- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Board of Internal Economy
Deputy House leader of the government
- Liberal
- Kingston and the Islands
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 68%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $112,228.33
- Government Page
- Feb/29/24 4:46:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I just want to circle back on my intervention with the member for Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound. I still do not think that he quite gets it, because, in truth, he said even if he could, he would not apply for it. The point is that people do not apply for it. When they fill out their income tax, one of the spouses or one of the parents is going to declare the dependence of children. Then, based on the income, a certain amount will be given based on that means-testing.
It is not a program that a person can opt in to or opt out of. It is a program that is about making sure that those who need it get it, and those who do not need it do not get it. What we were trying to say in our exchanges earlier from this side was that this was—
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- Oct/30/23 3:21:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on the same point of order. While the preceding intervention had absolutely nothing to do with the point of order, mine will.
I would also draw to your attention. Mr. Speaker, that during question period there was also a question that was asked of the member for Yukon who is not a member of cabinet. I support the intervention by my NDP colleague that questions are supposed to be of the government regarding government business. We are starting to see a trend away from that. I really hope you can intervene. I seek clarification on this.
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Madam Speaker, perhaps my intervention will be more of a comment than a question, but I am happy to hear the member's thoughts on it.
Let us be absolutely clear on what happened with this one particular individual. There was a case worker in Veterans Affairs who should never have been giving any kind of advice regarding MAID. They were certainly not qualified to do that, and that individual no longer works for Veterans Affairs. That is the reality of the situation. Pertaining to medical advice, that should only ever come from an individual's physician and the medical experts who are qualified to do that.
Let us be clear that this was an isolated incident. The individual no longer works for Veterans Affairs. It is very clear what has happened with this individual and the fact is that they are no longer employed by Veterans Affairs.
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- Dec/7/22 8:53:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I note that the theme of the parliamentary secretary's intervention today really departed from the themes of some of the other speeches we have been hearing and really focused on hope, celebrating and trying to showcase some of the incredible successes. I am curious if he can explain why he chose to do that.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for her intervention today, and I appreciate her encouraging all people to read those 94 calls to action.
I wonder if the member could provide a comment on how many of those 94 recommendations the government has acted on, how many are actually the responsibility of the federal government, how many are ongoing and how many are outstanding.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the intervention from my colleague from King—Vaughan, in particular her talking about her own personal examples at the beginning and toward the end of her speech. However, I was quite surprised by the manner in which she aggressively attacked the rolling out of CERB.
CERB was a program that was intended to get money into the hands of people as quickly as possible. Over five million people had money in their bank accounts within five weeks of the World Health Organization's declaring a global pandemic. Indeed, the intent was to take care of Canadians as quickly as possible. Canadians were relying on their government at the time to do exactly that.
Would the member have preferred to see the CERB program roll out much slower back in March and April 2020? Does she think that it would have been better for the money not to arrive at the beginning of April but rather perhaps in June and July if it meant that we could meet the standards that she is proposing?
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- Jun/16/22 7:59:30 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I really appreciated the member's intervention today, but I took a bit of an exception to one of the last comments the member made. She said that Canada does not punch above its weight and that is why it did not get a UN Security Council seat. I would encourage her to visit our troops participating in Operation Unifier and Operation Reassurance in eastern Europe and talk to the other countries on the ground there about whether Canada punches above its weight. I am sure she would hear a much different story than she indicated in the House.
I find that sometimes when I talk about global assistance and Canada playing its part in other parts of the world in helping to take care of people, inevitably a certain number of people come back and ask why we are not taking care of people at home first. They ask, “Should we not be taking care of everybody at home first before we start spending money in other parts of the world?”
I certainly disagree with the concept that we should not be participating in and contributing globally to these various programs, for the reason the member has been talking about: If we do not pay for them now, we will end up paying so much more later.
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- May/30/22 7:10:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his intervention today, and particularly for focusing on some of the recommendations that he thought were important.
There were some other recommendations that never made it into the report. They were part of a dissenting report that I think would have been equally, if not more, beneficial for policy creation. That was specifically with respect to the committee conducting, at its earliest opportunity, a full statutory review of the Conflict of Interest Act as well as the Lobbying Act.
Could the member comment on whether he thinks that looking at those particular acts would be more beneficial in ensuring that issues raised in committee and raised in the public were properly, and more efficiently and effectively, dealt with?
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- Apr/5/22 10:44:06 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his intervention today. I know that when he and I were on the defence committee together a number of years ago, I believe it was in 2016 or 2017, the defence committee had brought forward a report that had a recommendation in it. It was the opinion of the committee at the time to increase defence spending to 2% of GDP, notwithstanding the fact that there can be a lot of complications with respect to that 2%, because not every country calculates it the same way.
Can the member comment on what, if any, work the committee has done since my time with him on that committee in terms of making any further recommendations around this issue?
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- Feb/15/22 4:54:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I take exception to the fact that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would suggest that I do not appreciate, value or see the benefit of various members' input in this House. As a matter of fact, if he listened to my speech, I actually gave credit to the Conservatives for helping to make the wage subsidy program better. I am totally and absolutely willing to do that when I see it coming from across the way. They made that particular program better as a result of their interventions.
My issue was with respect to the fact that the member for Abbotsford was somehow very critical of this particular program, but at the same time, he knows full well that he helped pass that through unanimous consent and had input into those programs at the time.
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