Debates of Dec. 5th, 2024

Opposition Motion—Confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, we actually have spoken extensively about what we are going to do, and the first thing we are going to do is axe the tax. That is going to put more money in the pockets of young adults to be able to afford a home, after they are able to afford to feed themselves.

What really gets me is that if the second opposition party and the third opposition party really, really believe that this is the right thing to do, then why not call a carbon tax election and let Canadians make the decision?

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services]

Madam Speaker, the member mentioned political games. I know we are in minority Parliament status. It is all I have ever known as a member of the House, which some might say is dysfunctional by nature, but there have been moments when we have been able to work together, collaborate and put the best interests of Canadians at the forefront.

How much have the Conservative games in the House cost Canadians while their Parliament has been frozen?

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, I had to say “political games” because that is, quite frankly, what we saw this morning from the NDP, supported by the Liberals. I hate calling them political games outside the chamber, because it involves people's lives. Let us get the truth out on the floor and let us hand the matter over so we can get on with business. Instead, the Liberals are dragging their feet through the mud; they are holding up the important business of government and stopping people from getting ahead.

[Dan Muys, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is great to hear from my colleague from Essex on all of his great insights, and it is great to see him back in this place.

We are here to debate a motion of non-confidence in the Prime Minister and the current government, because the workers of Canada are hurting. Workers and Canadians are struggling. In the words of the leader of the NDP, “The Liberals are too weak, too selfish and too beholden to corporate interests to fight for people”.

The leader of the NDP also said, “The Liberal government will always cave to corporate greed, and always step in to make sure the unions have no power.” We agree, which is why we put forward this motion and why the NDP needs to stop propping up the Liberal government and vote non-confidence with us. That is what workers want. That is what Canadians want. They want a carbon tax election now.

We saw in the Statistics Canada report on Friday just how much Canadian workers and Canadians are suffering after nine years of the Prime Minister backed up by the NDP. StatsCan reported that Canada's GDP per capita has declined for six consecutive quarters. In other words, our standard of living is falling, especially when compared to south of the border. There is now a $33,000 per year difference in income per person between Canada and the U.S., according to the IMF. Add to this the punishing carbon tax in Canada, and those workers' paycheques are stretched even further.

Food bank use in Canada reached 2 million, and 18% of those are workers. That is shameful. The very inflationary tax policies of the Liberals, which have been supported all the way along by the NDP, have caused this cost of living crisis and are making Canadian workers and Canadians poorer. It is no wonder that in 2023 we saw the highest number of work stoppages and interruptions in Canada since 1983, which is 40 years, because when inflation is running rampant and the cost of living is out of control, workers rightly need more to get by, to support their families. They are fighting for better wages everywhere.

While statistics paint a damning picture of the economic carnage being inflicted on Canadians by the NDP-Liberal coalition, beyond the statistics are real people, real workers and their stories. I remember speaking to steelworkers on the floor of Stelco last winter. Of course, that is in Hamilton, and Hamiltonians have a reputation for grit, determination and hard work. It is the Hammer, after all, and nowhere is that more evident than on the floor of Stelco.

These workers work hard day in and day out to produce the steel that is so instrumental to our economy. It is hot, heavy work, but it should also be rewarding work. These are union workers, members of the United Steelworkers. A steelworker named Travis talked to me about how difficult it is as a young person to make ends meet. He has a good union job with good wages and benefits, but inflation, taxes and housing costs are taking an increasingly larger bite out of his paycheque. He also worries that his colleagues who have young families are in an even tougher spot.

Travis was not alone. Others that same day recounted the same story. The cost of living crisis has been a kick in the teeth, and they cannot afford to pay the increases they are seeing in their mortgage renewals, their rent, their groceries, filling up the truck or car to get to work, or heating their home.

Last month, I talked to union workers alongside the leader of the Conservative Party at the Boilermakers Local 128, as well as UA Local 67, which represents journeymen, pipefitters, plumbers and their apprentices. Their training hall is located in my constituency of Flamborough—Glanbrook. We also talked to LiUNA construction workers and others. These are the workers who build this country and are building our economy. Canada needs more of these skilled workers, but they need a government that has their back, which is why we introduced this motion today.

I think about my grandfather, who was a proud union member. My Opa Blok was a carpenter. He came to Canada from the Netherlands in 1949, at the end of the Second World War, in search of a better future for himself and his family. He braved a new land and a new language, and he came a year before bringing the rest of his family. My mother was five when they finally came. Opa worked hard and saved up. As a carpenter, he joined the union, because it offered him good wages and modest benefits at that time for him and his family. He was always a staunch supporter of the unions, because unions built the middle class. Our family is an example of that.

Opa was also a card-carrying member of the NDP for almost 30 years. I wonder what Opa would think today about the NDP under the leadership of the current leader. The NDP has unwaveringly supported a Liberal government that has violated workers' rights to strike, that is increasing the cost of living for that middle class. I think it is safe to say the NDP under its current leader is no longer my grandfather's NDP.

