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Crucial Fact

  • Her favourite word was terms.

Last in Parliament September 2021, as Conservative MP for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo (B.C.)

Won her last election, in 2019, with 45% of the vote.

Statements in the House

Export and Import Permits Act May 31st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I have had the benefit of growing up in an urban area, understanding the urban perspective, and then spending many years of my life living in a more rural community.

I often talk about my neighbour shooting a cougar that was stalking the children. It was a tool of living in a rural community. If people do not have the opportunities to live and experience both the urban and the rural lifestyles, or, even worse, if they are not willing to engage in debate about this issue, they do not understand what is happening.

Export and Import Permits Act May 31st, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here tonight to speak to Bill C-47. I want to note right up front that I am a bit disappointed that the government seems to have disengaged from the debate.

This is my first opportunity to consider this issue, and I am happy to stay here until midnight tonight. I was looking forward to the opportunity to ask questions and to hear the answers. It is important for Canadians as we debate this important issue.

The Liberals have a majority government and they will get the bill through, but to disengage, to not even participate in the debate is a bit disappointing.

Before I get into the specifics of Bill C-47, I want to draw attention to the connection among Bill C-71, Bill C-75, and Bill C-47. It speaks to the Liberals ideological perspective on things that are not driven in practicality.

Bill C-71 is the Liberal government's back door firearms registry. In spite of what the Liberals say, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, it is a duck. They claim the bill will protect cities from guns and gangs. People who have only lived in big cities like Toronto, Montreal, or Ottawa, might not understand that a law-abiding hunter or farmer who lives in a rural area considers a firearm a tool. It is a tool for ranchers and hunters. It is a tool for indigenous people.

Bill C-47 would impact law-abiding hunters and farmers, as would Bill C-71, but not in a practical way, not in a way that would make a difference. It would not make a difference in guns and gangs in cities, especially Bill C-71. However, it would create an added level of bureaucracy for many of our rural communities and our hunters and farmers.

Bill C-75 is about Liberal ideology, not practicality. Some people commit pretty serious and significant crimes. Bill C-75 proposes to reduce sentences. Do the Liberals want to reduce sentences for terrorist activities, or for crimes such as administering a noxious substance or date rape? If something ever happened to my daughter, I would be absolutely appalled if the sentence was reduced.

There was a very disturbing court case in Kamloops involving the death of a young girl. The Twitter world was filled with people, saying justice was not done with respect to the the sentence given to the person who murdered this child. Everyone had a sense that justice had not been done, yet Bill C-75 would further reduce criminal sentences for what would truly be horrific crimes.

I will get into the specifics of Bill C-47. This legislation was introduced in April, 2017. Let us talk about time management. It was introduced in April, 2017 and we are now going into June, 2018, with late night sittings so the Liberals can get what they believe to be important legislation through the House? That significantly indicates bad management of House time.

Bill C-47 would control the transfer of eight different categories of military equipment. The one we find to be the most troubling is category 8, small arms and light weapons. I understand an amendment was introduced at committee that would add “The Brokering Control List may not include small arms that are rifles, carbines, revolvers or pistols intended for hunting or sport, for recreational use, or for a cultural or historical purpose.”

It was quite a reasonable amendment, but it was voted down. I wanted to ask the government tonight why it voted it down because it would have given many of us greater comfort in how we looked at the bill.

The government tends to look at anything the UN does without criticism. If the UN says we should do this, the Liberals tend to say, absolutely, how fast, and how quickly. They do not spend as much time as they might reflecting on what we do in Canada.

I would beg to differ from my colleague from the NDP. We do have a responsive system. We have a Trades Control Bureau. To a greater degree, this system has worked pretty well. Would it be better to have something that everyone uses? Absolutely, if everyone used it. We only need to look at the list of the countries that have not or will not signed onto this agreement. We have to recognize that this agreement will not accomplish what it is intended to accomplish.

I encourage anyone who might have an interest in this issue to go online and look at the list of countries that have signed on to the treaty and implemented it. However, look to the larger category of countries that have said no. People will quickly recognize that we are not creating a solution in Canada. We are going to be creating increased challenges.

