and on about how pricing pollution is not the answer, despite the fact that economists throughout the world, and one would think that Conservatives would listen to economists, say that it is, and despite the fact that it is proving to be the most effective tool throughout the world. Here we are. This is the Conservative Party of Canada today.
It is not the Conservative Party of Brian Mulroney. It is not the Conservative Party that literally saved the ozone layer. It is not the Conservative Party that saved us from acid rain and that worked and pushed George Bush for a decade to do something about it. This is a different Conservative movement and it is nothing like the Conservative movement that elected Flora MacDonald in my riding of Kingston and the Islands.
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- Jun/14/22 3:53:00 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-5
Mr. Speaker, I really appreciated the beginning of the member's speech when she talked about the fact that she was here decades ago, although she must have first gotten elected when she was six years old, and was part of the parliamentary process when these mandatory minimums were brought in. However, she has since had time to reflect on that and come to a different conclusion.
That is what this place is all about. It is about continuing to evolve. I am wondering if the member could just expand on that slightly.
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- Mar/28/22 1:34:09 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Mr. Speaker, prior to the member speaking, something absolutely remarkable happened in the House. A Conservative member of Parliament stood up in the House and referred to the Prime Minister as a dictator and then went on to talk, in the next sentence, about other dictators in this world, like Vladimir Putin. Not only is that an incredible disservice to the people of Canada, but think of what it means to the people of Ukraine to somehow suggest that the Prime Minister of this country is a dictator and to compare him to Putin and the incredibly audacious things he is doing to the people of Ukraine.
I am wondering if the member can comment on whether she agrees that the Prime Minister of Canada is a dictator in a democratically elected Parliament. We had an election just six months ago. Does she agree with the rhetoric that came from the previous member?
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