Dan Albas

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my fellow British Columbian about the Canadian disability benefit he talked about.

First of all, Bill C-22, which was the enabling legislation, simply delegated to the minister responsible, so the minister could introduce regulations that would define who was considered disabled, who would be eligible and for what amounts. Here we are, and the government is now saying it up to $200. It is not even a guarantee of $200. Does the member think we, as parliamentarians, did our job in accepting, basically at surface value, that the government was going to help persons with disabilities with this benefit?

For people who are on the Canadian pension plan disability, often times they are at a lower rate on that particular program than they would be, for example, in British Columbia, on social assistance. To me, it would make sense to at least help those individuals first, instead of telegraphing it to everyone. People had such high expectations and have only come to find out that persons with disabilities feel left out completely by this particular budget.

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, first of all, I would like to point out that military-style weapons are only used by the military. I have no idea what the member is talking about when it comes to that.

One thing we absolutely do not support is the budget provisions around safe supply in British Columbia. The Government of British Columbia came to Ottawa to ask for changes to that particular agreement. Conservatives do not believe decriminalization is helping people. We see families affected. Nurses have lodged complaints about drugs in our hospitals that are putting their lives at risk. We are seeing disorder in our streets. People cannot stop at bus stops anymore, because people are using drugs there.

I would like to know the member's position. Does he support safe supply? Does he want to maintain the current decriminalization, the exemption in the Criminal Code, for British Columbia?

[The Budget, April 30th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, as a member from British Columbia, I want to let you know that I support you in your role and believe you can run the House as Speaker and do not need multiple reminders from other members from British Columbia.

[Finance, April 16th, 2024]

These are spendy ways, Mr. Speaker.

David Dodge said that this was likely to be the worst budget since 1982. Who was prime minister then? How out of control was that budget? How broke did Canada and Canadians become before Pierre Elliott Trudeau finally took his walk in the snow?

The more things change—

With two million visits to food banks in a single month, is it not clear that Canadians are desperately hungry for change? How many more Canadians need to visit food banks before the Prime Minister realizes that today's budget is a recipe for disaster?

[Finance, April 16th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years, we know that the Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberal government are not worth the cost.

His recent spending spree is inflationary and makes everything worse, adding billions to the debt. This year alone, the Liberals will throw $52 billion towards debt servicing. That is more than is allocated to the provinces for health care.

Does the Prime Minister not see that his reckless spending is increasing inflation and debt, burdening all generations of already struggling Canadians, or is he too busy cutting cheques to care?

[Pharmacare Act, April 16th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, in my province of British Columbia, we are sending cancer patients for therapy to the United States. Does the member have concerns about provinces sending people to the American system?

The Minister of Health has said that we do not want to go to the United States' system, yet our public health care system in British Columbia is sending patients to the United States. Here we are, talking about expanding more bureaucracy, when we have provinces such as mine that are sending patients there. What does the member have to say about that sad state of affairs?

[Canadian Sustainable Jobs Act, April 15th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the government always talks about supporting union jobs and supporting a transition. I would like to ask the member opposite about this.

The oil sands and the potential for LNG could create the capital necessary to give opportunities not only to first nations but also to unions and workers to be able to grow a stronger economy, export, bring dollars from outside of Canada and support our allies. Instead, the government wants to put a cap on oil sands development, and the B.C. NDP wants to put a similar cap on LNG. If we are going to make a place in this world where we are going to create the new technology and employ Canadians, the answer is a free market approach, not a managed approach, such as the government, with this bill, wants to do. Establishing a new committee to manage the destruction of that capital formation is the wrong direction.

Could the member answer some of these arguments?

[Parliament of Canada Act, April 15th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's contribution. Often when people come to this place, they try to either build up the government or build up Parliament. The proposed bill, obviously, would be building up Parliament. He talked about education, and I know there is a lot of confusion around oversight and review. To me, the bill really would create a floor, not a ceiling, as to how much. It is usually ministers who have oversight duties, and it is usually parliamentarians, in certain cases, who would have the review duties.

Could the member explain how this would benefit, and which side would?

[Privilege, April 8th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, before I get into my question of privilege today, I just wanted to pass my condolences on to the family of the honourable John Fraser, a former Speaker of the House and B.C. member of Parliament who served honourably for both the Clark and Mulroney governments. I send my best to his family and friends.

I rise on a question of privilege to address what I believe is a matter of fundamental importance to every member in this place. I respect all members' time as valuable, so I will cut to the chase and get to the facts of this matter and why I believe they are of vital importance to all members.

I believe every person in this place understands the importance of Order Paper questions. At some level, we need a mechanism whereby democratically elected members of Parliament can get the truth from our government about its actions. My Order Paper question was not a complicated or a trivial one.

