Charlie Angus

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I think you will find that, if you check the record, claims about self-licking ice cream cones were not made by the New Democrats. We questioned whether the member for Stornoway had actually ever made an ice cream during the time he has claimed to be working at Dairy Queen, but we did not not claim there were self-licking cones.

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, although Conservatives are demanding to vote until midnight on Saturday, I would bet they are going to fold like cheap suits. They always do.

I would encourage my friend to probably plan to go home, because the leader of the Conservatives is going to be off doing fundraisers, drinking and eating canapés with lobbyists for Loblaw and Jenni Byrne. Meanwhile, the rest of the schleps are going to start to cry and ask to please go home. They are all going to leave. I am ready to stay until Saturday night, but I was ready to vote until Christmas and they all packed up and left.

I would say that, if there is going to be a vote against Ukraine on Saturday night, they will all come in to make sure they are there. However, if we do not vote against Ukraine, I bet the Conservatives will all want to go home.

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we can imagine the poor Conservatives asking New Democrats how to get things done. They have come here for three years to jump up and down, howl at the moon and say they are going to bring Halley's comet to strike this place; next, they have something else. I am more than willing to help school my friend. I cannot see his name tag.

What did we do? We showed up and we got a national dental care strategy while they said they would vote against it. We got coverage for diabetes, which they would take away from people, while the member for Stornoway has all those benefits. We got peace and Canada's stance for Gaza, while they stood back and did nothing except huff—

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have watched the member who lives in the 19-room mansion in Stornoway brace for impact time and time again, as he stands up and announces that he is going to huff, he is going to puff, he is going to vote Parliament down. However, he cannot really be here, because he has to head off to a fundraiser with Jenni Byrne and the Loblaws lobbyists at Forecheck Strategies to have canapés at Stornoway.

My only concern is for the poor schleps here who are left behind, night after night, having to stand up and vote against Ukraine, having to stand up and vote against a national suicide crisis hotline while their boss is drinking mojitos.

Conservatives are told to brace for impact. There will be one more night when they will have to show up. Wait a minute, were we not supposed to vote while they were going to huff and puff all weekend long? Then they thought, “Oh, well, it's going to be too long. Can we just go home?”

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise in Parliament. On my way over here, I had to almost elbow my way through the big long line of Conservatives with their phones, doing selfie videos, saying that they were here in Parliament today, that they were going to huff and puff, and that they might blow the House down tonight, and then they asked people to please send money to their addresses as quickly as they could.

The price of a federal election is $630 million. If we tell our constituents and the people of Canada that the member for Carleton, the official opposition leader, is going to cost the Canadian taxpayer $630 million in an election because things are so desperate and people need to stand up, then we certainly expect him to be here to do that work if it is that serious.

Just this past Monday, we had nine confidence votes. For those who watch Conservative TikTok, I will give them a little explanation. A confidence vote causes an election, yet we saw all the dutiful backbench Conservatives vote to show confidence in the government. Now, three days later, it is the “huff and puff and they may blow the House down” strategy when there are going to be nine confidence votes tonight.

Given the importance of this and given the fact that we would plunge the nation into an election at this time, I really hope to see the member who lives at Stornoway standing here and leading his troops because it is one of the concerns I have had.

I have been accused of making claims about his background and about the fact that he apparently worked for Dairy Queen. I am willing to retract that, because we actually do not know if he worked at Dairy Queen. I have tried to find what his job résumé was before he became a professional political “whatever he has been his whole life”. Some say he had a paper route, and others say he worked at Dairy Queen. It does not seem that he actually may have done both. However, if he worked at Dairy Queen, I am sure they taught him that he had to show up, because showing up is a fundamental thing we learn in jobs.

When I was younger and was trying to feed my two young daughters by working on construction sites, I was told if I was not ready to go with all my tools by 7:30 in the morning, do not to bother to show up. I had to pay the rent at the end of the month, so I learned to show up. I raise this because there is a pattern with the member.

