- 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/5/24 4:51:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is so excited to hear my speech. I will try not to let him down.
Here we are again talking about a free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine. I think this is something that we never expected to be a contentious issue when we came back in the fall of 2023, at least for just about every member of each party, except for the Conservatives. However, here we are.
The Conservatives have drummed up this narrative. It took them a while to do it. If we go back and look at their record on speaking to this, they did not start talking about a carbon tax or pricing pollution until well into the debate. It was as though, at some point, they realized what their angle was going to be on it and then that became their trumpeting point.
I am here to tell them that nobody believes them. Nobody believes their false narrative; nobody, that is, outside of the base that they represent, the same people who went to see Tucker Carlson in Alberta. Nobody, outside of that hard-core base of all right-wing support that the Conservatives are trying to court, believes for a second that this is a real, genuine reason that they are against this.
I find it quite interesting how Conservative after Conservative, as we heard from the member for Regina—Wascana moments ago, get up to say the carbon tax that Ukraine has is only this percentage of this, and it was barely nothing compared to what Canada is trying to do or what we are trying to impose. There is nothing in this agreement that says anything about it. As a matter of fact, the agreement goes beyond saying nothing about it. Rather, it actually says that neither country can impose their environmental policies on the other.
What Conservatives have picked up on is a little reference to the fact that pricing pollution is something that will happen more in the future and that both countries are aware of this and will respond to it accordingly. That is it. It is in the preamble. The clause has no teeth. There is nothing. As a matter of fact, as I said, the agreement goes beyond that to actually say that neither country can impose its environmental policies or regulations. The Conservatives get up and talk about the Ukrainian people in Canada and their position on this as though they know better than President Zelenskyy and just about anybody else on this matter.
Let me read something to my Conservative colleagues, who are heckling me. This is from the League of Ukrainian Canadians, who wrote a letter to the Leader of the Opposition on December 21, 2023. It reads:
Not long ago, the [Conservative Party] was a global leader in support for Ukraine, as Operation Unifier was launched under...Harper...in 2015 in response to the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Donbas. Canadian Armed Forces trained over 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers, modernizing their military doctrine to NATO standards. In return, those Ukrainian soldiers did Canada proud by heroically repelling the Russian invasion forces from Kyiv in February 2022, when the world was predicting the capital would fall within days....
And yet, just weeks after voting against the renewal of the Canada-Ukraine Free Trade Agreement, the CPC voted to cut funding to Operation Unifier. Clearly, the 1.36 million members of the Ukrainian Canadian community see it for what it is: A vote against Ukraine's victory....
Many...constituents have spent nearly two years volunteering, advocating, working late nights packing medical supplies into containers, spending their rent money on drones and body armor to keep their friends alive. And some made the ultimate sacrifice by traveling to Ukraine to defend it against Russian aggression. They laid down their lives in the name of freedom for Ukraine and the West, including Canada. They understood that Ukraine must win the war against Russia, otherwise Europe, Canada and the United States will be next in defending themselves against Russian aggression, with soldiers from NATO countries, including Canada, shedding their blood.
If Russia is not defeated, it will be as much a threat to Canada in the future as it is to Ukraine today. We are not insisting you make Ukrainian independence your cause. We are just asking you to think through the war in Ukraine and the need to support Ukraine from the point of view of your own interests, as well as Canada's national interests.
Most Canadians understand that supporting Ukraine is in Canada's security interest, except apparently the Conservative Party of Canada.
That was a letter written to the Leader of the Opposition on December 21, 2023.
Conservatives will come in here and say that Ukraine needs what they say it needs. The only person I know who says that what Ukraine needs is what he says it needs is Vladimir Putin; Conservatives are acting just as he acts with respect to dictating.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is getting a good laugh out of this, but it was just two days ago that Tucker Carlson was in Alberta with his premier. Where is Tucker Carlson now? Reportedly, he is in Russia about to interview Vladimir Putin. One would think the member would at least understand that perhaps now is not the best time to be trumpeting these lines, yet he does.
