Bill C-63 (Historical)

An Act to enact the Online Harms Act, to amend the Criminal Code, the Canadian Human Rights Act and An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service and to make consequential and related amendments to other Acts

Part 1 of this enactment enacts the Online Harms Act , whose purpose is to, among other things, promote the online safety of persons in Canada, reduce harms caused to persons in Canada as a result of harmful content online and ensure that the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies are transparent and accountable with respect to their duties under that Act.
That Act, among other things,
(a) establishes the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, whose mandate is to administer and enforce that Act, ensure that operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies are transparent and accountable with respect to their duties under that Act and contribute to the development of standards with respect to online safety;
(b) creates the position of Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada, whose mandate is to provide support to users of social media services in respect of which that Act applies and advocate for the public interest in relation to online safety;
(c) establishes the Digital Safety Office of Canada, whose mandate is to support the Digital Safety Commission of Canada and the Digital Safety Ombudsperson of Canada in the fulfillment of their mandates;
(d) imposes on the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies
(i) a duty to act responsibly in respect of the services that they operate, including by implementing measures that are adequate to mitigate the risk that users will be exposed to harmful content on the services and submitting digital safety plans to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada,
(ii) a duty to protect children in respect of the services that they operate by integrating into the services design features that are provided for by regulations,
(iii) a duty to make content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor and intimate content communicated without consent inaccessible to persons in Canada in certain circumstances, and
(iv) a duty to keep all records that are necessary to determine whether they are complying with their duties under that Act;
(e) authorizes the Digital Safety Commission of Canada to accredit certain persons that conduct research or engage in education, advocacy or awareness activities that are related to that Act for the purposes of enabling those persons to have access to inventories of electronic data and to electronic data of the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies;
(f) provides that persons in Canada may make a complaint to the Digital Safety Commission of Canada that content on a social media service in respect of which that Act applies is content that sexually victimizes a child or revictimizes a survivor or intimate content communicated without consent and authorizes the Commission to make orders requiring the operators of those services to make that content inaccessible to persons in Canada;
(g) authorizes the Governor in Council to make regulations respecting the payment of charges by the operators of social media services in respect of which that Act applies, for the purpose of recovering costs incurred in relation to that Act.
Part 1 also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 2 amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) create a hate crime offence of committing an offence under that Act or any other Act of Parliament that is motivated by hatred based on certain factors;
(b) create a recognizance to keep the peace relating to hate propaganda and hate crime offences;
(c) define “hatred” for the purposes of the new offence and the hate propaganda offences; and
(d) increase the maximum sentences for the hate propaganda offences.
It also makes related amendments to other Acts.
Part 3 amends the Canadian Human Rights Act to provide that it is a discriminatory practice to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech by means of the Internet or any other means of telecommunication in a context in which the hate speech is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination. It authorizes the Canadian Human Rights Commission to deal with complaints alleging that discriminatory practice and authorizes the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to inquire into such complaints and order remedies.
Part 4 amends An Act respecting the mandatory reporting of Internet child pornography by persons who provide an Internet service to, among other things,
(a) clarify the types of Internet services covered by that Act;
(b) simplify the mandatory notification process set out in section 3 by providing that all notifications be sent to a law enforcement body designated in the regulations;
(c) require that transmission data be provided with the mandatory notice in cases where the content is manifestly child pornography;
(d) extend the period of preservation of data related to an offence;
(e) extend the limitation period for the prosecution of an offence under that Act; and
(f) add certain regulation-making powers.
Part 5 contains a coordinating amendment.

Strong Borders Act

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I doubt the hon. member my colleague is referring to who made the comment actually read the bill, because he has not. This is what the bill says. As my colleague across the way mentioned, there are some provisions, although not that one, that could ostensibly, maybe, help fix the mess that the Liberals created themselves. However, there are some things in there so egregious that I think the Liberals put them in there specifically as a poison pill. That means they are not serious about solving these issues and want them to continue. If the Liberals were serious about addressing these issues, they would not have put, as they did in Bill C-63, poison pill civil liberties issues in there to bottleneck Parliament.

I encourage all colleagues in this place to go to the minister and say that this is a dog's breakfast. Let us figure this out.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think we are getting somewhere. I am sure my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois have concerns about some of the deep incursions into provincial jurisdiction as well.

Again, we are getting some consensus in debate, and as with Bill C-63, which had provisions about increased reporting requirements for child pornography, there might be a few things in this bill we can agree to agree on, or at least agree to study. However, there are some that are out of scope and designed to make us choose a false dichotomy.

Hopefully, there can be something that resembles work here and that the government understands it has put a dog's breakfast forward and can somehow work something out to try again.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, as I rise in debate for the first time in this 45th Parliament, I would like to present colleagues with some statistics about what a rare and unique privilege it is to serve in this place, if they will give me the floor.

