Mr. Speaker, when the world faces upheaval, when war breaks out, and when energy and food supplies are interrupted, we must zero in on what matters most at home and on what we control. We work for Canada and its people. Here is our home. We want this country to be affordable at home, safe at home, and strong at home, so that we can be unbreakable abroad. Put in more academic terms, we must put Canada's national interests first and foremost as we look at this war, what it means and where we stand.
We are working for Canada and for Canadians here at home, because we want a Canada that is affordable, safe and strong, at home. This is how we are going to become masters of our own destiny, capable of defending our interests and values internationally.
That principle should guide us in the present war in the Middle East, so let us start with the regime itself. This is the most prolific terrorist regime in the world, a regime that routinely murders, harasses and intimidates Canadians. The regime killed 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents when it fired an unprovoked missile at a passenger plane PS752, for which there has been no subsequent justice by the regime.
Further, let me chronicle the unprovoked aggressions this regime has taken against our country. In 2023, a year-long Global News investigation found that there are “700 regime [backed agents] operating on Canadian soil [for the purposes of intimidating] and threatening” dissidents who fled the regime. Victims' families and Canadians protesting the regime have reported harassment and surveillance on Canadian soil, according to the RCMP, which has received numerous “reports of foreign interference by...the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
In 2024, two Canadians were indicted in the U.S. for their role in an alleged murder-for-hire plot on behalf of Iranian intelligence. In 2024, agents of Iran attempted to assassinate former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler. According to a CSIS report in 2024, “the regime is one of the main perpetrators of foreign interference and espionage” in Canada. “CSIS assesses that Iran will continue to use proxies, such as individuals involved in transnational crime networks” when its perceived enemies are active in other countries.
According to CSIS, “as of late 2023, Iran-aligned cyber actors [such as the IRGC-linked CyberAv3ngers] have been targeting Western critical infrastructure... including [and this is important] healthcare and public health, government, information technology, engineering... sectors.” In other words, they have been attempting to mess with our technological capability to deliver health care to our people through foreign attacks on our cyber networks.
The Hogue Commission lists “Iran as a considerable transnational threat because it is likely monitoring, influencing, collecting information on, harassing and intimidating the Iranian diaspora community to prevent criticism of Iran” and the national security committee found that Iran is one of “the primary perpetrators of repression against ethnocultural communities in Canada”. This list only chronicles the direct harm the regime has done to Canada itself. Forget that this regime is the single biggest sponsor of terrorism in the world, that it orchestrated the attacks of October 7, 2023, that it has killed countless of its own citizens, including 30,000 in the last month alone. All of these moral atrocities only compound the regime with the evil that the regime has done to our country.
In other words, it is in our national interest for this regime to be defeated and replaced by the Iranian people with a peaceful democracy. We need strong leadership that takes a stand, maintains that stand, stays consistent at home and abroad, and shows up in this House of Commons to do what is right and speak for the Canadian people. That is what we do here today. We as Conservatives make it clear that it is in our national interest that the regime in Iran, which has infiltrated our country, murdered at least 55 of our citizens, and harassed countless others, be removed. That is why I supported the Prime Minister's initial support of the U.S. and Israeli air strikes.
Since that time, the Prime Minister has flipped and flopped more than four times, having four contradictory positions in as many days. First, he said he was for the attack. Then he regretted his support for the attack. Then he said that his support for the attack was illegal under international law. He said he would consider sending troops for the attack, which he supported but regretted supporting, and then said that it was illegal under international law. His party says one thing to one group and the opposite to another, confusing our allies and dividing Canadians.
Some of the Prime Minister's own Liberal MPs said in the newspaper today, “What the hell” when it comes to his stance on the war in the Middle East, and now he has gone into hiding, having failed to speak a single word in tonight's debate. In this time of crisis, Canadians deserve to know where the Prime Minister stands. Indeed, they deserve to know where the Prime Minister is.
This is a security and affordability crisis. This is an international war on which the Prime Minister has already flip-flopped four times. He should speak out here in the House of Commons, in front of Canadians, instead of hiding. Where is the Prime Minister?
We have been clear and unwavering, Conservatives support the right of the Iranian people to remove their terrorist regime, a regime that has murdered countless Canadians and targets our people on our soil, in order to bring forth a peaceful democracy in Iran.
We must turn our attention, though, to our own country. What does this war mean for Canada? First, we must be safe at home. Canada has become more dangerous under the Liberal government. There have always been wars in the Middle East, but they have never spilled onto Canadian streets. However, after 10 years of Liberal immigration, Liberal catch-and-release laws and Liberal incompetence, we are seeing violence and terrorism normalized in Canada, synagogues shot at, dissidents targeted and regime officials using our country as a safe haven.
As of February 5, only one of the 28 individuals identified by CBSA as illegal foreign regime officials has been kicked out. That does not take into account that, according to Global News, there have been as many as 700 of these regime, terrorist-linked officials who are making Canada their personal hotel. Why has the Prime Minister not moved to have these people deported from our country? The Prime Minister has not made any changes to the Criminal Code to kick the terrorists out, lock the criminals up or stop new ones from coming in.
We need a plan to deport all the regime officials. They need to be identified, they need to be arrested and they need to be deported. There is no room for IRGC or Iranian regime officials in our country. Kick them out.
We need to ensure that Canada is safe for its Persian and Jewish communities, and we need a real action plan to protect synagogues and other places of worship that have come under attack. The government has failed to keep Jews, Persians and other Canadians safe in this country. Enough is enough. We are a very welcoming people, but we will not put up with foreign wars and other forms of terrorism spilling onto our streets. This is Canada, and every Canadian has the right to feel safe living in this country.
We must be affordable at home. Oil prices are spiking due to the blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, which transports about a fifth of the globe's oil. The government cannot control global oil prices, but it can control domestic taxes and policies allowing domestic production.
The Prime Minister has brought in a new tax, the fuel standard, and has blocked domestic production of our oil. We need a plan to unlock affordable energy to supply not only ourselves but the entire world. We need to repeal anti-energy laws such as Bill C-69 and Bill C-48, and the industrial carbon tax, to unblock and unlock our resources, shipping them off our coasts in order to fuel our friends and power our paycheques. In this way, we can make the country both more affordable and more autonomous.
That must be our mission. We work for Canada. That is our job in this place. We must be a country that is affordable at home, safe at home and strong at home so we can defend our interests and be unbreakable abroad. We are here for our country and our people.