I am going to end with this: I have spoken to this many times. It is time for us to finally vote on this.
I know Conservatives calculated how they would try to address this in the fall. It was very deliberate: How could they ensure that they would maintain the support of that alt-right movement against Ukraine?
Earlier today, I heard a Conservative talk about pining for the good old days of the Republicans and Conservatives, who came together to create these great free trade agreements. Comparing the Conservatives of today to the Brian Mulroney Conservatives is exactly like comparing Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump to Ronald Reagan. It cannot be done. They are two completely different parties. Their logo might be the same colour as the one Brian Mulroney had, and they might have the same talking points, but they are certainly nothing like the Conservatives who brought in free trade, despite pining for those days, as though only they could ever protect free trade. It is quite the opposite.
Conservatives are going down the exact same route as are the alt-right Republicans I previously mentioned. That is where they are going. That is the base they are trying to protect. I will remind them that nobody believes this narrative they have created around a price on pollution and not supporting Ukraine, even after the President of Ukraine himself stood five feet from where I am standing and asked us to support it. Nobody believes their false narrative on this, because they are wrong.
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- Dec/1/23 1:05:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Vladimir Putin has tried to tell Ukraine what it needs, and the world finds that to be incredibly offensive. When I sat in the trade committee earlier this week, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan tried to tell the rest of Canada what he believes Ukraine needs. My only point was to say that the people of Ukraine do not need either Vladimir Putin, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, or any Conservative member to tell them what they need.
They are very capable of telling us what they need, and they have told us that they need the Conservatives to start supporting them because Conservatives are not supporting them. I recognize the fact that this member and many other members feel really uncomfortable about this, and I encourage him to bring it up in his caucus meeting to start talking about why they are not supporting Ukraine and why they are coming up with these red herrings to try to make up reasons for not doing so.
My point is to tell members that I believe the reason Conservatives are doing this is that there are elements within their caucus that support these alt-right narratives that encourage the world to turn against Ukraine. Members do not need to take it just from me. They can take it from the Leader of the Opposition's very own supporters.
I published a poll on Twitter not that long ago in which I asked, “Do you support [the Leader of the Opposition] importing MAGA politics into Canada?” Ninety-one per cent of the respondents, of over 20,000 respondents, said yes. People do not have to—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Nov/2/23 3:48:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am curious. The member is from Saskatchewan, so when his constituents call him to ask about home heating oil and why Atlantic Canada will have the price on pollution removed from it, and solely Atlantic Canada because that is the way Conservatives are portraying it, I am wondering if he corrects them and says, no, it is for all people in Canada who use oil to heat their homes. As a matter of fact, he said the majority were in Atlantic Canada. That is not true. There are twice as many people in the province of Ontario heating with oil who will benefit from this than there are in Atlantic Canada.
The question is very simple: Does he try to correct the policy and tell people the reality of it, or does he perpetuate the falsehoods that Conservatives are trying to distribute among the population?
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- Jun/22/23 12:27:35 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let me say once again that the government fully recognizes the importance of Depot to the RCMP as Canada's national police service, the province of Saskatchewan and the local community.
The evolution of the RCMP Depot training program in Regina reflects the impressive history of the RCMP's policing in Canada. From its early days as a training camp to its current status as a world-class training centre, the government has always been committed to providing RCMP members with the skills and knowledge they need to serve and protect Canadian communities with professionalism and integrity.
The RCMP will continue to modernize its police training services, as it has done for the past 150 years. This government is committed and will continue to ensure our national police force remains relevant and is consistently evolving in order to meet the current and future demands in the Canadian public.
Let me assure members that thanks to the continuous evolution of this strengthened RCMP police training regime, officers will be suitably trained throughout this process.
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- Jun/13/23 8:39:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the first point, this certainly is not about me trying to get control or seize power. We are using this system right now, and this system will be here for the foreseeable future. The member says that I am conflating electronic voting with the use of Zoom. I am talking about the two of them. I have made it very clear which I am talking about. If the Bloc's position is it supports the app but does not support Zoom, I have yet to hear that in this House. I have yet to hear the Bloc suggest anything otherwise, and it could be that I did not hear that part of the debate so far, but that is the reality.