My mom was also a union member, for her entire 45-year career as a registered nurse in Hamilton, working at various hospitals. My brothers and I were fortunate to grow up in a middle-class household. While we did not always get everything we wanted, my mom's union job as a nurse and my dad's work in the trades as a bricklayer allowed us the middle-class dream of Canada.

I contrast that to the conversations I had on the floor of Stelco that day and in the union halls in the Hamilton area in the time since. The middle-class dream of Canada is slipping away for workers, for people. What is ironic about the leader of the NDP is that he talks a big game, saying, “the Liberals are too weak”, yet he is the one keeping the Prime Minister in power. He is the one supporting the very policies that are making life so unaffordable, especially the carbon tax, which the NDP has supported 24 times.

When workers, through their unions, demand more to pay their mortgages and their rents, to pay for their groceries and their gas, to sustain that modest middle-class living on their hard work, when they also fight for safety and the gains they have made in safety, as the Teamsters did this summer, the Liberals have shut down their strikes, shut down their job actions.

While the NDP leader has called this out, that same leader and his caucus voted confidence in the Liberal government twice earlier this fall. With the motion we have brought forward today, the NDP has a chance to do something about it. Let us vote down the government.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being 5:38 p.m., it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the business of supply.

The question is on the motion.

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.

[Chris Lewis, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Madam Speaker, we request a recorded division.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until Monday, December 9, at the expiry of time provided for oral questions.

The House resumed from December 4 consideration of the motion, of the amendment as amended and of the amendment to the amendment.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Jamil Jivani, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the member for York—Simcoe's speech, he mentioned how the Liberal government is no longer working for the best interests of Canadians. I know he has been working for some time on getting the Minister of Transport to prohibit the development of the so-called Baldwin East aerodrome in Georgina, which appears to be a cash crop operation for contaminated fill. This is an issue I know well, as illegal dumping in my community of Durham occurring at the Greenbank airport under the guise of aerodrome development.

Could my colleague give us an update on this issue?

[Scot Davidson, Conservative, York—Simcoe, ON]

Madam Speaker, sadly, this is the problem. With the current government, there is no update. We have been trying over three years, and four transport ministers, to put a stop to this illegal fill that is going on at an aerodrome. This company, with directors who have been charged and convicted for illegally dumping fill, has purchased land under the guise of an aerodrome, if members can believe it. However, the government now is not answering letters from my constituents and not answering emails.

Like I said, the current transport minister is the fourth. This is the Liberal government doing business badly for Canadians. It is absolutely shameful the government is not getting back to their member of Parliament and Transport Canada is not addressing this issue.

Unfortunately, to my colleague from Durham, there is no update that the government can give at this time, after three years.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I am not quite sure whether that question and answer had anything to do with the question of privilege, but I will move on now to resuming debate with the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London.

[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.

[Jenica Atwin, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indigenous Services]

Madam Speaker, I certainly have a ton of respect for my hon. colleague, and we will miss her in this place when she decides to retire. She mentioned the anxious generation. I too am very worried about this generation and, moving forward, its prospects; however, a big missing piece was its concerns about the environment. That is what I hear about a lot in my riding from constituents.

I know that the Conservatives want to end the carbon pricing mechanism, which is actually the most cost-effective way to bring down emissions. We would lose the rebates as well, but then what? I really would love to know what is in store for an environmental plan for this country. Should we end what we have been doing to lower emissions? What kind of hope will that offer for the next generation?

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

Madam Speaker, I will be honest. I have heard many people talk about the environment; it is important. It is important to me and to everybody in this chamber. However, it may look a little different in terms of the way we approach it. We had a great way of dealing with issues over 20 years. When we look at such things as the green slush fund, this is how we lose faith in what the government is doing. When the government asks us to support its carbon tax approach, we can talk about what it has done with the green slush fund and any other program it has had. That is not fiscal responsibility.

We can talk about the fact that people get rebates, but rebates only come after people have given their money forward. It is like giving a gift and then getting it back. It is great to refer to eight out of 10 families, but if we continue to read the data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the data indicates that this information is not actually accurate. I have farmers who are paying over $11,000 a month. If members want to know why the price of food is going up, it is because there has been this increase on such things as grains and oilseeds at the very start of the food process.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I listened intently to my hon. colleague. I noticed that she hardly read a single word, which is extraordinary, and I did not hear a single slogan. What we need in the democratic system are people who bring the life experiences that she brings to the House. I am very sorry that she is going to be leaving soon, and I share her concern about the younger generation.

I am leaving too, and one of the reasons is that my daughter, with her beautiful little tea shop, moved home and I am her low-level carpenter and schlep. Again, we support our young ones because they are facing economic uncertainty that we did not face.

However, I would ask the member, because of her expertise and we are losing her, about this. I have spoken many times about my concern about encouraging people to join democracy. This is not a good time to be in democracy; there is so much hate in that. However, has she thought, in her future life, and I do not know what she is going to do, of trying to be a mentor? With that kind of speech, she could be a mentor to her own caucus. That would be a good place to start, but I am thinking in general, because that was a really well-positioned speech.