Of the millions upon millions of people who have lived in Canada throughout its entire history, fewer than 5,000 individual Canadians have served as members of Parliament. Of that number, fewer than 450 have been women, and of that number, by my count anyway, fewer than 40 Canadian women in the history of our country have been chosen to serve as a member of Parliament for five or more terms.

On April 28, 2025, I was honoured to be re-elected by my constituents and joined the ranks of some of those giants, women like Agnes Mcphail, Flora MacDonald, Ellen Fairclough, Rona Ambrose, Sheila Copps and Alexa McDonough. The gravity and honour of standing here, once again, is hitting a little harder this time around.

I am here on behalf of, and thanks to, another special and unique group of people, the people of Calgary Nose Hill, who are unique and special in this particular area of Canadian history too. The people I represent, in a riding that has existed for decades, have only ever elected a woman into federal office. Prior to me, my predecessor, Diane Ablonczy, served as a member of Parliament in an even more select group: women who have served as members of Parliament for seven or more terms.

Getting here has meant that I have had to learn a lot of lessons: how to win primaries, the value of having my dogma challenged, how to earn the trust of my community and my colleagues, how to survive being in a government after an election loss and how to thrive in opposition, how to navigate leadership changes, which battles to pick and which ones to walk away from, but most importantly, how to be humble while refusing to let my voice be silenced.

With that, I would like to acknowledge the six other women in the 45th Parliament who are now part of the “been around for a hot minute and have seen some things” five terms or more club: the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, the member for Brossard—Saint-Lambert, the member for Vancouver Centre, the member for Algonquin—Renfrew—Pembroke, the member for Humber River—Black Creek and the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands.

I thank my husband Jeff, my family, my staff, my volunteers and the good people of Calgary Nose Hill, with a special and deeply profound thanks to Sean Schnell, his wife Leeta and their children Charlize and Easton for bringing me to this place today.

Colleagues, I pledge the true pledge of being a member of Parliament: to do my job, which is to hold the government to account to the best of my ability. Let us begin.

I rise today in debate on Bill C-2, a 160-page omnibus bill from the Liberal government that raises serious concerns about the capacity of the government to address several crises of its own making. These were not problems prior to the Liberal government taking office in 2015: a rapid influx of migrants that Canada's social and economic infrastructure could not sustain; an open and porous border; and an illegal drug production, trafficking and addiction crisis.

I would like to start with the issue of Canada's fentanyl crisis, because it is important context for new colleagues to understand how we got here. A decade of ultra-progressive policies juiced a deadly problem that really came into prevalence in late 2015. At that time, precisely the same time that the Canadian political landscape changed, Liberal prime minister Justin Trudeau had a farther left platform, to put it mildly, than his predecessor government. In 2017, an ultra-left version of the NDP, led by the late premier John Horgan, formed government at the subnational level in the province of British Columbia, the region hardest hit by the drug.

Prior to 2015, right-of-centre governments favoured a crackdown on criminal activity related to the emerging problem of fentanyl, coupled with enhanced recovery programs for addicts. However, Trudeau's incoming government, as well as Horgan's in British Columbia, all had long-held beliefs that so-called harm reduction, taxpayer-funded hard drugs and the effective legalization of hard drug possession were superior public policy alternatives on hard drug crime to those of their predecessors on the political right. Between 2015 and 2023, these governments went on to usher in a dramatic shift away from government policy that focused on criminalizing hard drug production and trafficking.

At the federal level, the Liberal government expanded access to hard drug injection sites, ended mandatory minimum penalties for major hard drug offences and softened bail criteria for all crimes, including those related to the production and trafficking of hard drugs. A currently sitting Liberal member of Parliament even went as far as to table a bill that aimed to fully legalize all hard street drugs across the country.

Then, in 2021, British Columbia's NDP government formally applied for a subsection 56(1) exemption under Canada's Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, requesting permission to effectively legalize possession of hard drugs, including fentanyl. In early 2022, Trudeau's federal Liberal government approved the request and allowed for a three-year pilot program. The program was expansive. The government even went as far as to set guidelines that would have allowed recreational fentanyl to be legally provided to children. The results were deadly.

There are people across the aisle who will get their backs up on this situation, but it is the reason we have zombie-like people walking across the streets of urban Canada and rural Canada. Our mothers, our daughters, our husbands, everybody from every demographic has been touched by the crisis that was caused by these extremely failed, ill-sighted policies that literally everybody was telling the Liberals were wrong, but they persisted.

Today, we have this omnibus bill in front of us. As the Liberals did in the former Parliament with Bill C-63, the so-called online harms bill, this bill is trying to suggest to Canadians a false dichotomy: that Canadians have to choose between their civil liberties and fixing epic messes with deadly consequences that the Liberal government set up. That is a false dichotomy and something that this place should reject.