When it comes to the interpretation services, I agree, and this goes back to my answer to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, that we should not spare any expense in ensuring that the right resources are in place to provide the right supports, not just to our interpreters, but to all the support staff we have here.
If that means investing more in their well-being and providing more resources, then we should do that. I do not think it should be an impediment to the democratic process we have set up in this place, so that we can bring more people from diverse backgrounds, and in particular more women, into this chamber.
An hon. member: You don't care about them.
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- Jun/12/23 6:13:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I guess my biggest concern is what other tactics the Conservative have lined up. We know from last week that they said they would do whatever they could to prevent the budget from going through. Typically speaking, and I really hope this is not the case with such a sensitive and important issue like this, when the opposition puts forward a concurrence motion, it is done under the guise of trying to delay the House and the work that the House has to do.
I really hope that is not the case, and I take it at face value that it is not the reason the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan brought it forward. However, knowing that we all agree with it, I also really hope that we can vote on it quickly and then get back to the regular business of the House.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan may want to revisit the rules. Members are allowed to refer to the absence or presence of themselves.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh.
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- May/8/23 11:31:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while the parliamentary secretary is addressing you and talking directly to you about the point of order, we are getting Conservatives members yelling at us to sit down.
I think you would agree that it is extremely unparliamentary for the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan to do that, and to say that, while somebody is addressing you.
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Madam Speaker, going back to the preceding question asked by the member for Kitchener Centre, I do not disagree with the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. He is right that it is the government that sets the days and the agenda. However, a lot of this place operates in good faith. We have to operate under the assumption that we want to move forward to eventually get to a place of voting on a particular bill. The problem, which the member knows better than probably most Conservatives, is that the Conservatives use various tactics to slow the day down. They will move a motion of concurrence that burns away three hours and then will put some points of order in there, again to burn more time to try to burn away a day.
It is very clear and obvious to Canadians as a whole that the Conservatives use multiple tactics to slow down anything getting through this House because they want to see this government fail. That is their objective and motive behind this, and the member knows it.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to the amendment that has been put forward by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
I disagree with the comment that the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford made earlier about the Conservatives introducing an amendment to kill the bill, although I appreciate him giving that credit to them. What they are really doing is introducing an amendment so they can start to put up speakers again and reset the speaker roster on this to run out the clock.
Despite the fact that Conservatives are against this, that does not mean they are ready to vote for it. Why would they ever do that when they can use this as an opportunity to endlessly burn away the hours, which we regard as being so precious in this place to debate important legislation? What is more important to the Conservatives than going against dental care? What is more important to the Conservatives than doing anything for Canadians? What is absolutely paramount to them is to ensure that the legislative process in this place cannot function. That is why we are here today, in my opinion, to talk about this amendment, which basically would do nothing other than effectively vote against the bill itself.
Nonetheless, this is a very important bill. I want to congratulate my colleagues in the NDP for being so passionate about this and for bringing it forward. I certainly would agree with them that they have done a good job of playing their role in the House of Commons. They have identified the fact that they do hold the balance of power. Rather than using that in an obstructionist fashion, like the members from across the way, they have used it as a way to determine how we can do good things for Canadians that line up with their values and priorities. That is why I have no problem in allowing them to take some credit for what is being proposed today. Would I go as far as to say that the NDP forced the government into doing this? I think that is a bit of a stretch, but I respect the fact that its members are using the terminology they believe best fits the narrative of the day.
What this really comes down to is the fact that currently 55% of Canadians have their dental care coverage through some form of private insurance policy; 6% are insured through some form of public insurance policy, perhaps for the most vulnerable in our communities; and the balance, 39%, are literally paying out of their pockets for dental care. Among that 39%, there is a portion of those people who have family incomes of $90,000 or less. They are the ones really being targeted in this.
