House of Commons Hansard #386 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was conservatives.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the previous question to the motion for concurrence in the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
I declare the motion carried.
The next question is on the motion to concur in the eighth report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
I declare the motion carried.
I wish to inform the House that because of the deferred recorded divisions, the time provided for Government Orders will be extended by 37 minutes.
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, I am rising because I was named by the Conservative member of Parliament for Thornhill in her question of privilege on Friday, and I would like to set the record straight.
The member for Thornhill's characterization of my involvement in the event is wildly inaccurate and misleading. In her speech, she alleged that I organized the event and that the intention was to shut down Parliament. This is an outright fabrication. On Tuesday morning, I was at the gym. In fact I was exercising with my personal trainer when the member for Thornhill alleges I was occupying the lobby. When I finished my exercise, I left the gym.
Outside the Confederation Building, I did encounter members of the Jews Against Genocide group, and I tweeted, “I was so happy to see @JewsSayNo telling politicians in Ottawa they will not support genocide.” After being gifted with a T-shirt from the group, as a fellow Jew who is against genocide, and posing for a photo outside, I came to the House.
That is the extent of my involvement. For that to be misconstrued as an attempt to block the member's privilege is not only unacceptable but also laughable. All I did was pose for a picture outside after the demonstrators had been removed from the building.
Why should I not express my support for the demonstrators' cause? They are a group of fellow Jews who have expressed serious concerns about the Netanyahu government's violation of international law. Let us remember that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for members of that government as a result of crimes in Gaza, and last week, in a landmark finding, Amnesty International concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
With all due respect, I understand that the member for Thornhill does not agree with the findings, but to try to shut down the demonstrators' right to express their views and to try to shut me down for expressing solidarity for the group is not acceptable. To liken the group to “unhinged mobs that think that their petty grievances allow them to target Jewish neighbourhoods, firebomb Jewish schools, obstruct synagogues and wreak havoc on our Canadian values, while abiding and abetting groups that are designated as terrorists in this country”, as the member did, is completely unacceptable.
The Jewish community is not a monolith. To accuse members of our community in this manner is beyond the pale. Not all members of the Jewish community think the same way, have the same political opinions, have the same lived experience and share the exact same values.
I would like to remind the member that part of the reason I support Jews Against Genocide is that my whole family was killed in the Holocaust. When my grandmother, the only person to survive the concentration camps on both sides of my family, got out, she said she loves everybody. She was a Jew against genocide. My father, who survived the Holocaust as a child in hiding, came out of the war and became a lifelong peace activist and pacifist.
Therefore I feel very compelled today to set the record straight, not just for myself but also for the Jewish community, in honour of my father and in honour of the members of my family who died as a result of war and genocide. I am deeply insulted by the accusations.
Individuals who were at the demonstration have had to face real anti-Semitism, like my family did. They have fought against tropes and memes, including the rise of far-right anti-Semitism online, some of which I experience. They have family members who fled Nazi Germany, like my family did, and who were not so lucky, like my family. Some were denied entry into Canada or were denied services when they did come.
For the demonstrators to face accusations that their demonstration was not only a contempt of the House but was also anti-Semitic is disgusting and borders on anti-Semitism itself. Nobody, including the Conservative member in question, holds the power to tell us what their actions are and whether they are a betrayal of their Judaism.
Speaking for myself, like I said, I am a Jew against genocide. I absolutely support other people in my community who have protested the Netanyahu regime, and I will not be silenced by the Conservative deputy leader just because she does not like those views. As members well know, matters of privilege are very serious things. They ought not to be brought to the House frivolously or lightly, and accusing other members of Parliament of breaching their privilege is very serious—
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
I regret interrupting the hon. member, but a point of order is being raised.
The member will have the full time to present her question of privilege. I am going to entertain the point of order for a minute to hear what the member for Mégantic—L'Érable has to say, and then we will go right back to the question of privilege.
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
Mr. Speaker, I just want to point out to the House that the member had all day yesterday to stand up and make her comments.
Her colleague, the NDP House leader and member for New Westminster—Burnaby, has even stated that comments should be made after you read out your ruling on the question of privilege. I therefore invite my colleague to—
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
I thank the hon. member for his intervention. However, it is traditional for a member facing accusations to rise to speak on a question of privilege before the Speaker makes a ruling on the matter.
I invite the member for Winnipeg Centre to continue her intervention.
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Mr. Speaker, as I have now outlined, before I was rudely interrupted, not only did I not breach the member's privilege but I was not even present at the event that she alleges to have taken place. It is an extremely serious accusation from the member for Thornhill to allege that I breached her parliamentary privilege when I was not even present, and I find it deeply hurtful and problematic that a member can make such an accusation and provide disinformation to the House against a fellow member without a shred of evidence.