I am going to briefly talk about two components of the bill. I am going to talk about some of the border issues and immigration, and then I want to talk about the civil liberties component very briefly.

This bill is a missed opportunity, on the fentanyl and addiction crisis, to address the real problems of how we got here: the Liberals' catch-and-release bail policies. They could have tabled a bill on that, but they did not, so we are now forced to review this omnibus legislation without understanding whether or not the Liberals are going to address the true cause of this problem: the fact that they do not penalize people who produce these drugs.

The Liberals could have increased penalties for people who produce these drugs. As the leader of the Conservative Party said during the election, these are mass murderers, and they should be treated as such. The Liberals also failed to put in place compassionate measures that would allow for life-saving intervention for people who have lost agency due to addiction.

These are the measures that we need to actually stop the drug production crisis in Canada. Are there other things? Sure there are. Are there things in this bill that Parliament could look at? Sure, but again, the Liberals have purposely structured a bill where Canadians have to choose between their civil liberties and trying to fix a deadly mess that the Liberals made.

On immigration, here is a little history for colleagues who are new to this place. The Canadian consensus on immigration can be boiled down to this: Do not bring more people into the country than our social and economic infrastructure can handle. By that I mean our health care system, our education system, and our capacity to provide language acquisition and provide jobs and housing as well. That is the basic consensus that our pluralism is based on, because if people are housed, if they have access to work, if they have access to health care and if they can speak one of Canada's official languages, then pluralism can be maintained, but the Liberals broke that promise.

I remember that in 2016, first of all, the Liberal government essentially implied that I was racist for suggesting that the Liberals should not lift the visa requirement on Mexico, because there would be false asylum claims made. Guess what: It was like I was Cassandra, doomed to know the future and have the Liberals call me racist. Honestly, what did the Liberals have to do last year? They had to reverse the visa imposition on Mexico. Then there was the next Cassandra moment. I said that maybe we should not let people who have reached the safety of upstate New York illegally cross the border into Canada and then claim benefits here while their asylum claims, which will likely be rejected, linger for years in Canada's broken asylum system, which the Liberals broke.

I said that maybe we should close the loophole in the safe third country agreement. Once again, the implication was that Canada was anti-immigrant if we were to suggest that we restore order, balance and fairness. There are people who apply legally to come into Canada, who do everything right, are waiting for years and never get the chance to come here, or they want their children to come here. The government essentially rolled out the red carpet at Roxham. There was literally a red carpet with the RCMP pulling the luggage across the border and “#WelcomeToCanada”.

What do members think happened when the Liberals sent the message “#WelcomeToCanada” to people who were already in upstate New York? They enabled an industry of people. There were human traffickers telling people how to make their way into Canada. What happened was that our asylum system was broken. It was abused.

Now, the Liberals have this bill, which has a few minor provisions that would do a couple of things that I am concerned about. It would delegate more authority to the minister in vague ways, and it would delegate more responsibility into regulation. If there are problems with the system, why are they not just laying it out in this legislation to make it clear so that we will not have endless judicial appeals, which is also part of the problem here? People could appeal and appeal because too much authority would be put onto the minister, and there is vagueness and an endlessly changing regulatory structure. That is part of the problem here too. I need to look at this bill in more detail on those provisions to understand what is happening here.

There was the minister's performance in question period. She should get someone to practise with her. This is not going to get easier for her. Seriously, this is too big of an issue. She needs to be able to understand and explain why Canadians should vest more power in a minister who does not even know the numbers that are on her own website.

The bigger problem that I have with the immigration provisions in the bill is that they do not address the bigger problem that is facing Canada's immigration system right now, which is that the government does not track exits. Did members know that the government does not coordinate information to track when people leave the country? It does not publicly disclose when people who are on expired visas, or who have deportation orders, actually leave. There is no way for parliamentarians to look into the data to see whether the government has enabled people to leave the country when they have no legal right to be here.

What happens in that situation? First of all, it sends a message to the world that they can have all of the processing on the front end, but there is no consequence on the back end if they do not have a legal right to be in the country. It incentivizes people to come here because they know the system can be abused.

The second thing that happens is that it pushes people underground. It creates an underground economy. We have to have empathy for people who come to Canada because there is a promise of Canada. We cannot blame the housing crisis, the health care crisis and the jobs crisis on people who are drawn to our country and our pluralism by every promise that makes it good. We have to blame the Liberal government for failing the system so badly that people feel their only option is to go underground, into an underground economy where they live in slave-like working conditions.

