Debates of Nov. 27th, 2023

Alleged Unparliamentary Comments in the House

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, it is.

With all due respect, I chair the public accounts committee and, last week, I cut a member off who was trying to make a point of order and I was reprimanded for not allowing the member to speak. Every member here has the right to raise a point of order and be heard to bring in new information and their perspectives. I was in the chamber last week and we heard the point of order from the hon. member from the NDP; we heard several. I would implore you, Mr. Speaker, to do the same. If members feel they have points of order to bring that will inform your decision, they should be given the right to be heard in this chamber before you rule.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I appreciate the intervention from the member for New Brunswick Southwest.

On points of order, I really do ask members to please exercise great restraint, so that we can move on with the business of the House. We will listen to new information that is important to raise.

The hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to say that I am very proud of my Ukrainian heritage. I am a proud Canadian, I am a patriotic Ukrainian, and everyone in the House knows how passionately I have been defending Ukraine for all these years. For the government House leader, the member of Parliament for Burlington, to actually suggest that any one of us of Ukrainian heritage on the Conservative side would at all be supporting Putin in any way, shape or form is incredibly disappointing. It is gutter politics, and she has taken it to a whole new level. I would ask that the member be reprimanded and forced to apologize in this place, because she has offended all Ukrainians and Canadians and especially everybody in our Conservative caucus for making such an allegation.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Mr. Speaker, I am obviously not going to make a ruling from the chair on this. I did not hear exactly what the member heard. I will review Hansard.

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned with the approach that the opposition is taking on this issue. When the government made other decisions a year or so ago, all sorts of unfair accusations were being made toward the government. The reality—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

The member needs to calm down.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

Order, order.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party en masse last week voted against the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement. As a direct result of that, there have been all sorts of accusations levelled against the Conservative Party for their behaviour. There is nothing wrong with a government minister or others reflecting on that particular vote.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I am being very patient and generous in listening to points of order.

I would ask that the hon. parliamentary secretary get right to the point. That would very helpful to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the point is that the government House leader was responding to the way the Conservative Party voted and it was very much in line with the parliamentary rules of this chamber, as we have witnessed on many other votes where opposition members and, at times, even government members reflect on the manner in which a political party votes. It happens all the time.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Mr. Speaker, on the same point of order, I want to reinforce the comments that Conservatives have made.

I represent the highest percentage of Ukrainians of any of the federal ridings in the country, at 25%. We just all turned our attention to the remembrance of the victims of the Holodomor over the last weekend. Edmonton was the first place in the world to erect a monument to remember those victims and to never forget. President Zelenskyy mentioned that in his visit here.

I have also married into a family where the Ukrainian side has been settled longer than Alberta has been a province and, as members will know because of the geographical breakdown, where most members of Parliament on the Conservative side come from and represent. There is a very high percentage of Ukrainian Canadians on the Prairies and that is why Conservatives have such a strong record of standing up for the strong ties between Ukraine and Ukrainians and Canada and Canadians.

That is why I too, in response to your ruling today, Mr. Speaker, would join the call of my colleague from Yorkton—Melville for her request for clarification and an apology from government members, including the representatives of the Prime Minister, the House's leader's office and their whip, whatever role he has, who just will never miss a chance to stand up and characterize our role—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I thank the hon. member for raising this point. The point was very well made.

The hon. opposition House leader has a quotation that he would like to read into the record, and then we will move on to the rest of the business of the House.

The hon. opposition House leader.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to raise these remarks to you, in light of your ruling. Essentially, what you have ruled is that the member for Miramichi—Grand Lake's statement about another political party, the NDP, as being sympathetic to, or supportive of, Hamas, an organization that is inflicting great cruelty on innocent human lives in the Middle East, rises to the level of being unparliamentary.

Today, in the chamber, the government House leader, in response to a question, asked, “Is it because there is a group of Conservative members of Parliament who are pro-Russia and anti-Ukraine...?”

In the situation with the war in Ukraine, we have a brutal regime led by Vladimir Putin illegally invading a sovereign country, committing atrocities and committing tragic murders of innocent human beings. I would put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that there is tremendous similarity between the parliamentary contexts of the member for Miramichi making a blanket statement about a political party supporting Hamas and the government House leader making an allegation about a political party supporting Vladimir Putin.

In light of your ruling, in which you said that the member for Miramichi now has to personally apologize and withdraw those remarks, we would ask you to look at these remarks and apply the same treatment to the government that you have now imposed on the opposition.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Greg Fergus]

I thank the hon. House leader for reading that statement and I will take that into my consideration. I will come back to the House.

Public Accounts

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 34th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, entitled “Emergency Management in First Nations Communities”.

I believe there will be a dissenting report coming from the official opposition in one moment.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to table the Conservative Party's dissenting report to the Auditor General's report “Emergency Management in First Nations Communities—Indigenous Services Canada”.