I remember when he said that he was going to stand in the House and speak until the budget fell. That was extraordinary. All the little Conservatives who repeat all his talking points and who get the gold stars, all stood around him. They were going to stay in the House until he brought the House down and would cause an election. Then, after about two hours, he ran out of gas because he ran out of slogans. When one's entire electoral platform is a bumper sticker slogan, even the member who lives at Stornoway gets tired, so after two hours, he gave up and went home, but he thought they were going to have an election.

I remember, before Christmas, he said he was going to keep us voting in the House until Christmas. We came and waited, and that never happened. Again, I do not know whether he was off having canapés and mojitos with Jenni Byrne, the lobbyist for Loblaws, and her staff, who are apparently lobbying the federal government through Forecheck Strategies, but we did not see him. All the poor schleps were left here for two nights doing the hard lifting of voting against the government.

What did they vote against? They voted against support for Ukraine, and that was actually one time he showed up; he showed up to vote against Ukraine. He had to be on the record that he voted against Ukraine, because Tucker Carlson would have been displeased. They voted against clean water on reserves. They wanted to get that on the record. They showed up and voted against a national suicide hotline, because they were going to force an election. I felt bad for my colleagues in the Conservative Party who dutifully stayed up all night when the member for Carleton was having canapés at fundraisers. We did not vote until Christmas, but he was going to bring the House down.

On Monday night, there was a historic opportunity to bring the government down, and he was voting from behind the curtain. That was the night we moved the historic vote for peace in Gaza, a vote that has been recognized around the world. Numerous other jurisdictions are now following Canada's lead because the New Democrats showed up that night. We showed what it means to come to work every day and work, to find a compromise plan to recognize the need to deal with the horrific death of innocent children in Gaza. We showed what it means to say that the terrorist attacks by Hamas should be condemned and that the people of Israel have a right to live in peace, but, because of the systemic killing of journalists, aid workers and children, the Netanyahu government cannot be given any more weapons. The New Democrats showed up, and that was historic.

Again, I would advise the member, who probably puts some ice cream and walnuts on a Dairy Queen banana float, that if he is going to be a leader of this country, he should show up and stand up at these historic moments. He does not get to go off to Stornoway, have canapés and leave the poor schleps on the backbench to do the heavy lifting. Monday night was an opportunity and he missed it.

With respect to the Conservative bumper sticker slogans, one has to put three or four of them on side by side now. Today the member comes in again, and this is the moment he says that he is going to axe the tax and force an election. He says he is putting $630 million on the line. Will he be here tonight?

In 2021, when the Liberals decided to go to an election, people were telling us to get back to work. They wanted us to work in here and get something done. They asked what I was going to do if I went back to Parliament. I said that we were going to get national dental care, because we heard about that at the doors. I said that we would fight to get national pharmacare if they gave us a check to hold the Liberals to account.

We will hold the Liberals to account, because that is what we do. We show up for work. It is not a hard concept. Canadians are hard-working people; they show up for work. They understand. Canadians are not dummies. The member who lives in a 19-room mansion with his own private chef goes on about a carbon tax affecting the price of food. Canadians know that it is the relentless gouging by Loblaws doing so. We have never, ever heard the member speak about Loblaws. Canadians understand this when they find out that Jenni Byrne, his chief boss, was a lobbyist for Loblaws.

Last night, a working-class guy wrote to me. He has to drive his truck to get to work and drives 50 to 100 kilometres each day to get out to the mine. He asked about the carbon tax, because he saw that the price of gas in our region went up 20¢ overnight. I told him he was getting gouged. Then he asked if I could break down the carbon price for him. I told him it was three cents a litre. Then he asked where the other 17¢ went. I told him that it went to Rich Kruger, the CEO of Suncor, who told his investors at the height of the worst climate catastrophe we have experienced that there was an urgent need for them to make even more money.