Another area that the Liberals should be reflecting on is this. The Department of National Defence has always been excluded from our internal systems. Under this treaty, it will be included. Is that going to affect the nimbleness of our military, its ability to respond in a rapid response? Perhaps the the Liberals have not done as much due diligence in that area. We need to ensure our military can react rapidly to trouble spots around the world and send assistance. We often thought that sending assistance was the correct response. This does nothing for law-abiding citizens.

Yesterday in the House, the Liberals voted for the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Over a year ago, at the UN, they committed to its implementation. With respect to Bill C-71, today at committee one of the first nations leadership said “We had no consultations”. This is another example where the Liberals are telling them what they are going to do. I would suggest that the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne would say that with the borders between the U.S. and Canada, the bill would impact the people, that the council did not even know about it. The fact is that over a year and a half ago, the Liberals committed to consultations under article 19, but they have not followed through in any meaningful way to that commitment.

I am disappointed that we have not had engagement, but, quite frankly, the treaty goals in the bill will not be met. Meanwhile we will create some new regulatory burdens for our Department of National Defence and people in the fishing and hunting community who will keep having to do more and more under a Liberal government. I am sure they must be terribly frustrated. This is one more example of its lack of understanding on that issue.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act May 29th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to rise today to speak to Bill C-262 at third reading. Again, I want to acknowledge the tremendous effort of the member for Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou in bringing forward the bill and the important discussion it has generated around the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

During second reading debate, we presented a number of very specific and practical concerns. Unfortunately, in spite of further analysis at committee and detailed testimony, I continue to have reservations about the implications of enacting Bill C-262. It needs to be said first and foremost that our not supporting the bill does not mean we do not recognize the UN declaration as an incredibly important document for Canada. We recognize that it is going to require an effort from whoever is in government to live up to the standards it has set for all of us. However, we do also need to ensure that our support or non-support for any individual piece of legislation is based on a reasonable examination of the potential implications of the bill

Lawyers from Cassels Brock noted:

UNDRIP is a blunt instrument, developed in an international setting, that is not reflective of Canada’s world-leading legal protections for Indigenous rights; Canada is the only nation with an established system for limiting unilateral state action against Indigenous peoples. By simply adopting UNDRIP in its entirety into the Canadian context, Bill C-262 misconstrues Canada’s existing and sophisticated Indigenous rights regime and, by adding new uncertainties, risks hindering the pursuit of reconciliation.

They went on to say:

While UNDRIP reflects critical elements of Indigenous rights through a lens of human rights, it was designed as a global benchmark and guide, rather than a specific legal instrument to be directly implemented as law. The fact that UNDRIP is a declaration and not a convention makes this clear. Conventions are binding agreements intended to be a reflection of international law and to be incorporated into national laws. Declarations, in contrast, are statements of generally agreed-upon standards which are not themselves legally binding.

Their concerns are not inconsistent with the comments by the justice minister in 2016, when she said:

Simplistic approaches such as adopting the United Nations declaration as being Canadian law are unworkable and, respectfully, a political distraction to undertaking the hard work actually required to implement it back home in communities.

Clearly, she has changed her mind, but has given no explanation how something that was previously unworkable and a distraction is suddenly workable. To be frank, when the Justice officials came before us at committee, they really did not offer any further clarity as to how those comments align with the current government position.

The following areas are some of the concerns that are unresolved and, unfortunately, time is only going to allow me to highlight a few.

As noted by one witness, there seem to be three main interpretations of what free, prior, and informed consent means. To be frank, this was consistent with other testimony at committee, because when we asked people what it means, we were given a number of different definitions. One of the ways they described it was that it is not enough to seek free, prior, and informed consent, but enough that you try without actually obtaining it. I might suggest that the Kinder Morgan is a good example of where the government tried to get free, prior, and informed consent, but did not obtain it and moved ahead anyway.

A second interpretation states that it is “really about the type of process required and that it's possible to move away from talking about consent as long as one has the right type of consensus-oriented process.” I guess that is the free, prior, and informed, but no consent, model.

Finally there are many, especially among the first nation communities, who feel it is grounding rights in something analogous to vetoes, or the right to say yes and the right to say no. That has been heard time and time again by many communities. Certainly, Pam Palmater expressed very clearly in what alternate universe does consent not mean the right to say yes, the right to say no, or potentially veto.