We recognize the fact that we need take care of the most vulnerable in our communities. That is an underlying principle of just about all of the legislation that has come forward from this side of the House. We understand that when we build up individuals who are struggling, when we give opportunities and when we provide incentives to participate in the economic activity and the social well-being of our country, it is for the benefit of not just those individuals but, indeed, for all Canadians. That is why I personally think that this is such important legislation.
I would note, though, that it is not just about helping to pay for the cost of dental care when people need to see the dentist. We have to recognize that all provinces and territories will cover emergency dental services. If someone goes into a hospital and it is directly related to that person's health and that service is needed right away, that will be covered by the province and/or territory.
This is important because its is about investing in the future. Rather than waiting until it jeopardizes somebody's health, we should be helping to pay for preventative measures. That is what a dental care program would do.
The reality of the situation is that a lot of folks who this would apply to, people in families that earn less than $90,000 a year, are going to make tough decisions when it comes to what to spend their money on. If they have to make the decision between getting a regular checkup at the dentist or getting a cavity filled that perhaps is not really bothering them, they might just push it aside and instead spend that money on something they need more.
The result of not having that preventive work done up front is that they end up in a situation where they are in much more dire need and the costs become a lot more expensive. In some cases, they end up in emergency rooms where the provinces and territories will take care of them in any event. My point is that there is an opportunity here to help people with the preventive assistance to ensure they do not have those problems later on.
In the bigger picture of affordability, I find it very interesting that Conservatives who come in here on a daily basis and talk about Canadians who are struggling do not seem to be interested in any of the programs that we have put forward to assist those Canadians, with the exception of the increased GST rebate. They have said that they will support that, but they have not given any indication whatsoever about when they will allow a vote on the bill to take place. With the exception of that particular legislation, the Conservatives do not seem to be interested in affordability as it relates to genuinely assisting people. They just seem to want to come in here and give grandiose speeches about why this government has made life so difficult for people, without presenting any concrete ideas or building on any concrete policies that have been brought forward by this side of the House.
I find it very rich and very ironic that the Conservative seem to be willing to turn their backs on those who need it the most, yet in question period, which is in less than an hour from now, I am sure we will hear them repeatedly asking about why we are not helping or not doing more those individuals. That is the irony and the reality of what takes place on this.
I am very happy to see this legislation come forward. I am very glad to see that the governing party is able to work with the NDP to advance initiatives that are in both of our interests and, indeed, in this case, something for which the NDP has been fighting for many years. I am glad to see we are at the place where we can work together, because it is always nice to tell Canadians that we have worked with other parties in a minority government to get things done.
The fact is that if we look back historically, a lot of the big decisions in our country were made during minority governments, such as health care and the CPP. Even the creation of our flag was done during a minority government. I am very happy we are able to do this with the NDP.
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Madam Speaker, I guess it is in true form that Conservatives and the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan would somehow blame the government for the motion that we are debating today.
Nonetheless, during his speech, I heard him speak at length about the freedoms of democracy, and he mentioned that democracy is in decline in Canada. I would refer him to an organization called Freedom House. Freedom House has been around for 80 years now. It was developed toward the latter half of World War II.
It is an organization that enjoys bipartisan support in the United States and it rates freedoms throughout the world, specifically political and civil freedoms. Of the 210 countries that it rates, Canada comes in fifth. Canada gets a score of 40 out of 40 for political rights and 58 out of 60 for civil liberties.
How is it possible that the member is able to suggest that the freedoms in Canada and the democracy that relies on those freedoms is somehow in jeopardy, given that this organization—
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Mr. Speaker, I should be here more often on Fridays, because I cannot believe I agree with absolutely everything the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has put forward. This is indeed a bill that has come before the House on a number of occasions. It has been passed unanimously by the House before. I, too, look forward to its swift passage through here and making this bill become law.
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- May/10/22 1:50:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vaughan—Woodbridge. I know the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan is disappointed to hear that I will be speaking for only 10 minutes.