I have to congratulate the Minister of Indigenous Services and the department for probably the worst Auditor General's report since Mr. Michael Ferguson's 2017 report on the “incomprehensible failures” of the government. The emergency management report would, I think, be better called “Incomprehensible Failures 2”. It says, “We found that Indigenous Services Canada spent 3.5 times more on responding to emergencies than on supporting First Nations communities to prepare for them. We...found [Indigenous Services has] not addressed problems with preparedness and mitigation that we identified...a decade ago, when we audited this topic in 2013.”

The absence of tangible and immediate actions has jeopardized the lives of indigenous people. Therefore, the Conservatives members of the committee recommend the following. Recommendation 1 is for the Government of Canada to immediately cease all bonuses to every executive who has failed to address the concerns with emergency management in first nations communities. Recommendation 2 is to “[fire] the Deputy Ministers who failed to provide support for First Nations communities to manage emergency services.”

Recommendation 3 is that “[t]he Government take immediate action to complete the necessary infrastructure projects for emergency management”. Recommendation 4 is to “establish mutually agreed-upon evacuation service standards in the jurisdictions that lack such standards”. Recommendation 5 is that the approach of emergency preparedness must be proactive and funds must be allotted likewise. This is correctly meant to rectify the department's spending of three and a half times more money on responding to and recovering from emergencies than actually supporting the communities to prevent or prepare for them.

Recommendation 6 is that “Indigenous Services Canada should work with First Nations to implement a risk-based approach to inform program planning and decisions on where to invest in preparedness and mitigation activities to maximize support to communities at highest risk of being affected by emergencies.” Recommendation 7 is to “[a]cknowledge that it is in Canada's best interest to implement effective Emergency Management in First Nations Communities—Indigenous Services Canada and that it is a priority of this government.” Recommendation 8 is that “[t]he Government identifies and holds a singular government department accountable for the [failures] outlined in the Auditor General's report entitled “Emergency Management in First Nations Communities—Indigenous Services Canada”.

To summarize, stop the photo ops, stop the empty rhetoric and get the bloody job done.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe, if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I will point out to all members that the motion was passed unanimously by members in the public accounts committee.

The motions reads, simply:

That the Thirty-Second Report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented to the House on Thursday, November 9, 2023, be amended to substitute the name of the organization “CATSA” with “The Canadian Transportation Agency” on page four of the report in English, and “ACSTA” with “Office des transports du Canada” on page four in French.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

Public Safety

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to present a petition on behalf of my constituents. I rise for the 27th time on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba, to present a petition on the rising rate of crime.

The NDP-Liberal government has neglected Swan River and its 4,000 rural residents who are impacted by a wave of criminals in their community. One individual in Swan River was responsible for 20 violent offences and 93 service calls in 18 months. This is exactly why the rural community is calling for action in the form of jail, not bail, for violent repeat offenders.

The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies that directly threaten their livelihoods and their community.

I support the good people of Swan River.

Foreign Affairs

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present petition e-4652, which was started by a group of human rights students at Carleton University and signed by nearly 12,000 people.

Petitioners call our attention to the tragic loss of innocent civilian lives in the conflict between Israel and Palestine, as well as the worrying rise in incidents of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in Canada. They call on the Government of Canada to advocate for an immediate ceasefire, to support diplomatic efforts aimed at a peaceful and just resolution to this enduring conflict and to encourage the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.

Employment Insurance

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, we know that Bill C-318, which would amend EI and the Labour Code for adoptive and intended parents to give them time to attach, needs royal recommendation.

I am presenting a petition today in which citizens and residents of Canada call upon the Government of Canada to support adoptive and intended parents by providing a royal recommendation for the bill so parents can have time to attach to their children.

Climate Change

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present what I believe is the 18th petition like this that I have presented. I am not quite as far along as my Conservative colleague across the way.

The petition brings to the government's attention the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's most recent report, which indicates that the next two decades will bring widespread devastation and extreme weather. Petitioners indicate we are certainly feeling this in Canada now with increased flooding, wildfires and extreme temperatures, and that addressing the climate crisis requires a drastic reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

Petitioners therefore call on the Government of Canada to move forward immediately with bold emissions caps for the oil and gas sector that are comprehensive in scope and realistic in achieving the necessary targets that Canada has set to reduce emissions by 2030.

Firearms

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to bring forward to the House a petition from the many citizens of the riding of Skeena—Bulkley Valley, including the communities of Smithers, Terrace and Kitimat. Sadly, their member of Parliament was not interested in bringing forward the petition, which supports law-abiding firearm owners.

Petitioners draw to the attention of the House Commons that the government has attempted to ban and seize the hunting rifles and shotguns of millions of Canadians, that the targeting of farmers and hunters does not fight crime, and that the government has failed those who participate in the Canadian tradition of sport shooting. Therefore, they call on the Government of Canada to stop any and all current and future bans on hunting and sport-shooting firearms.

Questions on the Order Paper

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

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that all questions be allowed to stand at this time.