I hope that the member, Jew to Jew, apologizes for likening another Jew in the House to a terrorist. I welcome her apology, even if it is in private.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
I thank the hon. member for Winnipeg Centre for her intervention regarding the question of privilege.
Opposition Motion—Repeal of Bill C-5Business of SupplyGovernment Orders
Carleton Ontario
Conservative
Pierre Poilievre ConservativeLeader of the Opposition
moved:
That,
(i) whereas the government's experiment with radical liberalization of drugs has contributed to the deaths of 47,000 Canadians and a 200% annual increase of such deaths compared to 2016,
(ii) whereas of 2024, over 80% of accidental opioid deaths involve fentanyl,
(iii) whereas the reduced sentences for drug kingpins and lax borders contributes to these deaths and threatens our trade relationship with our biggest trading partner and greatest ally,
(iv) whereas CSIS has found that "synthetic drugs are increasingly being produced in Canada using precursor chemicals largely sourced from China" and has identified "more than 350 organized crime groups actively involved in the domestic illegal fentanyl market",
the House call on the government to reverse Liberal Bill C-5; to reinstate longer jail sentences for drug kingpins; ban the importation of fentanyl precursor; buy high powered scanners; put more boots on the ground at our ports to stop fentanyl and its ingredients from coming into our country; and stop buying unsafe supply of opioids.
The Speaker Liberal Greg Fergus
Today being the final allotted day for the supply period ending December 10, the House will proceed as usual to the consideration and passage of the appropriation bill. In view of recent practices, do hon. members agree that the bill be distributed now?
Opposition Motion—Repeal of Bill C-5Business of SupplyGovernment Orders
Some hon. members
Agreed.
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Mr. Speaker, there is a silent killer, relentless and ruthless, marching through our streets. It is stealing breath, stopping hearts, breaking spirits and numbing pain only to multiply it. There is an invisible force, malicious and merciless, taking our loved ones one by one and turning vibrant lives into fading echoes. How do we fight this silent killer, when its poison lingers everywhere in the land? Now, 47,000 Canadians have died of fentanyl overdoses. This is more than died fighting for Canada in the Second World War.
Never before seen homeless camps and drug dens overtake once-beautiful communities, where contorted bodies lie half dead on filthy sidewalks in scenes resembling third world squalor. The government tranquilizes our people with an unsafe supply of tax-funded narcotics, from which those same troubled souls then graduate to even more dangerous drugs.
Such drugs as fentanyl, which is 100 times more potent than heroin, now abound in our streets. We have seen a 200% annual increase in overdose deaths in the last eight years, with the worst death counts massing in British Columbia, where the policies of soft sentences, non-enforcement and taxpayer-funded drug distribution have all been most enthusiastically embraced. We were told that these policies were based on science and data, yet all the science and data have proven these policies lethal and proven the counterfactual, which is to say that the places doing the opposite are far more secure and safe.
Not only is this killer ravaging our streets, but it is now spilling over our borders. In November, the RCMP busted Canada's largest-ever drug superlab, which had 54 kilograms of fentanyl. This is almost triple what the U.S. border patrol seized crossing the border this year. This lab contained enough fentanyl and precursor chemicals to produce more than 95.5 million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl. It also seized 89 firearms, including 45 handguns, 21 AR-style rifles and submachine guns, many of which were loaded and ready for use. All of these guns were easier for criminals and drug kingpins to get than ever before, not in spite of, but because of, the policies of the NDP-Liberal government. Small explosive devices, large amounts of ammunition, firearm silencers, high-capacity magazines, body armour and $500,000 in cold hard cash were all part of the drug bust.
The RCMP said that the lab was believed to be behind the “production, and the distribution of unprecedented quantities of fentanyl, and methamphetamine”. In October, the RCMP seized 33 tonnes, which is to say 66,138 pounds, of chemical precursors used to make the same deadly drugs. The RCMP says Canada is now a producer and exporter of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. In other words, despite our massive consumption of these deadly drugs, we actually produce even more than we consume, and we sell the surplus abroad.
CSIS has identified that more than 350 organized crime groups are actively involved in domestic illegal fentanyl marketing. CSIS says the precursor chemicals are largely sourced from China. Eighty per cent of chemicals used in fentanyl production are actually legal and unregulated in Canada. They can be procured here and imported from China, and even if they were not legal, the head of the border guards recently said that 99% of the incoming shipping containers go completely uninspected. Therefore, it would not even matter if they were banned, because the government would have no way of stopping them from coming in.