That happens here in Canada. It happens because the Liberal government has failed so profoundly on this file with minister after minister for a decade. The fact that in this bill the Liberals did not have any sort of plan to departure-track, to coordinate information across departments that already gather this information, and to express to Canadians and people who are here on expired visas how they will enable them to leave the country is only going to exacerbate the problem, particularly with the vagueness in some of these provisions. That is a huge problem. Again, I do not understand why the Liberals would have put in this border component, and all of these missed opportunities and the immigration component with the following.

There are some pretty big poison pills when it comes to civil liberties that every Canadian should be concerned about. If passed, Bill C-2 would allow CSIS, police and peace officers to demand personal information from online service providers without a warrant, based only on vague suspicions of potential crimes or legal breaches based on any act of Parliament.

The Liberals today said that it is not personal information and we should not worry about it, but guess what. Whether or not I use an online service, or where I use an online service, if I depart from an online service, start an online service or use an online service for an amount of time, everything that Bill C-2 says it would do involves my personal information. That is none of the government's business, certainly not without a warrant. There has to be a line drawn here.

The government has severely under resourced our information-gathering departments. Sure, it takes time to get a warrant, but most police departments, after the “defund the police” movement, are so underfunded that they do not have cybercrime units. Now the government is trying to shortcut this by taking away the civil liberties of law-abiding Canadians, and that is not right. At the end of the day, like anything else the government does when it comes to removing civil liberties, it is law-abiding Canadians who get punished, not the criminals.

When I read this bill, I see a road map of ways for criminals to avoid being tracked on where they could legally do this snooping stuff. What is going to happen? Hardened criminals who understand how to get around the system are going to get around the system, and then a government, which unlawfully used the Emergencies Act, froze Canadians' bank accounts, introduced censorship bills Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, and introduced Bill C-63, wants to insert itself. Can members imagine if the Liberals were to retable Bill C-63, with all of their suspicion of hate crime stuff? That bill would couple with this bill to form a mega Voltron of censorship and oppression. I am not being hyperbolic. The government has, over and over again, at every opportunity, taken away Canadians' freedom of speech. Every bill that it has passed has been designed to control speech. My constituents should not have to make that choice.

I am going to bet I know what happened with this bill. Some of these departments have had this policy sitting on the shelf for literally years and more savvy ministers have said, “Not today.” More savvy PMOs have said no, but there is a green minister, a green Prime Minister and a perfect cover, which is the fentanyl crisis. Some bureaucrats said that this is harmonizing with other things and that it is not going to have a big implication on Canadian civil liberties, and these guys fell for it. They did not politically question this. They did not think about what was in the best interests of their constituents.

How do I know that? The Liberals did not put a charter statement in for this. I cannot wait to see that charter statement. It is going to be dance, dance, kitty, dance, I am sure of it. I am positive, because the information that I talked about is personal information. Even if this bill passes, I guarantee it will be challenged all the way up to the Supreme Court.

It is not just that. My colleagues have talked about Canada Post opening mail. Was Canada Post consulted on this provision? I heard it was not. My colleagues heard that Canada Post found out about this after the bill was tabled. How are Canada Post employees going to deal with opening up fentanyl envelopes? That is new. What about the telco companies that this provision would affect? There are things in the bill that give the government unfettered access into telecommunications companies. I am no fan of Canada's telcos' oligopoly, but where we can agree to agree is that I do not want the Liberal government further inserting itself into the management of Canada's telecommunications companies.

There is another concerning component as well, which I saw this morning. The International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group is sounding the alarm about provisions in Bill C-2 with respect to powers to allow the government to request information from foreign entities. This raises an important question: Will the government allow for reciprocal requests from foreign governments? Let us say Bill C-63 were to pass, too. Even if it does not, Bill C-2 can have these snooping provisions and would let foreign governments reciprocate on snooping provisions with all the foreign influence stuff that we have had without a foreign agent registry under this geopolitical situation. The fact that there is nothing in the bill that says what this means is crazy.

Also, the government has not shown Canadians any specific situation, evidence or circumstance in granular detail about why we should be giving up our civil liberties to a government that unlawfully used the Emergencies Act and imposed draconian censorship bills, which resulted in news bans in this country. I will not do it. I think the one thing that all of my colleagues from all opposition parties can agree on is this: There are elements in this bill that are worthy of further study that might help fix the mess that the Liberals have made, but we should not have to choose between civil liberties and keeping our country safe.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if Bill C-2 passes, it would allow CSIS, police and peace officers to demand personal info from online service providers without a warrant based only on vague suspicions of potential crime or legal breaches of any act of Parliament. Whether or not a Canadian uses an online service, where they use it and when they use it are personal information, and the government has not provided a charter statement for the same.

With Bill C-2, combined with Bill C-63, the government could target whatever it deems to be spreading hateful content. Bill C-2 would combine with Bill C-63 to essentially form Voltron-type censorship. The government has not indicated what policy concerns, aside from vague references to security, these provisions are needed for. These snooping provisions are a massive poison pill that should not have been included in this bill.