The oil industry in Canada last year made $78 billion, and we have never heard the member who lives at Stornoway talk about that. We have never heard a single Alberta Conservative stand up to talk about how we are four years into a brutal drought. The Oldman River reservoir is almost empty. I was in Edmonton in January; there was no snow on the ground and it was above zero. We have never heard a single Conservative talk when, because of the climate catastrophe, fire season is announced in northern Alberta in February. Conservatives are climate deniers, and there is a reason for that. If they admitted that the planet is on fire and children cannot go out because of the catastrophic fumes from the oil and gas sector's pumping of CO2 emissions, then they would need a plan. However, they do not have a plan because it would not fit on a bumper sticker slogan.

I am going to conclude on this simple thing: The member for Stornoway said that he is going to lead this country, force an election, bring it home, axe the yakking and do the backtracking all the way to a fundraising event tonight. He should show up and do his job.

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I was not saying he was not in the House. I was asking if he is going to show up. There is a substantive difference. Since it is about an election, he better—

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is an extraordinary thing to say we are going to force an election that will cost $630 million.

I agree with my hon. colleague that a leader needs the guts to stand up. On Monday night, the leader of the Conservative Party voted nine times in a confidence motion to support the government, but he did it hiding behind the curtain. This was on the night when we had the historic vote on peace in the Middle East and Gaza.

He has a tendency to be missing in action when it is time to stand up. I could not get an answer from the member for Dairy Queen. However, tonight, if he is willing to take the government down, will he actually stand up and be in the House, or will he be off with his lobbyist chief of staff and her lobbyist friends eating canapés and getting backhanders?

[Business of Supply, March 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we have another event of I am going to huff and to puff, and then, I am going to go off and have a fundraiser and some mojitos at Stornoway, while the poor backbenchers dutifully follow through.

Do members remember when he said he was going to speak until the budget fell? That was for about three hours, and then he left. Do members remember when we had to vote all the way until Christmas? The only time we ever saw him in the House was to vote against Ukraine. We had nine confidence votes on Monday, and he was hiding behind the screen. Tonight, we will have votes.

Here is the question: At Dairy Queen, I do not know why he was fired, but if someone works for a living, they have to show up. Will he show up tonight, or will he be off fundraising with his lobbyist friends, leaving his poor schleps on the backbench to do the heavy lifting of bringing down the government and forcing an election? Show up for work.

[Privilege, March 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I will keep my remarks short.

I want to bring to light that I have been involved in a number of committees where we were at the line of an issue of contempt. It is important to put on the record what was explained to us in committee, that we are not a court of law. We may be really angry at government. We may be demanding witnesses. However, we have to do it in a judicious manner, and if there is an issue of contempt, it has to come to the House.

We have been in situations in which we knew we were not getting truthful answers from witnesses. My colleague and I were involved with one, with a certain group of brothers and their chief financial officer. We decided at that moment to actually not go that way, because we had gotten as far as we could as a parliamentary committee, and we felt the evidence stood.

However, the principle of parliamentarians being able to take this to the House has to be protected and preserved. It does not matter when the last time it happened was. What matters is that we have the obligation and the right and the power, when people are being dishonest and not telling the truth to committees, to bring it to the House, whether or not the government at the time likes it. These are tools that parliamentarians have.

Again, we are not a court of law, but we get evidence that we present to Parliament so that Parliament can make decisions and, if something is wrong, it will not happen again.

I trust that the Speaker is going to be very careful and judicious here with respect to the importance of preserving that right of parliamentarians to do their job and not be inhibited just because someone does not believe they are obligated to answer questions. They are obligated to answer questions when it is in the interests of the Canadian public.

[Foreign Affairs, March 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the European Union states that Netanyahu is using deliberate starvation of children in Gaza as a weapon of war. Human rights groups have spoken out against the targeting of journalists, civilians, hospitals and aid workers, and the UN has called out Canada for complicity in this because we provide military weapons to Israel. Last night, Parliament called for an end to military aid to Netanyahu's government, and yet numerous military supply deals are still in the works.

Will the minister respect Parliament and tell us whether deals like the guns from Colt in Kitchener and armed vehicles from Roshel in Brampton will be sent to Israel, yes or no?