Candice Bergen

[Citizenship Act, June 12th, 2017]

Madam Speaker, one of the strengths of our immigration system through numerous governments, not just under Conservative governments but under previous Liberal governments, has been the consistency of our immigration system. People who want to come to Canada know that the system and the process are reliable. The Liberals' proposed changes will be massive and will create uncertainty for people who want to come to Canada.

One area that the Liberals are not addressing by refusing to appeal the recent Federal Court decision is the issue of people who lie on their application forms. The government had a responsibility to appeal this decision. There are reasonable and legal grounds to appeal. By not appealing, they are incentivizing people to mislead on their applications. How can the government propose to be responsible, not only to future applicants but all the people currently in the process who have followed the rules and given accurate information, when it is now incentivizing people to be misleading on their immigration applications?

[Business of the House, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the government House leader if she could please tell us what business the House will be doing this week and next week. I recognize the days are long and a lot of different bills are crammed into each day. I know a lot is going on.

With that in mind, I want to remind her, and I believe I speak on behalf of the NDP as well, that we would be interested in working together with the government if the Liberals are looking at making any changes to the Standing Orders. If that were to come forward before we rise, I know it would be good for all of us if we could work together on that.

[Foreign Investment, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, this is shocking. Hytera Communications has previously been accused of large-scale theft of intellectual property and the U.K. raised major red flags when Hytera tried to acquire a similar British company. Richard Fadden, the former head of CSIS, said that he would have recommended a full-fledged national security review of this deal.

Why is the Prime Minister allowing his fascination with China and his overwhelming desire to appease it to cloud his judgment on the national security of our country?

[Foreign Investment, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it gets worse. Normally any deal involving this type of satellite technology would be subject to a formal, national security review. However, in a very troubling development, the industry minister decided that a national security review was not necessary for this Chinese takeover.

Canadian national security interests are at stake here. Why did the Prime Minister allow this sale to China to go ahead without the comprehensive security review that it needed?

[Foreign Investment, June 8th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs gave a major speech on Canada's foreign policy, but she failed to mention Canada's foreign policy with respect to China. Now we know why.

The minister of industry was quietly approving a Chinese takeover deal of Vancouver-based Norsat International, a company that builds satellite receivers for NATO.

Why is the Prime Minister so eager to sell our military technology to Beijing?

[Salaries Act, June 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing we will not be able to continue to debate this legislation as we have had very little opportunity to do so.

We recognize the government is making changes in terms of salaries for ministers, but at the same time we feel a bit frustrated. It is a bit disingenuous for the government to say it is going to give women important ministerial portfolios while not giving them the full resources to perform those ministerial roles. That seems to be the Liberal way of doing things. There is the flash, and then there is reality.

I want to ask the government a question about an issue that really is our biggest concern. We are quite concerned about the fact that the Liberals are taking away the regional economic development ministers from Western Canada, Quebec, Northern Canada, and Atlantic Canada. Economic development ministers from those regions are going to be centralized in the Prime Minister's Office under the direction of the minister from Mississauga. We have heard ministers from Atlantic Canada complain about how slow things such as applications to ACOA, are being processed and decisions are being made.

How can the government justify stripping away economic development ministers from important regions of our country, ministers who know their regions, and should be making decisions in their regions?

[Government Appointments, June 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, in one of those appointments, namely, Kim Campbell, he forget she was the prime minister. That was a big mistake.

On this appointment, the Prime Minister has embarrassed the heritage minister, he has embarrassed himself, and Madam Meilleur has had to withdraw her name from this process. We are asking thePrime Minister for a very simple commitment because, frankly, he cannot be trusted on this.

Will he commit to Canadians that appointments for officers of Parliament will not be political, especially the Ethics Commissioner, who is investigating him at this moment?

[Government Appointments, June 7th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, this is painful to watch. Madam Meilleur just withdrew her name, confirming exactly what we have been saying all along, that she is too partisan for this appointment. The Prime Minister has a choice. He can learn, he can show a bit of humility, he can say that maybe he made a mistake and apologize, and he can confirm that the next appointment of the Ethics Commissioner, for example, will not be a partisan appointment.

Could he do that, and just once show a moment of humility?

[Paris Agreement, June 6th, 2017]

Is this not interesting, Mr. Speaker? We have been sitting until midnight for the last week and a half. We will be sitting until midnight until the end of session because the government has such important business, apparently, that it wants to get accomplished. The Liberals have not been able to accomplish it previously because they have mismanaged the House so badly.

In the midst of all of us sitting this late and the Liberals ramming through their legislation, they have thrown two motions on the Order Paper that have absolutely no consequence. The motions could have been discussed in a press conference. The motions could have been discussed in a ministerial statement. The motions could have been discussed in a variety of ways. However, the government chose to bring the motions here to us and interrupted the work that we were doing, using up valuable House time and still making all of us sit here until midnight.

Now the Liberals are moving time allocation and shutting down debate on this motion. This is unbelievable of the Liberals, absolutely mismanaging not only the House but their own pathetic agenda.

I ask that the Liberals stop this kind of nonsense. We have a summer break coming up and things will not be better when we come back in the fall if this is the way they continue.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1, June 5th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, here we are again seeing this government shutting down debate on important pieces of legislation like Bill C-44, the budget implementation act, a bill that has so many pieces that have unanswered questions. I am thinking about specifically the infrastructure bank and the fact that Canadians are going to be on the hook for any losses that might be incurred by investors who want to apparently invest using this infrastructure bank. The bank has not been explained, the risk to Canadians has not been explained, and, if anything, the government is trying to gloss over it by putting it into Bill C-44.

Now we are being told we cannot debate Bill C-44 and ask these important questions. All the while, and this is even more egregious, the government has just introduced and is making us debate two motions, one around the Paris accord, and one tomorrow around foreign affairs issues, both of which are absolutely needless. All the Liberals seem to want is to have someone tell them that they are doing a good job and doing the right thing. They have to use up time in the House of Commons to do that while making us sit here until midnight every single night, though we have no problem with hard work, and using time allocation and shutting down discussion on important things like the infrastructure bank.

This is unbelievable that the Liberals are doing this again and have completely mismanaged this House. How can they defend that?