Why, as they did with Bill C-63, are the Liberals making Canadians choose between their civil liberties and safety and fixing the broken immigration system that the Liberals broke themselves?

Justice

[Francesco Sorbara, Liberal, Vaughan—Woodbridge, ON]

Mr. Speaker, children in Canada need protection from online harm. The abuse that occurs online is endangering our kids, and it is time we acted to prevent more families from being harmed. Our government has risen to this challenge, putting forward a plan to help parents and children. Bill C-63, the online harms act, would create safety measures that would save lives. The Conservatives are now the only roadblock to making the bill a reality in Canada.

The safety of our children should not be political. Can the Minister of Justice please discuss the importance of this critical legislation and why we need it passed now?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, children in Canada are just not safe online. Our government wants to join the many countries that have now adopted online safety regulations, yet the Conservatives are preventing our online harms act from moving forward. Shockingly, they are blocking our efforts to remove child sex abuse material from the Internet. How disgusting.

Can the justice minister please describe the importance of Bill C-63 to parents and children, and explain why Canadians so urgently need this law now?

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Mr. Speaker, our government takes the safety of children seriously. That is why we put forward a comprehensive plan to bring Canada into the 21st century and change our online world, making it safer for kids and better for all. The Conservatives are blocking the plan, and they are standing in the way of a better future for our kids online.

Parents want the online harms act. Experts want the online harms act. Can the Minister of Justice explain why Bill C-63 must be passed to keep our kids safe?

John Horgan

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Mr. Speaker, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion, given that Bill C-63, the so-called—

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Parkdale—High Park, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

Regarding Bill C-63, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for—

Industry and Technology

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, the member raises a very important issue about the Internet, and threats on the Internet, in a number of ways. He spent a great deal of his time focused on Bill C-27, and understandably so since that is what the motion is about. The government has taken a very holistic approach in dealing with all aspects of the Internet in the form of legislation and regulations.

Quite often in legislation, we see a framework that is absolutely essential to support healthy and strong regulations that, ultimately, protect the interests of Canadians. It has been somewhat frustrating, as the member was frustrated when talking about what is taking place in committees; on the floor of the House of Commons, it has also been frustrating. The member referred to Bill C-27 being held up in committee, but he tried to put the blame on the government.

One of the biggest differences between the government today and the government while Stephen Harper was prime minister is that we are very open to ideas, constructive criticism, and looking at ways we can improve legislation. That means we have been open to amendments and changes. There have been a number of recommendations, but there was also an extensive filibuster on Bill C-27. It was not just government members but opposition members, much like we see filibusters taking place now on other aspects of the safety of Canadians.

For seven or eight weeks now, there has been a Conservative filibuster on the floor of the House of Commons, and there are other pieces of legislation dealing with the Internet that the Conservatives continue to filibuster. I am referring to Bill C-63, which deals with things such as intimate images being spread on the Internet without consent and child exploitation. We are talking about serious issues facing Canadians, including Bill C-63, that we cannot even get to committee because the Conservative Party has made the decision to filibuster on the floor of the House of Commons.

When the member opposite talks about Bill C-27, I can assure the member that the government is very keen on the legislation. We do not see how Canadians would benefit by splitting the legislation because both aspects are really important to Canadians. We should look at where it can be improved and we are open to that. We have clearly demonstrated that, but we need a higher sense of co-operation, whether dealing with Bill C-63 in the chamber or Bill C-27 at committee. Bill C-26 deals with cybersecurity. As I said, the government is very aware of what is happening on the Internet and our responsibility as legislators to advance legislation that helps establish a framework that will protect the interests of Canadians.

Earlier, I referred to a trip I took to the Philippines in the last five days. One of the companies we visited was a Canadian company, Open Text, that employs 1,500-plus people. We sat in a room that had this huge monitor of the world, and Open Text talked about how threats to infrastructure and to individuals occur every second. We are talking about a trillion type of number when it comes to computer threats occurring on a monthly basis. Open Text can tell where they are coming from and where they are going. It was a very interesting presentation.

No government has invested more in issues around AI than this government has, recognizing the potential good but also the extreme harm out there. We can think about different types of data banks. There are government data banks, such as Canada Revenue at the national level and health care records at the provincial level. There are the Tim Hortons, the private companies, and the data they acquire in their applications. The amount of information about Canadian individuals on the Internet is incredible. Technology has changed the lives of each and every one of us, whether we know it or not.

We can take a look at the number of cameras on our public streets, in malls and so on. We can think of the number of interactions we have on a daily or weekly basis, whether that is banking, which contains very sensitive information, or medical reports—

Carbon Pricing

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, a lot of questions have been about what the NDP is doing in terms of supporting parliamentary process. Let me talk about one thing that is very salient for today.

