Thomas Mulcair

[Syria, June 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, we have all witnessed the atrocities committed against the Syrian people by the Assad regime, which is now carrying out targeted attacks on children.

Can the Prime Minister update Canadians on diplomatic efforts undertaken in response to the Syrian crisis, especially diplomatic efforts toward Russia, which remains a key Syrian ally?

[The Environment, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, referring to an earlier omnibus bill, the Prime Minister once said, “I would argue that the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles”.

Yet, the Prime Minister now asks his own MPs to blindly vote in favour of a budget without proper study.

Where are the Prime Minister's principles now? Where is the Prime Minister's respect for the principles of his own members of Parliament?

[The Environment, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is giving his ministers the authority to bypass, modify or even disregard environmental assessments. At the same time, he is leaving Canadians out of the process.

According to the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, the number of environmental assessments will drop from 6,000 to only a few dozen a year. It is completely irresponsible to do this, and even more unjustified to do it in an omnibus bill.

Where are good governance and transparency? Where is the respect for democratic institutions and Canadians?

[The Environment, June 12th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's mammoth bill is an all-out attack on environmental protection.

The Conservatives are gutting the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act, the Environmental Violations Administrative Monetary Penalties Act and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, none of which has anything to do with budget implementation.

How can the Prime Minister justify these attacks on the health of the environment and that of Canadians?

[The Budget, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, our fate is intimately tied to what happens in Europe. We are not Fortress Canuck.

When the Conservatives withdrew Canada's application for membership in the Security Council, they did not withdraw it because they were afraid we would lose. They withdrew it because they knew we would be humiliated at the UN. The Canada they are projecting onto the world stage is unrecognizable to Canadians and unrecognizable to the world. That is the shame of the Conservatives.

The reality is also that there is a drift away from democracy. The government has imposed 30 gag orders.

Why prevent a study of the mammoth bill?

[The Budget, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will say it every time. That is an utter fabulation.

In addition to all of these cuts and services to the public, Conservatives are carrying out an unprecedented attack on oversight and accountability in all sectors, slashing environmental assessments, gutting the Fisheries Act, cutting back on air safety, weakening foreign ownership rules, scrapping the Inspector General for CSIS, eliminating oversight by the Auditor General and deep-sixing their own Accountability Act.

This is not the agenda the Conservatives campaigned on last year. Is that why the Conservatives are trying so hard to make sure Canadians do not see what is in the budget?

[The Budget, June 11th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives' Trojan Horse budget will slash vital public services that Canadians rely on: food inspections, border security, research and development, housing, health care, employment insurance, old age security. The list goes on and on.

The Conservatives cannot even tell Parliament the details of their own proposals or how much they will cost. If the Conservatives are so proud of all these cuts, why are they hiding them? Why are they ramming them through? If they are so good, why not study them?

[The Economy, June 7th, 2012]

That is the type of pure fabulation one resorts to when one does not have any arguments, Mr. Speaker.

In 2008, the same Conservative minister went after Jack Layton when he declared that we were on the verge of a new recession. The Conservatives said that there was nothing of the sort, that it was not true. We were eventually proven right.

So what is the government going to do? Is it once again going to wait until we are caught with our pants down?

Since the Conservative budgets have left Canadians in an unstable financial position, when will the Conservatives change their approach and bring in a real economic action plan?

[The Economy, June 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, for months now New Democrats have been sounding the alarm about the risks facing the global economy. The Prime Minister has painted a rosy picture. He has told Canadians we do not need a new plan; he has told us we should just stay the course, but this week in London he changed his tune. Suddenly, after months of insisting that all was well, the Prime Minister has started musing about catastrophic economic scenarios on the horizon. We are running out of runway, he has told us.

Which is it? Is everything under control, as the Conservatives say, or are we on the brink of collapse?

[Pensions, June 7th, 2012]

You are right, Mr. Speaker. We are only getting started with them.

As we know, the Prime Minister likes to make important economic announcements when he is travelling abroad. Perhaps he could use his trip to France as an opportunity to announce that he is reversing the cuts to old age security and restoring the retirement age to 65.

What do the Conservatives say to that?