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

Madam Speaker, I thank the member very much for that compliment. It was a little offside, but I thank him very much.

I am really proud of the work that we can do here as parliamentarians, and I know that, when I am back in my community, mentorship is something that I will be doing. I am part of a program, the Jean Collective, with Helen Cole and people like her who are doing great work in Sarnia, where we are getting over 350 young women together to talk about how to get involved in politics and involved in their communities. I also think of the work that has been done with Equal Voice, and there is a lot we can do. However, it is not just politicians but the general public.

Politics is a very different place to be, regardless of who someone is. If mentorship is part of it, then we need to teach our people how to be honest and how to get the job done, which is something that we have not seen in the last little bit.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Madam Speaker, I want to pay my respects to my colleague on the great speech she gave, based on her experience over the last nine years that she has served her constituents here in the House of Commons and in her riding.

The member has pointed out that the next generation, unfortunately, will face some very serious challenges. The next generation expects leaders to do their job conscientiously and honestly. In the case of the green fund under discussion today, the focus of our debate, three out of four projects failed to meet the basic rules of ethics. More than $390 million of a $500-million budget was mismanaged. This means that 78% was managed all wrong, and four out of five projects broke the rules of ethics.

How can we inspire confidence with a record like that?

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

Madam Speaker, that is a great question, but the fact is that we have lost trust. It is not how we can get trust; we have lost trust.

What I always say to people is that we can hurt and impact people, and they may not be bruised anymore, but they are scarred. I think that this government has really scarred a lot of people. They may feel a little bit better, but they have lost that trust, like being in a bad relationship for many years. I appreciate that question, but it is time for this government to go.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Madam Speaker, I have had the honour of being able to work, in some instances, with the member. I was able to participate in a committee that she chaired, and I will say that she showed us an example of how to do work across party lines and how important that is.

I am sorry if this is a little bit aside from the speech that the member was giving, but I would love for her to share, following my colleague's question as well, a little more on some of the work that she was doing around how important it is that we see more women entering federal politics. There was an entire report that talked about the barriers to women entering politics in general, which was done through the committee that she worked on.

Can she please share a couple of the things that should be done so that we can see a more representative Parliament?

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

Madam Speaker, I think of some of the work that I have done as a parliamentarian, whether it was going down to the Ontario legislature or speaking to people across the globe at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and doing some work there.

I believe that it does not just have to be women. Men are also excellent mentors. I think of my own mentor, Joe Preston, who was a member of Parliament here from 2004 to 2015. That man changed my life because he believed in me. I think we have all had that opportunity. There has always been somebody who has pushed us into this, so it is up to all of us to continue on with that mentorship.

It does not matter whether one is in politics or in business. It is giving a hand up to some of those people who just need a break. Sometimes it is in apprenticeship programs, and sometimes it is politics. Mentorship and leadership is what we need to do. That is what our generation should be doing right now.

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

Madam Speaker, I know this is off topic, but I want to take the opportunity to thank the member for her jovial spirit I have always been witness to. We can spar in the House, but when we walk out into the hallway she has always been so friendly and easy to talk to. She is not running again, so I want to say I am going to certainly miss her spirit around here, believe it or not. I hope we will cross paths one day again.

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

I have so many comments on that, Madam Speaker. I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands so much. I recall being on PROC with him. It was a really good time. We got nothing done for 73 days during a filibuster that his government was doing.

This is a place where we can get a lot of work done, and working with different members in this Parliament has been excellent.

I am sure my husband will really be looking forward to this energy coming home, or maybe not, I should say. Good luck to my family.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an honour to work with the member for Elgin—Middlesex—London. She is a remarkable human. I know she has devoted a lot of her time and effort to those who are less fortunate.

I am curious what she thinks $400 million would have done for homelessness, for women in shelters, food bank users and every other vulnerable person in society who needs help right now. How much would $400 million change the lives of people who need it most?

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

Madam Speaker, I was talking to a colleague not too long about the $7 million we spent on that ice rink. When they said, “Well, that is only $7 million,” I responded that if we did that 100 times over it would be a heck of a lot of money wasted. That is exactly what we see with the $400 million that was wasted on 186 ineligible projects. That money could have done so much, such as assist with training for our frontline workers who are dealing with sexual violence.

We all know about the bail system and that we need to do a lot with judges. Any time we are talking about what is happening in the criminal justice system, we could put some money there for proper training for our judges, so we do not have people who have murdered or sexually assaulted somebody back on the streets within 24 hours. We need to make sure that judges have the training.

We need to make sure that money is used for food banks. There has been so much use of food banks. What could the government do? Cutting the carbon tax is one thing, but there are many others.

Message from the Senate

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill with an amendment to which the concurrence of the House is desired: C-26, an act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts.

Copies of the amendment are available on the table.