I must say that I was quite perplexed when I saw yesterday the notice go out with the opposition day motion that was scheduled for today. I am in no way trying to suggest that the content is not an important discussion to have: the Bloc members feel very passionately about this particular subject. I just cannot understand how it takes precedence to some of the things that are going on in the world right now, and indeed in our country and in Quebec.
I listen to the Bloc members ask their questions routinely during question period with great passion and bring up very important issues. I have never heard the Bloc ask a question during question period about the prayer, which is 30 seconds long and happens at the beginning of each day in the House.
The prayer, which I might add is very generic in nature, certainly does not support one religion or another. It is about 30 seconds long, and is followed by a moment of silence and personal reflection. If the Bloc had said that the motion was to remove O Canada, I think I would understand where their passion was coming from a little more. Indeed, the fact that the members have chosen to be extremely critical of a 30-second-long prayer without addressing the fact that we sing the National Anthem, of which they do not want to be part, and which they actively stay outside of the chamber for during the time we are singing it every Wednesday, would be more germane, at least from my perspective, in terms of the priorities of the Bloc.
Nonetheless, there are very important issues going on right now. Inflation, housing and the war in Ukraine are issues that should be dealt with. Opposition parties have very limited opportunities to come before the House and present motions for the House to consider. As a matter of fact, the Bloc Québécois only has two opportunities between January and June in this session, yet members have chosen to use one of those opportunities on this motion and I just cannot understand it. Again, I can appreciate the Bloc's interest in this issue. I just do not understand how it supersedes everything else that is going on right now.
Perhaps what is even more confusing for me is that when I have asked the Bloc about this, and a number of us, including Conservatives, have asked over the past couple of hours why this is so important and why it is more important than everything else going on in the world right now, the reaction from the Bloc is to become extremely defensive and upset with us and say, “It is our right. We can bring whatever we want forward.” Of course, the Bloc members can bring whatever they want forward. It is their prerogative to bring forward a motion that they see fit, but they are not answering the question. They refuse to answer the question. The question is why. What is so important about this particular issue that takes precedence and trumps all those other issues that we are dealing with in the House right now?
The member for Winnipeg North said it, and I could not agree with him more. In the almost seven years that I have been around here, I have never once had this topic brought up with me. Not a single constituent has ever called me and said, “I want to talk to you, MP Gerretsen, about the prayer that is being said every morning when the House starts at the beginning of the day.” Not a single constituent has brought that forward to me. However, there are a lot of areas that we know that the Bloc and indeed the Conservatives go off from time to time on what is going on—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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- Apr/5/22 3:24:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his enthusiasm about listening to me for the next 10 minutes. I want to thank the member for Davenport for sharing that time with me today and for the opportunity to provide some input into this opposition day motion.
I am very pleased to see that the Conservative Party is eager to spend 2% of our gross domestic product on our military. It certainly is not in keeping with what it was doing during the last Conservative government, but perhaps its members have turned a new leaf and have decided this is in fact the way we should be moving forward.
First I would like to address where the 2% of GDP comes from and perhaps some of the challenges that are associated with it. In 2014, at the Wales summit, NATO leaders came together and made a decision collectively. It was a formal pledge to spend 2% of their nations' GDP on military expenditures specifically. This was done in order to ensure there would be fairness throughout countries in their participation and what they were putting toward NATO and the protection it offers NATO countries. It was therefore decided this would be a fair and equitable way of moving forward.
One of the problems with that 2% figure is that different countries, at least in the beginning, were calculating their 2% differently. For example, some countries were including pensions being paid to veterans, whereas others were not. Also, in the way the program is set up, or the way it is supposed to be measured, is that any armed service a country has would be included. One of the problems Canada would face in that scenario is that our Coast Guard is considered a civilian service, whereas in the U.S., the coast guard is considered an armed service. As a result, the U.S. would include in its 2% calculation its coast guard, whereas Canada would not necessarily do that.