I would suggest that prior to moving forward with a piece of legislation like this, the government needs to make sure that it has an agreed upon interpretation of FPIC with indigenous people so that we do not have the confusion that is out there right now. Again, I can use the Kinder Morgan example, where there are many communities saying that they have not given free, prior, and informed consent, and that the government is going forward anyway and not being consistent with the declaration. Not having that understanding will lead to certain problems down the road.

It was indicated by the proponent of the bill that FPIC, and again we are looking at a multi-jurisdictional project going over much traditional territory, means free, prior, and informed consent from every community that would be impacted. That is absolutely going to be a challenge down the road.

Article 19 of UNDRIP speaks of the need for FPIC for all laws of general application. In a country such as Canada, how would it be feasible to consult and try to obtain consent from Métis, Inuit, and all first nations for essentially every bill tabled in Parliament? Clearly, almost every bill tabled in Parliament has an impact under article 19. I am concerned that this would lead to paralysis and an inability by government to move forward on its agenda and commitment.

Marie-Claude Landry, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, identified the very important question of who would have access to these rights if this legislation is passed. With the recent Daniels and Descheneaux decisions and the ongoing Bill S-3 consultations, the issue of indigenous identity is increasingly complex and must be resolved.

In addition, Dwight Newman, professor of law and Canada research chair in indigenous rights, identified a number of drafting concerns and internal inconsistencies that would create significant challenges if Bill C-262 were adopted. This leads me back to second reading debate and one of my original suggestions based on the point made by witnesses that this is a quasi-constitutional piece of legislation. Certainly, I think everyone in this House should agree that a quasi-constitutional piece of legislation deserves the scrutiny a government bill would generate, a government bill that we would get to question the minister about its nuances, and that we would have a much more robust opportunity to have debate and back-and-forth on, as opposed to a very constrained debate.

Accordingly, we not only have important unanswered questions, but also legitimate drafting concerns that were expressed during committee hearings. That said, I want to acknowledge that this bill is incredibly important. It is also symbolic, as we have heard tonight, and some have identified it as an absolutely essential component of reconciliation.

For others who have expressed concerns, they have attempted to engage in a nuanced and serious discussion, but have certainly been met with condemnation. The following are just a few examples. One witness suggested that any objections to voting for this bill were simply based on a colonialist attitude of the people who would not vote for it. A Liberal member said privately that if someone did not support this bill, they were just racist. I found that incredibly insulting.

A number of witnesses were unwilling to testify, feeling that any concerns expressed would simply be construed as being unsupportive of reconciliation. When debate is constrained, so is democracy. The debate among citizens and with political leaders is crucial to building consensus. I do not think we want this place to always be an echo chamber if we really have significant concerns about what a bill would do.

I want to note that in May 2016, the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations stated at the UN that the government fully intended to adopt and work to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. However, as my question indicated earlier, I would suggest there are many examples of where the government has not actually stood up to that standard.

In conclusion, international declarations are important to guide legislation and policy, but must be interpreted in the context of a country's existing legal framework, as opposed to adapting laws to the blunt instrument of a generic declaration. The real work of reconciliation is going to happen, of course, in our communities where we live, work, and play. We do, I believe, have the will and the momentum.

Thus, in spite of the fact that we will not support Bill C-262, we do support and are committed to moving forward with reconciliation.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act May 29th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, it was over a year ago that the current Liberal government proclaimed at the UN that it would implement the UN declaration. I have a two-part question for my colleague from Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou.

The fact that Bill C-262 has not passed has not constrained the government from acting. Would my colleague say that Bill C-69, the decision on excluding first nations from being part of the Columbia River Treaty negotiations, and the decision today on Kinder Morgan are consistent with what the Liberals committed to on the UN declaration a year and a half ago, or are these actions inconsistent with what they stated they would be doing?

Foreign Investment May 28th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, the minister guaranteed that all was fine with the Chinese takeover by Anbang Insurance with its senior care facilities. Let me share one of the most recent inspection reports from a facility: non-compliant in restraint and fall prevention plans; non-compliant in having certified staff available to deal with critical emergency situations; and non-compliant with sanitation procedures.

Do the Liberals still guarantee that communist China is the best caretaker of our seniors?