Today is December 6, the anniversary of 35 women being shot down in cold blood at École Polytechnique. What the NDP is doing is supporting a bill on the floor of the chamber that would help tackle the root causes of violence against women. What am I talking about? I am talking about radical misogyny that starts online.

Bill C-63, the online harms act, would help us target misogyny at its core. That is something that every member of Parliament needs to get behind, and we need to do it now because time is wasting on keeping women safe.

Justice

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, on this side of the House, we have a plan to combat hate in our country. That includes a national strategy to combat hate, as well as Bill C‑63, which is on the radicalization that happens online. We know that radicalization starts with feelings and ends with acts of violence in the real world. That is what we are targeting with Bill C‑63.

Bill C‑63 targets the very same sections of the Criminal Code that the Bloc Québécois bill seeks to address. We are perfectly happy to co-operate with the Bloc Québécois to combat hate.

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the Bloc Québécois member's question.

We are well aware of what was suggested in the Bloc Québécois's bill. On this side of the House, we are in favour of any effort to combat hatred, particularly the anti-Semitism that we are seeing in Quebec and across Canada.

We could work together to improve or amend our own bill on online harm, Bill C‑63, which is already before the House. We are perfectly willing to work with the Bloc Québécois in that regard.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand in the House to talk about SDTC and the green slush fund, because this gives us an opportunity to look at what is happening here in Canada. My friend from York—Simcoe talked about the way the government is working, or not working, I should say, or is working in a bad direction. My speech focuses on where the loss of trust is, how we have this loss of trust and why we have this loss of trust.

Over the last nine years, we see there have been so many things that have made Canadians, who voted for Liberals in 2015, say that they cannot trust the government anymore. The green slush fund is just another example of why Canadians have lost trust and hope.

What is the green slush fund and why was it created in the first place? When we look at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, we have to look at its mandate. Its mandate was to help Canadian companies develop and deploy sustainable technologies by delivering critical funding support at every stage of the journey. This sounds great. It is something we need, and for decades we did have it.

In the last six years, there was $836 million spent on green start-ups. I am not against any of that, but the issue I have here is there were also 186 projects that had conflicts of interest. When I talk about loss of trust in the government, that is where I really want to focus. We, as a party and as opposition, have been asking for these documents for months.

Last December, in 2023, when the whistle-blowers came forward and talked about what was happening and how this money was being distributed, things started happening. We saw a freezing of the slush fund. The money is not available, which, in turn, is causing a lot of problems for people who are actually running legitimate businesses, who are not able to get the payments they expected and are not able to get the assistance from the government that would help them. However, because the government was allowing people to be eligible for truly ineligible reasons, those payments did not move forward.

We can talk about the conflicts of interest. We can talk about whether it was the CEO or board chair, but we can look at the conflicts of interest that were occurring in SDTC as well. This all goes back to looking at accountability and transparency, which is something we have seen very little of over the last nine years. For a Prime Minister who was going to have sunshine and said that everything was going to be fine and that they were going to be clear, accountable and transparent, which is what he was running on in 2015, that is exactly the opposite of what we see here in 2024.

The loss of hope is one of the biggest challenges we are having here in Canada. When I had this opportunity to speak on this motion, I spoke to my friend from Oshawa. He was talking about what we can talk about, because he was looking at the censorship issues here in Canada. There are Bill C-63 and some of the other things the government has come out with, like with Bill C-11 and Bill C-18, which are just a whole bunch of bills that come together that continue to impact Canadians negatively.

My friend from Oshawa was talking about censorship. I thought I would talk about trust and hope and how this is just another example of how Canadians have lost trust in the government and have lost hope for the future. When we look at the data, it is very clear. We see the data between 2014 and 2024. People ask where the hope is and what can they see for their futures. As a mom of five, and I am very proud of being a mom of five, I am now watching my children, who are between the ages of 21 and 30, asking what the world is going to look like for them. How are they going to get ahead? I will add more to that.

I think it comes down to something very simple. If we look as of 11 a.m. today, we had $1.356 trillion in debt here in Canada. This number makes me very queasy, knowing that just 10 years ago, under the Harper government in 2014, our debt was $648 million. That is $648 million compared to $1.3 billion in nine years, which is just absolutely ludicrous. We know that is just wasteful spending and unaccountable spending as well.

Things like the current number of people working in Canada and the GDP are all data points we need to look at when we are talking about the economy and why we are talking about things not working. If we do not have a strong economy, everything starts falling apart. We have to look at the economy as a piece of this puzzle that has created so many drastic problems for people. On employment specifically, we have seen a decrease in employment. In Canada, as of October 2024, we currently have 33,977,000 people working, which is 60.6% of the population.

