- 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
- May/21/24 11:20:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for that very serious question. I think it is a fair question, and an angle that, quite frankly, the government should be pushed on because there is always more that we can do.
There is the northern housing plan, and I might have the name wrong, but perhaps that is not enough. Perhaps this member thinks that it needs to go further, and perhaps there is validity in that claim. However, it is important to reflect on the fact that we are building a lot of housing throughout the country.
I used to be a mayor of a city in Ontario, and I could not have ever thought of the federal government coming to a municipality and saying, “Let's make a deal” and completely leaving the province out of it. That was unheard of in my time in local government. However, we have a Minister of Housing who is literally going around the country to different communities and saying, “I don't even want to talk to the province. How do I make a deal with you directly?”
However, the member's question was more about indigenous communities, and I completely accept that. Perhaps we should be doing more, and I encourage her to continue to stand up to challenge the government to do more in that regard.
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- May/7/24 4:35:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister and our cabinet are willing to work directly with municipalities to do the important work they need to do. The Prime Minister is engaged in communicating with premiers, even those with whom he quite often does not see eye to eye politically.
On the other hand, we have the Leader of the Opposition, who is literally going out and insulting mayors of major cities in this country, hanging out with Diagolon and far-right extremists who support some radical views.
That is the reality of what we are dealing with here. We are set up to have a choice, just like the United States, between a far-right person like Donald Trump and Joe Biden. We are going to have the exact same thing here, and people can make their choice.
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- Apr/18/24 1:56:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, affordable housing has a huge spectrum. It can be anything from somebody's rent that is geared to their income right up to helping people get into home ownership. Affordable housing is everything between those two points. Of course, we cannot focus on just one side or the other side. We have to ensure we are helping the entire spectrum of affordable housing.
We have introduced a number of programs, like our national housing plan. We have introduced measures to assist younger individuals getting into home ownership. At the same time, we are building housing. I can name 12 projects in my riding alone, like on Cliff Crescent, Princess Street, Curtis Crescent and Wright Crescent. I will name the rest, if I have time. The point is that this federal government has been there to build housing.
I was mayor in Kingston and a city councillor during the time that Stephen Harper was the prime minister. Members do not have to take my word for it that the Conservatives built nothing; there was an Order Paper question that I tried to table today. It asked what the Leader of the Opposition did when he was housing minister. He was not building housing.
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- Apr/10/24 4:52:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the problem with the member's assertion is that he is assuming that all military personnel want to live on the base. I can tell him that, when I was mayor of Kingston, every summer I would get together with the mayor of Watertown, which is right next to Fort Drum in the United States. The one thing the mayor of Watertown always talked about was how jealous he was, because Fort Drum was its own base with people living on it outside of Watertown and not really connected to the city. He would come to CFB Kingston and see the way it integrated so well into the community.
When I was younger and in high school, all those in the military community lived around the base on the east side of Kingston. Now they live throughout the entire community. My kids quite often are coached on a team by a military spouse who has children on the same team. We get a certain level of integration when we encourage those in the military to live and participate in our community.
I am wondering if the member can comment on whether he sees the benefit in that or if he thinks all military members should exclusively live on the base.
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- Feb/1/24 10:33:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, last week the Leader of the Opposition referred to two Quebec mayors as being incompetent. I wonder whether he has had an opportunity to reflect on that and whether he still feels that way, or whether he would like to apologize for having called two mayors in Quebec incompetent.
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Mr. Speaker, the federal government and the Prime Minister has been trying to work with municipalities. We have had the Minister of Housing going across the entire country, talking to mayors and to councils to work out deals on how the federal government can support building housing throughout our country and yet we see the Leader of the Opposition trying to bully mayors, calling them incompetent and subjecting them to ridicule through his platforms at every opportunity he gets. Which approach does the member think is better and more constructive at getting houses built across the country in a way that will benefit Canadians?
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Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that the member just said that Ottawa is not in the business of telling municipalities what to do, when the leader of the Conservative Party just recently called two municipal leaders incompetent: the mayor of Montreal and one other. I wonder if the member has had the opportunity to talk to his leader about how inappropriate those comments were.
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- Dec/5/23 5:15:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member answered his own question.
I will say this: Before coming to the House, I was the mayor of Kingston, and I had the opportunity to come to Parliament, to the House of Commons, on a couple of occasions. I actually remember meeting the former speaker, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, and reflecting on how calm and non-partisan this particular individual was. Now, 10 years later, to be sitting here and for him to be one of the most partisan people in the House is truly eye-opening for me.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: He is absolutely right. Madam Speaker, I will be the first to say that I am nothing like Peter Milliken, who was from Kingston and the Islands. He was a non-partisan Speaker. He did his role very well. He was elected under a Conservative minority government to be—
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- Oct/30/23 5:41:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is because, at the city council and the mayoral levels, people could not care less who is in government in Ottawa. They are looking for a partner. They are looking for programs to work with the government on to make communities better.
Unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition has no interest in that. All he is interested in doing is picking fights in various municipalities by threatening people. That is not what we are going to do. We want to work with municipalities. As a former municipal leader, I know that is the better way to do it.
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- Jun/7/22 8:01:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to the intervention by the member today and I find it quite fascinating that previous Bloc MPs have risen and said that we are not moving fast enough with various things, in particular in relation to green infrastructure.
The Infrastructure Bank is funding so many of these projects. We just have to go online to see that, but the member is now complaining that municipalities and the provinces are asked to submit their plans and their applications for 10 months from now. I was a mayor of a city and a city councillor and I know very well that if a municipality has a project on the go or is interested, 10 months is more than long enough to get council approval to proceed with an application and put together the basic framework for an application to submit.
I am curious if the member can comment on one or two municipalities that he knows for which 10 months would not be long enough to put together a plan for that application.
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