Eighty-four per cent of organized crime groups are involved in some aspect of the illicit drug trade, primarily in distribution. Street gangs are involved in the fentanyl trade, and street gang involvement in that trade has more than doubled in five years. U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seizures of fentanyl doses from Canada have gone from 239 kilograms to 839 kilograms. More than three times as much fentanyl was caught in 2023 than in 2024. The U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seized 14 pounds of raw fentanyl in 2022; this has risen to 43 pounds. That, by the way, might not sound like a lot, but 43 pounds of fentanyl is enough to kill almost 10 million people. This illustrates the deadly nature of this poison.
What has the government done in this regard? First of all, it passed Bill C-5, reducing penalties for the murderers who produce and market these drugs. I call them murderers. Members might ask how I know that those producing these drugs have committed murder. The answer is that if we produce fentanyl on a large scale, we know with statistical certainty that we will kill people. There is no doubt that, on a statistical basis, if we are selling 2,000 or 3,000 hits of fentanyl, someone will die as a result of our actions, and we know it.
The government has allowed these murderers to get out of jail and go back to the streets, where they legally import the ingredients that go into this deadly poison. It can then be sold to people who are hopelessly addicted and have no way of getting off the drugs. Simultaneously, the government has found millions of dollars to subsidize the distribution of synthetic opioids that are supposedly used to “reduce harm”.
As my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul will point out, as I split my time with her, there is no doubt that people are graduating from and using the proceeds of these tax-funded opioids to fund the fentanyl trade. While we have had wild inflation in almost every product that is on the market in Canada, one thing that has become vastly cheaper is synthetic opioids, such as the ones the government funds. They have gone down, not because they are cheaper, but because the greatest part of the price is paid through taxpayer-funded subsidies, supposedly to reduce the harm. We now know that this has done precisely the opposite. It not only murders our people but now threatens our livelihoods as our American friends demand swift action to secure the border, to protect their people against the recklessness of the government.
That is why common-sense Conservatives are making proposals to stop the drugs. We call for the repeal of Bill C-5, the law that allows these drug kingpins to go free. We must act to reinstate longer drug sentences for the kingpins, to ban the importation of fentanyl precursors, to buy high-powered scanners, to put more boots on the ground at our ports in order to stop fentanyl and to reinforce that we have a strong border, as we did nine years ago.
It should not have taken Donald Trump to make this point. Our government should have been thinking about our people. It is not because of another president that we should take these actions. It is because we believe that not one more mother should bury her face in her hands out of the heartbreak of losing a child. We must take the swift actions to secure our borders, to lock up the drug murderers, to clear our streets of these toxins and poisons, to invest in treatment and recovery, to bring our loved ones home drug-free and to heal our nation.
Opposition Motion—Repeal of Bill C-5Business of SupplyGovernment Orders
Winnipeg North Manitoba
Liberal
Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons
Madam Speaker, it is shameful, the way in which the leader of the Conservative Party continuously downplays Canada, not only here in the chamber or in Ottawa but across the country and even into the States. Many would argue that he is nothing more than a puppet to President-elect Donald Trump, quite frankly, in the way in which he seems to want to exaggerate situations.
Does the leader of the official opposition know, for example, how many fentanyl deaths there were in the United States in 2023 or 2022, compared to Canada? Does he actually have stats or is he always off the cuff?
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Speaker, the member had no facts of his own, none whatsoever.
This is from a party whose leader is too weak to stand up for our country, who has lost control of our borders and our immigration. I went and met with him to try and help him because he was so weak, and he showed up for the meeting late and dishevelled, as though he had just gotten out of bed. He had no plan whatsoever to defend Canada against the unfair threats of the Americans against our economy and no plan to secure our borders.
That kind of weakness is intolerable at the best of times. It is impossible in these times. We need someone with the brains and backbone to stand up for our country, protect our people against these drugs, secure our borders and bring home the country we knew and still love.
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Madam Speaker, this afternoon, the Leader of the Opposition has been telling us that Bill C‑5 is responsible for the toxic drug crisis, and it sounds like he is serious. He has been telling us that Bill C‑5, which sought to decriminalize simple possession and not penalize addicts or take them to court, would trigger an extraordinary crisis. He has been telling us that Bill C‑5 will let drug lords off the hook. I imagine he knows those people.
Can he name them for us?