Just 10 years ago, we had 61.6% of the population working, which was over 28,930,000. This matters because at the end of the day, it is those people who are employed and paying taxes on their employment or pensions or whatever it may be, who are putting back into the system. It is really important that we have people out there working because it also adds to our GDP.

I had a great conversation about this with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. We were talking about what the GDP looks like and why it is important to understand the GDP-to-population ratio. When I talk about the number of people working being down to 60.6% from 61.6% just a decade ago, we then have to look at where our GDP is, and that is where these numbers become astounding. I compared the numbers for Canada, looking at 2014 to 2024, but also looked at GDP in the United States. I am not looking at total GDP, but looking at the increase because that is giving us the hope for prosperity. When people see an increase in our GDP that looks healthy, they know that there is hope for their businesses, for their future, for their employment and for their children's future as well.

In 2014, we saw a 2.87% GDP growth rate. In the United States, it was very similar at 2.52%. Today, when we are looking at the data, it is not a full year, but in 2024, our GDP growth rate right now is 1.34%, compared to the U.S. at 2.77%.

If we want to look at entire years, in 2023, we can look at Canada at 1.25% compared to the U.S. at 2.89% in 2023. When GDP growth rate is down, that is when people start losing great hope. What are they going to do when it comes to employment? How are their businesses going to survive? In the last few weeks, we have had many discussions with the people in my riding talking about how they are going to survive if we cannot have good public policy and legislation and the United States is talking about putting a 25% tariff on items coming from Canada. For people within my constituency, the moment that was announced, the phone started ringing. In my riding and in many areas of Canada, we are exporting 80% of our goods.

I spoke earlier to a gentleman who builds scoreboards, so we can watch some of those great NCAA scoreboards and know that they were built in London, Ontario. Eighty per cent of his markets are U.S. high schools and universities. If there is a 25% tariff, his business will close, so we have to make sure that the government is doing the right thing. That is what we have seen over the last week and a half.

Down in the United States, they talked about our leader, but, honestly, looking at the current government on its last leg, or actually on its last toe, it is really hard to know that it is doing the negotiating for the future of Canada when we do not feel confident in our own economy and our own strength. Therefore, when we are sending team Canada down to the United States, we need to make sure team Canada has some very strong representatives from the Conservative Party. When we become the government, we need to make sure that we have a very strong relationship so people like Jeff in my riding do not lose their entire business because of bad policies and relationships with the United States. It really comes down to the importance of making sure we have those trade relationships, making sure we have good policy, and making sure that our economy will continue to have drive.

Going from those GDP numbers, we have to look at other issues. Here in Canada, we are currently at a birth rate of 1%, which does not replace our Canadian population. We need 2.1% for replacement. For me, I step back and say that I have done my job; I have five kids and I am doing really well. I step back and think, why are other people not having children? For me, it is pretty darn simple. I can sit there and look at my own children. My son, who is 28 years old, is running his own business and I absolutely love what he is doing, but it is difficult starting. As a starter-business owner, he can do a great job, but then he also has to pay for his rent and his food and everything else. For him, it would probably be better right now to get a part-time job and have his actual career on the side so that he can pay for the groceries and pay for rent.

The way that this economy is right now, when people are paying almost $2,000 a month for rent and utilities, it is darn hard to get ahead. I feel bad when I say to my kids that I paid $220 a month in 1991 when I was in university to live in the worst place ever in a London residence when I was at Western University.

I have friends whose children are paying $1,600 a month just to live in a four-bedroom house or apartment. Mine was $220 a month. We have to look at the debt load being applied to our children.

We are seeing a rate of 1% increase. We know that the cost of student debt has increased. In 2014, when people were graduating, it was about $12,800 for student debt. Now in 2024, it is way over $30,000. We are not using the data on the rent increases that we have seen on many of our students who are using the food banks.

Why are we having these issues? It is because we have a government that does not spend wisely and continues to increase our debt for future generations to try to dig out of.

When I am looking at the cost to our students, 10 years ago student debt was a little over $12,000. Now I look at students in 2024 with a $30,000 debt load trying to rent an apartment starting at $2,000. Can members imagine trying to pay off student debt, get food in the cupboards and actually pay the rent. If they want a car and insurance, well, holy cow, they would need to be lucky.

I look at the people who live in my riding, which is very rural. People need a car to drive from home to work. There is no public transportation, nor is there really a business plan for that at this time because of the population and how few people would be using that.

We have to look at our children today, who have these exorbitant costs, whether they are paying taxes, and we have this great debt of $1.3 trillion, or whether they are paying for food, and the cost of inflation. It is very difficult for our children to move forward.

I am going to talk about my son who is hopefully going to be a plumber soon. He had taken a few years off school and then decided to go into plumbing. The opportunities for him in plumbing are endless. People say, “Hey, you're an apprentice? Great, we'd love to take you on.” We are looking, all the time, for people to have these opportunities.

