Mr. Speaker, for him to dismiss the foreign affairs minister in that way is outrageous. The reality is that she is the one who chose to go to a photo shoot in a studio with the New York Times in an article about how she was the possible successor to her own boss. We would expect a foreign affairs minister, of all ministers, would be busy fighting tariffs with our biggest trading partner. Instead, she is fighting to replace her boss.
We would think that the Minister of Foreign Affairs would be busy fighting tariffs, but no. She went to the New York Times to be part of a big article presenting her as her leader's potential replacement. That is a sign of weakness.
The leader of the NDP is right. The Liberal Prime Minister is weak. Is the Prime Minister selfish? Well, what else could we call it? He has treated himself to illegal vacations to private islands, lavished himself with constant gifts and benefits, shut down Parliament numerous times to cover up scandals, refused to allow Canadians to have accountability for the missing $400 million in the green slush fund scandal, and protected his own trust fund from the tax increases he has imposed on everyone else. One can only think that this is selfish. Most of all, he stays in power after seeing the devastating consequences this is having on the lives of everyday Canadians. That is nothing if not selfish.
Then, we can move on to the charge the NDP leader makes that the Prime Minister is attacking the rights of workers. Of this, there is no doubt. We have seen the leader of the NDP. He has gone to rallies at places where courageous workers are striking to recuperate many of the lost wages that have resulted from government-induced inflation. We know we had more strikes last year than in any year since 1983. That is a 40-year high.
We have Canada Post workers on strike. That strike now is lasting a long time and doing incredible damage to small businesses. Hopefully, it will come to an end soon. The NDP leader showed up at these strikes and said, “If there is any vote in Parliament that in any way impacts your rights, we are going to vote no.... Whether that vote is a confidence vote or not, whether it triggers an election or not, I'm telling the Prime Minister and the Liberals right now, ‘You're never going to count on us if you're going to take away the rights of workers. Never’”. What a powerful and absolutely categorical statement that was.
Therefore, surely, the NDP leader will vote on this motion, keeping his word to those workers, or was he looking them straight in the eye and telling them a plain falsehood? Will he go back to them after this vote and tell them that, when it came down to putting his vote where his words were, he just did not have the courage, that he was under too much pressure, that the fear of losing an election and facing the music, for his own record was too much for him, and therefore, he backed down and turned his back on those workers and left them out in the cold? Is that what he is going to tell those union workers? If so, how would they ever believe anything he says to them again? The answer is that they, of course, could not.
However, if the NDP leader does decide to vote against his own words, it would mean two things. One, it would mean that he does not want to take responsibility for his own record and that he does not want voters to have the ability to judge his record and his plans because he fears that they would render a verdict that is not in his favour. Two, it would reveal that, in the next election, there are not five or four parties running. There would be two parties running. There would be the NDP-Bloc-Liberal coalition, which taxes people's food, punishes their work, doubles their housing cost and unleashes crime and chaos in their community, and there would be the common-sense Conservatives, who would axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. That is the choice. It is a binary choice. If they vote for the NDP, they would get the Liberals. If they vote for the Liberals, they would get the NDP. If they vote for the Bloc, they would get both the NDP and the Liberal Party.
If they are among the grand majority of Canadians who are unsatisfied with the downward spiral of our country, with broken borders, broken immigration system and broken economy, and if they want to bring home Canada's promise again and restore a country where hard work earns a powerful paycheque and pensions that buy affordable food and homes in safe neighbourhoods, where anyone from anywhere can do anything in the freest nation on earth, in Canada, then let us bring it home.
