National Defence  The government House leader, using the usual mannered, evasive response to questions practised by the Prime Minister to irritating extremes, ignores the fact that it was the decision of the Liberal Party to disband, during the decade of darkness at national defence, Canada’s rapid response light brigade. Its role was to defend Canadian Arctic sovereignty. When Canada lost the capabilities of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, the Liberal Party was in effect inviting other countries, such as China, to take over Canada’s far north.

Conservation of Fish Stocks and Management of Pinnipeds Act  Perhaps not when you consider that during the time of the last Conservative government, a great deal of cutting and slashing was done in science and to scientists. Indeed, it was what many people in my part of the world called a decade of darkness when it comes to science. Instead of basing this proposed framework of pinniped management on science, the member suggested an annual census of all pinnipeds. There are 11 different types of pinnipeds in Canada and an annual census would cost the government approximately $30 million a year.

Business of Supply  Mr. Chair, I want to remind the member of the decade of darkness that ended in 2015 when our government actually committed to replacing the fleet. It is the case that new ships often have challenges that need to be worked out, and that is exactly what we are doing.

Business of Supply  Chair, we have a very comprehensive fleet refresh plan that has 31 votes for the large ships and dozens of smaller ships and crafts we are replacing. This was necessary because of a decade of darkness under the previous Conservative government, when nothing was done to modernize and update the Coast Guard.

Business of Supply  I could go on, but let me look back a little further. The amount of work Stephen Harper did to rebuild our military after the decade of darkness that I hear about every single time I—

Foreign Affairs  I served from 1993 to 2019. I started under Chrétien's government and I lived through the decade of darkness under that Liberal government. I lived under the Harper government, when we got Chinooks, we got strategic lift and we got tanks delivered to us. I even served under the current government.

Business of Supply  Under the defence minister's time, though the government may have committed spending more money on the military in real dollars, it is all promised spending. The devil is always in the details. My constituents clearly remember the decade of darkness when Liberals slashed budgets, starting with disbanding the Canadian Airborne Regiment. For spending to actually happen, soldiers have to rely on a future elected Conservative government.

Business of Supply  Now, the most egregious of all of this, and the one that is really rocking our Canadian Armed Forces right now, is, of course, the crisis of sexual misconduct. I will point out and ask the question: What do the Somalia affair, the decade of darkness and the crisis of sexual misconduct within the Canadian Armed Forces today have in common? It all comes down to weak Liberal leadership. We know that when the news broke that retired General Jonathan Vance, the former chief of the defence staff, had issues of sexual misconduct raised in March 2018, the Minister of National Defence said at committee on February 19 of this year that he was “as shocked as everyone else at the allegations that were made public two weeks ago”.

Status of the French Language in Montreal  The hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent ran in the election with full knowledge of the facts after a decade of darkness for the French fact in Canada. Stephen Harper gutted the budgets at CBC/Radio-Canada and appointed unilingual anglophones to serve as Auditor General and on the Supreme Court. With such contempt for French—

Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply  They remember the last time the Liberals had to start paying down deficits and address the national debt, which led to the decade of darkness. We cannot allow that to happen again. We have to invest in our Arctic sovereignty. We have challenges from Russia and China, so we need to have an upgraded north warning system, make sure we are working in NORAD and use new capabilities.

Fisheries Act  I was wondering if the hon. minister could tell us why the Conservative senators are delaying all these bills, delaying us from doing the job that Canadians have sent us here to do. They gave us a mandate in 2015, after a decade of darkness with the Conservatives, to repair the damage they had done to the environment and to indigenous communities and to make sure we get this job done. Can the hon. minister talk a little bit about that, please?

Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia  Speaker, I entered politics in 2015 to help rebuild my region's trust in Ottawa after the decade of darkness under a Conservative government. We have completely changed course since our election and now my region is booming. It has tremendous economic momentum thanks to our government's investments in such things as upgrading the Carleton-sur-Mer wharf, building lookouts in Matapédia and Saint-André, modernizing SEREX in Amqui, building a new arena in Mont-Joli, allocating $27 million to the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne, decontaminating sites and extending the Mont-Joli airport runway, as well as repairing and rebuilding the port of Matane and creating more than 220 federal jobs back home.

Business of Supply  Our government is investing in a cleaner and healthier future for all Canadians. We have made a lot of progress since the fall of 2015, since the decade of darkness. However, we know there is more work to be done, and we are not going to lose sight of that goal. We will keep helping the middle class and those working hard to join it. Our government will work hard for Canadians to build an economy where everyone has a fair and true chance of succeeding, lifting thousands of Canadians out of poverty.

Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2  Jean Chrétien, who at least understood that we could not spend more than we have forever, took the drastic measures known as the “decade of darkness”. In the process of slashing 60,000 public service jobs, programs and services were cut. Cuts in health care transfers meant hospital wait times increased. People in my riding were forced to go without a family doctor, thanks to the Liberal budget cuts.

Business of Supply  We have been defending veterans and working to right the wrongs the Conservatives did for over 10 years. As a former serving member of the Canadian Armed Forces, I can say it was a decade of darkness.