Controlled Drugs and Substances Act May 25th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, it is very clear to me and many others in the chamber that we have a very serious problem. It is a serious problem that has been created by the federal government, and it is up to the federal government to fix this problem.

It has been argued that the provinces and municipalities need to create their own regulations, but let me remind everyone that when this is a medical authorization, federal rules supersede it. To suggest that we have landlord consent in regulations, as this bill would, would enable the provinces and territories across this country to build in some basic protections for landlords.

I want to refer back to a person who came to me. Over the years, I have seen many headlines, and many people have approached me. There was one in particular who came to me who was crying. He had a rental property. Someone lived downstairs and a family lived upstairs.

First, the municipality is not allowed to know that there is an authorization for medical marijuana, which means no fire inspections, no electrical inspections, and no inspections to make sure it is done properly. Because of privacy rights, Health Canada is not authorized to tell municipalities.

This landlord found out that there was a grow op in his home. The immediate thing that happened, just as my colleague said, is that his insurance was cancelled. He could not get insurance for his property. The tenant on the main floor produced his authorization and said, “I'm sorry, but I have every right to grow my plants for my medical needs.” The tenants upstairs, who had a young baby, said they would not stay because they were worried about the health of their child and the risks.

Here was someone who had put his savings aside to create a nest egg in his retirement, and he was being slowly destroyed. To be frank, it is Health Canada and the federal government that created the situation for this to happen.

The Liberals like to say that they have to provide access for medical purposes. That is their argument. What did they do last week? In the budget bill, there is an excise tax for recreational purposes. They said they were going to apply an excise tax to medical marijuana. How is that providing ready access for medical purposes that they say they are responsible for? Applying an excise tax would actually make it more unaffordable for people to buy their medical prescriptions. There are many ways the Liberal government could provide access without destroying people's lives across this country.

There has been a lot of razzle-dazzle. As people have talked about this bill, they have tried to mix it up with the recreational regime. I can understand that people watching or reading the debate might be a little confused about recreational and medical and what each is doing.

This is quite simple. Health Canada's authorization is for medical purposes. It can allow sometimes 100 plants if someone has a big prescription and is growing it for a few people. It can happen in a landlord's home, who cannot do anything about it.

If this is not the answer, the Liberals need to support it, and perhaps the committee could find a way to massage the bill in a way that would create an answer to this serious problem. If members vote no and then look at the hard-working people in their ridings who have had their homes destroyed, they should be ashamed of themselves and will have to answer for that in the next election.

Foreign Investment May 24th, 2018

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the government took our advice and declined to allow the sale of Aecon to a Chinese state-owned enterprise. However, in spite of numerous other requests, the Liberals have arrogantly refused to do the same due diligence with Anbang and our senior care facilities. As we now know, Anbang has collapsed, the chairman was arrested, and our seniors' homes are owned by communist China. Will the minister now commit to fixing the Anbang mess?

Elections Modernization Act May 23rd, 2018

Madam Speaker, a number of times in question period our leader has stood up and asked a very specific question about some pieces of this legislation. He was never given a clear answer, so I do not think it is acceptable to say that we will go to committee and get clear answers.

It is clear that the Liberals are trying to rig this bill in their favour, and they are rushing it through and hoping Canadians do not notice. I would like the minister to stand up and tell us how they can possibly justify rigging an elections act in their favour and have ministers able to go out and do pre-writ spending instead of having the same kind of rules for the government as we do for the opposition.

Please stand up and tell us why you have not been able to give a clear answer on that issue and why you are rigging this bill to suit the Liberal Party of Canada.

Questions Passed as Orders for Returns May 22nd, 2018

With regard to the Canada C3 Expedition: (a) what was the total cost of the expedition paid for by the government; (b) what is the breakdown of costs by line item and standard object; (c) how many Canadians took part in the expedition as passengers; and (d) which Ministers, Members of Parliament, and other governmental officials participated in the expedition, and how many days did each spend on the vessel?

Questions on the Order Paper May 22nd, 2018

With regard to the Canada C3 Expedition: (a) was the vessel certified to carry passengers, as per regulations under the Canada Shipping Act, 2001, prior to the expedition; (b) if the answer in (a) is affirmative, was the certification approved in writing by the Minister of Transport; and (c) on what date was the vessel certified?