I will summarize my Order Paper question as this: I asked the government how many times it has asked social media companies to censor and remove posted online content. Obviously, my question was very detailed, and it requested specific information, but that is the basic summary of what I asked.

What do members think the answer was that I received? Do members think I got a list of specific requests detailing what departments were involved and the reasons censorship removal was requested and to whom? I did not.

The answer I received from our current Speaker, then in his former capacity as a parliamentary secretary, was the following: “Since January 1, 2016, the Privy Council Office has not made any requests to censor information.” Having heard that, I believe we all can agree that the Privy Council Office was crystal clear: It had never done anything like that.

Here is the problem: Late last week, on Friday, April 5, Allen Sutherland, who is an assistant secretary to the cabinet at the Privy Council Office, testified at the public inquiry on foreign interference. What did Mr. Sutherland say? He told us that, in 2019, the Privy Council Office had requested Facebook to remove a posting about the Prime Minister that appeared on The Buffalo Chronicle. Mr. Sutherland further disclosed that Facebook complied with the request from the Privy Council Office, and the content was subsequently removed from Facebook.

As some members may know, the Privy Council Office believed this post was disinformation that could harm the integrity of the 2019 election. It was also testified that the Privy Council Office was aware of misinformation targeting Conservative candidates. However, in that situation, the Privy Council took no action. It did nothing.

To be clear, I am not raising privilege here to revisit this discrepancy in action. My reason for raising privilege is that the Privy Council Office has fully admitted that, yes, it did ask Facebook to remove and censor a post. The facts show this. Likewise, the facts will also show that Facebook did indeed remove the post after the request from the Privy Council Office. These facts are not in dispute.

I ask every member of this place the obvious question: If the Privy Council Office, by its own admission, asked Facebook to remove a post from social media, how is it possible that, in the answer to my Order Paper question, it could state that it had not made any requests to censor information since January 1, 2016?

One of these things is not true, so which is false? We all know the answer to that question. The Privy Council was dishonest in its answer to the Order Paper question, and the dishonesty was fully signed off on by the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, who is now the Speaker.

I am going to ask everyone present this: Does any other MP here care? If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone in this place. If the government can be wilfully dishonest, without accountability, and we, as members of Parliament, do nothing about it, how can we expect to maintain the trust and integrity of the people we serve?

Let us never forget that we elect the Speaker to represent us in this place. It is the Speaker's job to ensure that we, as parliamentarians, have the tools we need to execute our duties as elected members to this place. The Speaker is not elected to shield the government from accountability or to help the government advance its agenda. The Speaker is elected to collectively represent all members of this place and to ensure that this place is accountable to the members and the Canadians we represent by being here. That is how the House of Commons is meant to and intended to work.

Order Paper questions were intended to be a tool for members to hold the government accountable. Order Paper questions were never intended to allow the government to deceive and mislead, which is precisely what happened to me here. Now, the Speaker will have two choices. The Speaker can set a new precedent, take action and say that enough is enough, or he can look the other way and say it is not his job to determine whether the contents the documents tabled in the House are accurate. Sadly, I suspect the Speaker will do the latter and not the former.

This is why Canadians are growing so incredibly frustrated. Even when it is proven that the government has been dishonest with them, those who are responsible will say that it is not their job. However, as a parliamentarian, it is my job to raise the issue of privilege. If we, as members of this House, are unwilling to stand up when our rights to the truth from the government are taken away from us, and if we say nothing, we will only see more of the same. I submit that it is completely and totally unacceptable.

Before I close, I would like to leave members with this thought: We have a government that desires the power to police the Internet and appoint people who would declare what hate speech is and what the punishment for it should be. That would be an extremely powerful and dangerous tool. I am not here to enter into debate. That is not what raising privilege is.

What is not up for debate is that the government, by its own admission, requested a social media site to remove posted online content. Again, I am not here to debate that action. Afterward, the government denied ever having done that in a document intended to provide truthful accountability of its own conduct to elected MPs. The government failed that one simple but critically important task: to disclose the truth of its actions. That point is not up for debate. It is an issue of fundamental importance that should matter to all members of this place.

I humbly conclude my comments and ask that the Speaker approach this situation with the seriousness it deserves and send a powerful message to the government. He can send the message that, in our Canadian democracy, all elected members deserve the truth from their government.

If you rule in favour of my question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I would be ready to move the appropriate motion.

[Privilege, April 8th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola. The member mentioned the importance of maintaining our democratic institutions. We have a choice in this place, and I am happy to see co-operation across both sides of the House when someone is seeking to not give the information that was asked for and, in some cases, has fabricated and given testimony that was then proven to be false. We should demand better.

Does the member agree? Does he have further thoughts about how we can work in this place to build Parliament up and not let the important work Parliament needs to do on this matter fall aside?