After my time on the Standing Committee on National Defence and after we had an opportunity to study this 2% issue and the NATO contributions of Canada specifically, I was pleased to see in 2018 that at least NATO did update some of the ways it recommended to countries to calculate that 2%. Particularly, it did indicate that pensions, for example, would be included. It is important to establish a baseline and to be consistent across different countries.
Canada was of course one of the founding partners of NATO, as we have heard in the House throughout the day. Canada has been in every NATO mission as a partner with our allied countries, because we see the value in making sure that NATO has the proper resources to keep its member countries safe.
As I indicated earlier, I am very pleased to see the Conservatives supporting this. However, the problem is that—
Mr. James Bezan: Well, you're supporting us now.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman just heckled me and said that we are supporting them. I am happy to tell the member that I support his motion today, so if the member is looking for me to say that, I thought he could read between the lines in what I said so far. He heckled me a few moments ago and said that we are supporting them.
That member was part of the former government. I believe he was the parliamentary secretary to defence in the former Harper government, when we saw a decrease year after year in the percentage of GDP spent on the military.
I know I cannot use a prop in the House, but I am looking at my notes right now and I have an actual graph of the percentage of GDP—
Mr. Garnett Genuis: Table it.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan wants me to table it. Now he is saying he does not. I was willing to do that.
This graph is very interesting to look at, because if we go back over the last 10 years, we see a continual decrease in the percentage of GDP until it bottoms out in 2013 at less than 1%. That was the climax, so to speak, of Stephen Harper's contribution to ensuring he was properly living up to the commitment we made in the Wales summit.
After bottoming out at less than 1% of GDP, what did the graph do? It did the exact opposite. Since this Liberal government came into power in 2015, every year the amount has gone up, and the trend line is pushing up and toward that 2%.
I am a big supporter of making sure we hit that 2% mark. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman earlier on heckled and was surprised that I would support that. I have no idea why he was surprised by that. He and I sat on the defence committee together for four years, and we unanimously approved a report from the defence committee calling on the government to spend 2%. I think it should have been very clear to the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman exactly where I stood on it. I hope I was memorable enough for him to remember me being on the committee with him when we both spoke in favour of that. We travelled together to Ukraine and Latvia to study the work that NATO was doing abroad, in terms of Operations Reassurance and Unifier.
He would know that I very much support this, and that is why I plan to vote in favour of this motion. However, for the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman to try to project himself from the position of being a strong advocate for spending 2% of GDP on our military, he certainly did not do that when he was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Defence during his time in government, albeit quite a while ago. If there is any indication from what is happening within the Conservative Party right now, it will probably be quite a while until that happens again.
Nonetheless, I think this motion and what it is calling for are the right things to do. I think that it is important that we spend. I even remember going a step further, when I was on the committee, and suggesting that Canada should actually be part of the ballistic missile defence program in North America within NORAD. The member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman and I both visited the NORAD facility in Cheyenne Mountain, and we both saw the awkward situation in which Americans and Canadians worked incredibly well together in 95% of the room, but then there was 5% of the room where the Canadians basically were not allowed to go, and that was the part of the room that specifically looked over ballistic missile defence.
I am on the record as having said that, in my opinion, this is something we should be doing. I can understand that prime ministers of the past have not been interested in that and have shied away from doing that, and I respect that. It is not my position, but nonetheless I can appreciate the fact that positions have been taken over the years.
I see that my time is running out, but I want to say that I plan to support this motion and I will vote in favour of it, because I think it is the right thing to do. More importantly, if we just look at the trajectory since this government came into power, we will see that we are on our way to getting us to a point where we are spending 2% of our GDP on national defence.
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- Apr/4/22 6:00:02 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, what did we just witness there? We just witnessed a filibuster within a filibuster. They were already filibustering by bringing in this concurrence motion, and then the member stood on a point of order to try to filibuster the filibuster. It is absolutely remarkable what we are seeing, but I will have that member know that I take this as a compliment. I take this as the people in the back room over there saying, “Oh God, there goes Gerretsen again. Somebody get in there and go shut him up. Hey, get in there and read this,” and they handed him something to read so he could filibuster the filibuster. That is what we just witnessed there, but it is perfectly in line with what we see coming from the Conservative Party, day after day, to avoid having to deal with Bill C-8. That is where we are right now, and that is what we are seeing right now.