I think of my son and the fact is that he will probably have a job in about six months. Fantastic, but I bet it will take a long time for him to actually get out of my basement. After becoming a plumber, how would he pay to get into a house or to rent something, when he still has to buy his food and all of those things? He will be very fortunate because he is not going to have student debt.

That is very unlikely for the majority of the population in this country. He will still have the extraordinary costs of buying tools and supplies. Plumbing is not a cheap job to start off with, so starting his own business will be very very difficult.

Once again, the idea of being able to say, “I have got a job. I have graduated from school. I am going to go forward. I am going to get married. I am going to have children. I am going to have that white picket fence,” those dreams that we talked about in the 1980s, they are so gone for this group of people that are part of Generation Z.

It is going to be difficult because when we look at productivity, it is one of our greatest challenges. We are going through a mental health crisis. I urge everybody to read this book that I have read called, The Anxious Generation. It is talking about Gen Z and what they are going through. I love to read it and ask myself, what am I doing, and how am I screwing up my kids?

I was listening to one colleague last night who talked about Dallas and Dynasty. He was talking about the government being very much like that, and having amnesia. Those were good years.

I think of the stress that my own children and all of their friends are looking at in 2024. When I graduated from university, my debt load was probably about $6,000 or $7,000, very minimal compared to what people are going out with now. I was also able to buy a house when I was 25 years old for $122,000. I was also able to get a job and, this is the best part, that paid $12 an hour, but that was okay because it actually paid the bills. That $12 an hour, back in 1993, after graduating, paid the bills. It paid for my house.

Now we have lost hope. We have lost hope for this future. I look at my five kids and I love them to pieces. I do not know how many of them will be moving home when it comes to trying to find affordable living.

That is very difficult for me as a parent, thinking about what I did or did not do to set them up properly. It is not that I do not think I have set them up properly. They have been in great school systems. They have had amazing teachers over the years and amazing opportunities, but when it comes to them actually stepping outside the house, going and buying their own things, trying to create their own credit limit and trying to rent a place, mom and dad are very necessary. That is what we are seeing with this generation: Those in generation Z are really having to depend on their families, their parents. We have a generation of people, my generation, who are not only paying for their own bills but also helping their children out. The children cannot afford to pay for bills right now, with the cost of living and with their own student debts. This is something that we did not see 20 and 30 years ago. We now see that hope lost.

Those are the things that I think of when we are looking at the green slush fund and we are looking at where the government is and asking about what has gone wrong. We can say that it is poor direction, poor administration and poor ideas. There are ideas where we are throwing out money, but we should ask what we are actually sometimes getting in return. We have talked about very many social programs. Some have had a positive impact, and some have had a negative impact. I would really love to see what the cost rationale is for some of these things. For every dollar spent, are we actually leveraging a better Canada, or are we just throwing our money away? Those are the concerns I have.

We look at the birth rate of 1%; we are trying to get a new workforce in this country and not being able to do that. We look at our extravagant student debt load. We look at the rate of people being employed in Canada, which is less than 60% right now; many of those are people paying bills so that other people can have benefits. We are looking at our GDP being at less than 1.25% right now. These things do not give us a lot of hope. They do not give the businesses that are trying to get into business more hope either.

That is why I wanted to talk at the last minute on the green slush fund and what it has done to start-ups. We have seen start-ups that have had to drop 30% of their labour force because what they were doing with the government stopped working. Because of the failure of the government on this technology program, which had been existing for over 20 years, we are now seeing technology companies having to decrease. It has actually taken away the competitive nature that was in place for so many years when it comes to technology in Canada. We have taken that away.

Those are some of the greatest concerns that I have moving forward. In the last 20 minutes, I have spoken about how we have seen nine years of the government creating greater debt and less hope for the next generation. We have seen a lot of stress. I do not see it getting better under the government.

We have talked about there needing to be an election. As everybody knows, I plan on retiring. If there is an election tomorrow, I am praying that we win with a Conservative majority. At the end of the day, we need to ensure that we have good programs and fiscal responsibility to get on track. These are things that I have great concerns about. I do not know whether that will be the case if we continue under the government for the next year that we are scheduled for. I can see that our GDP will only continue to decline, our debt will only increase and our hope will only decrease as well.

Justice

[Arif Virani, Liberal, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada]

Mr. Speaker, the numbers are astounding. Hate has risen by 130% in the past few years. It is a problem for all Canadians, including Quebeckers. We are perfectly willing to keep discussing the bill put forward by the Bloc Québécois. However, it is important to note that we already have a bill on the table, Bill C‑63, which addresses the same sections of the Criminal Code. It seeks tougher penalties for people who incite hatred.

All of us must do this work together.