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Speaker, the reality is that Bill C‑5 allows drug dealers and producers to serve Netflix sentences and stay out of jail. The Bloc Québécois made a serious mistake by supporting Bill C‑5. That is why the Bloc Québécois had to do a U-turn and support a Conservative bill. I do not know if the member knows which bill he voted for, but he later voted to repeal Bill C‑5.
I do not know if the Bloc Québécois is doing another U-turn now to support Bill C‑5, but the Bloc Québécois supports all the policies that free criminals and all the policies that have resulted in out-of-control crime. The Conservatives' Bill C‑325 will repeal Bill C‑5 and put drug dealers in jail instead of handing them Netflix sentences. That is common sense. I hope the Bloc Québécois stays true to that—
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
The hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Madam Speaker, it is quite clear that the Conservative leader will not let facts get in the way of a good story.
Earlier this year, the Standing Committee on Health visited Vancouver; we were on the ground at the very epicentre of this crisis. We were there for two days, and not one Conservative MP showed up to speak to the people who are dealing with this on a daily basis.
Mark Weber, the head of the Customs and Immigration Union, is on record saying that, to this day, the CBSA is still recovering from the cuts made under the government of Stephen Harper when the current Leader of the Opposition was in cabinet. Will the Leader of the Opposition take responsibility, here and now, for creating the deficit that has led to such an unsafe situation at our ports of entry?
Pierre Poilievre Conservative Carleton, ON
Madam Speaker, the NDP member joins with his boss, the Liberal Prime Minister, to blame the Harper government for the misery that is happening on his own streets. The prior government has not been in power for nine years.
I will point him to the fact that, when we left office, there were almost 2,000 more CBSA officers than there were when we took office. That is an increase, not a decrease. If the NDP knew anything about numbers, they would understand that we had more boots on the ground. In addition, we had far fewer deaths and less crime.
The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes
It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Spadina—Fort York, Public Safety; the hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Natural Resources.
Opposition Motion—Repeal of Bill C-5Business of SupplyGovernment Orders
December 10th, 2024 / 4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Madam Speaker, today we are talking about the deaths of 47,000 Canadians, many of them young people. Forty-seven thousand Canadians have died in the last number of years in drug-related deaths. Two of them, I am going to be talking about today.
Young Brianna MacDonald was 13 years old when she overdosed. She was found in a homeless encampment after having a cardiac arrest. She was 13, still a child. Her parents tried to get her into treatment for months. They could give her free crack pipes from the government, but they could not get treatment for her. There was also Kamilah Sword, 14 years old, who died of a drug overdose. Again, hooked on drugs from the government's so-called safe supply, which I will talk about shortly.
It is 47,000 people, many of them young people, many of them young children. It is all of their parents, their siblings and their friends. Beyond that, it is all the people in drug psychosis who have committed violent acts and the innocent people they have hurt with violent break and enters, sexual assaults and murders. It is all of the crime and mayhem to our small businesses, and the decay in our cities and in our once safe communities.
We have seen, in a very short amount of time in our cities, in our towns, in rural Canada, from coast to coast to coast, this drug crisis wreak havoc on our communities. Innocent young people have died. I have been in this place now for five years, and what have we heard as the solution, the proposal to this radical liberalization of drugs in this country? From the NDP members and the Liberals they support, their solution to all these drug deaths is more drugs, taxpayer-funded government drugs, on a mass scale, with no accountability.
What is really tragic is that, for this taxpayer-funded so-called safe supply, there is really nothing safe about it. Totally predictably, it is being diverted to vulnerable people, to young people. A drug addict, someone addicted to drugs, will go and get their so-called safe supply from the taxpayer. They will be provided many pills.
What has been happening is that drug dealers will wait outside the pharmacy. The person addicted to drugs will come out with their so-called safe supply and sell it to the drug dealer for either harsher drugs, like heroin or fentanyl, or for cash so they can buy some food, some cigarettes, alcohol or whatever it might be, another substance. They are taking the government safe supply and they are exchanging it with a drug dealer for something harsher. The drug dealer is then taking this so-called safe supply to kids, for example, and saying, “Oh, it is safe. It is government regulated. It will be a nice high.”
The government and taxpayers are funding the new gateway drug for kids, which has killed Kamilah Sword, Brianna MacDonald and thousands more young people in this country. The National Post and others have done phenomenal investigative journalism on this, and when they visited Kamilah Sword's community, they talked to many of her friends.
I will call one of her friends “Hannah”. It is not her real name. She said that kids aged 11 to 17 in this young lady's circles, kids who should be watching cartoons and having snacks after school, were using taxpayer-funded drugs they bought off drug dealers. Some are 11 years old. Of course, these drug dealers glamorize it saying, “Oh, it will be great. It will be fun.” They downplay the risks.