As I was saying to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, before he interrupted me with the filibuster to the filibuster, he should really take a trip to somewhere like Home Depot and walk around inside for a second and see if he can buy a gas lawnmower. It is not easy to find them anymore. The electrification of everything is literally happening before our eyes. Everything is being converted to battery-operated. It is very difficult nowadays to find products, particularly power tools, that are not battery-operated, especially industrial or larger power tools such as lawnmowers, for example.
The same can be said about the vehicles throughout the country. They are moving in a direction. Whether or not Conservatives want to get on board, it is happening. It is happening right before their eyes and it is not something they can control. It has gone past the tipping point. We have gone past the point of no return, so we are either going to get on board with it or we are going to be caught behind.
Will we need oil? We are going to need oil for a long time. There is no doubt about that, and the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan can clap to that, too. We will, but that does not mean that we cannot at the same time look for a way to transition away from oil, and that is what the recommendations in this report that I referenced are doing specifically, by calling on the government to look for those opportunities.
I brought one up that speaks to ensuring that there are charging stations for electric vehicle readiness as part of the efficiency program to help Canadians who live in older houses. This is one of the problems that we have. A lot of older houses will have to be retrofitted to put in the proper infrastructure.
The one I really liked was recommendation 191. This specifically looked at establishing a greater focus on charging infrastructure investment needs by setting up and funding higher one- and five-year targets for electric vehicle charging stations. This is basically calling on the government to move faster than the already prescribed date of 2035 of being all net-zero emitting vehicles. It asks to set a goal to make one million existing apartment and condominium parking stalls electric-ready by 2030, which is incredibly important.
The apartment that I stay in here in Ottawa was only built in 2015, but for some reason the infrastructure was not already put in place for electric vehicles. That is going to have to be retrofitted. To that point, one of the recommendations that I really liked, recommendation 193, was to incorporate zero-emission vehicle requirements into the national building code and energy building code. Why is that so important? It is because most provinces look to the national building code. If we look at the Ontario building code, it is almost a carbon copy of the national building code. It is the same with Quebec's building code. We need national standards because those will then inform the other provincial standards that are out there.
Indeed, there are provinces that just look to the national building code. By encouraging this kind of stuff, which does not cost the government any money, and by putting these into the building code and encouraging that kind of infrastructure to be built now, we are going to be preparing ourselves for the future. That is one of the other recommendations that I really liked seeing in there.
I just want to say how disappointed I am that we got to the point today that we had to have this discussion. It is going to be unanimously approved by the House.
I imagine that will happen when the deferred recorded division takes place, but I find it very troubling that we even had to have this discussion, just as an opportunity for the Conservatives to once again stall the debate and filibuster what was going on so that we cannot deal with Bill C-8. For some reason, they are hung up on the fall economic statement and not letting it pass. At every step of the way, they are literally dragging their feet. They are the only ones still speaking to it. Every other party has given up on it, and 90% of the members from the Conservative Party who stand to talk about it do not even talk about Bill C-8. They talk about every grievance that they might happen to have at that time.
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- Mar/21/22 5:38:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, as you indicated, it was quite clear to members in this room that the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan was calling another member a liar. Perhaps he would like to rise and apologize to the member for that comment.
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Mr. Speaker, I am going to be addressing the comments that have been made during this debate, but unlike the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, who justified his comments by the fact that—
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Mr. Speaker, I am glad to rise today to provide some comments on the motion before us, which puts a set of steps into motion that have to do with how to deal with this particular bill.
As I was preparing to do this and I was listening to the debate in the House for the last several hours, I could not help but wonder where it is that the Conservative concern comes from about passing this legislation so quickly. Almost every speaker who has got up to speak to this has spoken about a whole host of issues other than this particular motion, time after time. The member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan did not speak to the bill at all. He did not even address it, but then in his comments afterwards he said—
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