Hannah said that, once they get you hooked on this safe supply, then they push heroin. They are pushing it on 11 year olds and 13 year olds. This how we have Ms. MacDonald ending up dead, having a heart attack. They start on something that is so-called safe and then end up dead on fentanyl.
One of Kamilah's friends' mothers said that she had never met so many teenagers who were drug addicts before, and that a huge majority of teens were using because it was so easily available. She is talking about government safe supply. She said she had to pull her daughter out of that community because it was just so readily available, so tempting. In order to save her daughter's life, she had to pull her out of the community. That is a brave mom and a strong mom, but not all parents are able to do that, not all parents have that ability.
We are also seeing the vulnerability of first nations. Another young woman who was interviewed was a first nations woman. Her name was Jennifer and she was talking about how drug dealers are, same thing, taking these safe supply drugs, massive amounts of them, and selling them for dirt cheap on first nations reserves to vulnerable kids. As if they did not have enough issues to deal with, now there is a flood of taxpayer-funded government safe supply. It is wrong what is being done. It is so wrong that doctors are starting to speak out.
In fact, one is Dr. Michael Lester, a Toronto-based addictions physician. Again, this is Dr. Lester's specialty. He said, “I had several patients who were drug-free for a long time and just couldn’t resist the temptation of this very cheap hydromorphone”, which is the safe supply, “that was now on the street.”
He also said, “Every addiction medicine doctor I’ve spoken to has told me that, on a daily basis in their offices, they’re dealing with diverted hydromorphone, either from new clients coming in addicted to it, or patients of theirs that are using it as a drug of abuse.” It is just so readily available and it is so tempting to people struggling to try to move on from their addictions that doctors are saying that what they are seeing is completely unacceptable.
It is getting so bad that the B. C. government actually had to reverse course. The B.C. government had asked the Liberals, who would gladly help, to decriminalize things like small possession. However, we know that it was not small possession as the possession amount could have killed hundreds of people with things like fentanyl. The B.C. government decriminalized toxic drugs like heroin, fentanyl and meth for just over a year before the public outrage and the disorder that it caused forced the B.C. government to move back and ask the Liberals to help them with that.
This is really wild, but it is just in line with all of this. In that same psychotic government policy year, the top doctor in B.C., Dr. Bonnie Henry ordered vending machines at ERs and hospitals not for Pepsi, Coke or a granola bar, but for free crack pipes. Someone would be walking into an ER with a horrible injury and pass a free crack pipe. They could just get one on their way out like a goody bag.
Obviously, the public outrage on both of these things was fierce, and rightfully so, and both of these things have now been pulled back, thankfully. However, it just shows how far the government is ready to go. That is the reality of where these policies are going.
The people responsible for all of these deaths, over 47,000 deaths, the drug dealers, the drug traffickers, the drug importers and exporters who are bringing in the ingredients and importing the drugs, the ones who are producing the drugs in the meth labs and then of course those pushing them on people, that is, drug importers, drug producers and drug dealers, have a lot of blood on their hands. We should be taking strong measures to ensure that they are punished. A message should be sent to all the other ones that, if they do this, they will be punished and go to jail for a long time. That is what we should be doing or, we would think, that is what would be the case already.
That was the case. There was mandatory prison time for drug trafficking, for drug importing and for drug production. There was, and then the Liberals came along and brought forward Bill C-5, despite all of those deaths.
Do members want to know what Bill C-5 did? It eliminated mandatory prison time for drug traffickers, drug producers and drug importers. All of the people responsible for killing over 47,000 people and causing unbelievable mayhem and destruction in our communities no longer have mandatory prison times. It has been repeated over and over again that Bill C-5's specific goal was that fewer people would go to prison.
Those people are murderers. They are the reason that Kamilah Sword, 14 years old, is dead and Brianna MacDonald is dead. Under a Conservative government, there will be justice for these young women. There will be justice for the 47,000 people who have been killed by these drug traffickers, importers and producers. They will be held accountable.
The porous border we have seen over the last number of years under the government will also be shored up. Did members know that after nine years of the Liberal government, less than 1% of the containers we bring in, all of our shipments, all of our Amazon orders, all of our produce, is checked? That is where guns, drugs and precursors to drugs are coming in. It is less than 1%.
Our approach will be to take the border seriously, invest in scanning technology and hold the monsters who are responsible for killing these 47,000 people and causing destruction and mayhem in our communities responsible for that. They will have to pay for what they have done. They will go to jail, hopefully for a very long time under a Conservative majority government. Rest assured.