Mr. Speaker, I always say what a great honour it is to rise in a House such as this, chosen by the people of Timmins—James Bay, but I have to say that I am less and less proud every time I am asked to stand up because I do not know how to tell young Canadians to believe in democracy when they watch this dismal gong show day after day.
We are in a crisis of democracy around the world, a moment when Canada, which was always a land known for its tolerance and fairness, sits in this dysfunctional, broken crisis. It is not a natural break. I mean, the leader who lives in the Stornoway mansion says everything is broken. He is making it broken. We have had two months of a Parliament unable to work at a time when we are facing the threats coming in from Donald Trump, when we are facing the Russians moving to hypersonic missiles, when we are facing a larger crisis and Canada needs to be seen. Instead, we are sitting here playing these really stupid, dismal games.
Having been here 20 years, I do not want to say there have been glory days when we were all smarter, we were all wiser and we all rose to the highest standards. In fact, when I first got elected, it really reminded me of being in a new school in grade 9, walking into the cafeteria and having people throw food at me. However, there was a difference. The difference was that, for all the silliness and the mediocrity, we knew that we were there at the end of the day for something bigger than us and our parties.
Just the other night, I was walking down Elgin Street, and a former Conservative cabinet minister, David MacDonald, stopped me on the street. What a gentleman. He was in the Joe Clark government. He talked to me about his concern about Canada's democracy at this time. He talked about those days. Those were serious days, the days of Reaganomics and the days of mass unemployment. We talk about affordability issues now, but at that time interest rates were hitting 18% and 21% and people were losing their homes across Canada. We never saw the darkness that is being generated now. He talked to me about being in the Joe Clark cabinet, finding people on the Liberal side to work with and calling Ed Broadbent to work with him.
However, that is not what we have now. Instead of the grade 9 cafeteria, this is kind of like Beavis and Butt-Head go to Lord of the Flies. I say that because for two months we have sat and watched these silly, stupid games. It is like today the Conservatives got this idea, “You know what we're going to do? We're going to get the leader of the NDP's words that he'll defend workers and we'll use that. Ha ha. Then we'll force him to have a Christmas election.” They pat themselves on the back because they think that is actually offering something.
This has been two solid months of nothing getting done. I have been partisan my whole life. I have been in opposition my whole life, but I know there are moments when I put that aside for the good of the country. We need the fall economic statement to move forward. We have first nation issues and monies that are being held up so they can play their gong show about Canada being broken. I know multiple copper projects that are not going to go ahead, and that investment is going to go to Malaysia.
Do members know what the happy sock puppets tell people? “Don't worry. When our leader gets in, we'll fix it.” The Conservatives want to break it. They want to burn the house to the ground.
I said that because, last night, Amnesty International released a damning report on the genocide that is happening in Gaza. These are the big issues that we are facing. The Amnesty International report comes on the findings of the UN that hospital workers are being targeted and murdered deliberately, which are crimes against humanity. The International Criminal Court has sent forward indictments, both against Hamas and against the key leaders in the Israeli government, for crimes against humanity. Canada was one of the founding partners in the creation of the International Criminal Court. Yes, we might have been small, but we stepped up.
During the apartheid regime and the fight to bring down that oppressive, hateful regime, Canada played a part. Yes, a former Conservative prime minister stood up for the notion of international human rights and law. He did that. In Rwanda, in the face of a horrific genocide, there were Canadians on the front lines. When they were abandoned by the UN, abandoned by Europe, it was Canadians who were there to stop the genocide. In Srebrenica and Yugoslavia, Canada played a role.
When Canada was confronted with the International Criminal Court finding against Vladimir Putin, which was a very important finding, the Conservatives came in and voted multiple times against support for Ukraine, to burn the house to the ground. When the International Criminal Court found that a genocide was being committed against people, what did the member who lives in the 19-room mansion in Stornoway say? He said it was hare-brained and woke. This man is not fit for public office. I have never said that about anyone who has ever walked into this House, but a man who looks at the role that Canada played at the International Criminal Court and says it is hare-brained and woke is not fit.
I say this given the threats posed by Donald Trump. They are threats against the basic democratic order, because if the Americans lose the democratic order, we all lose the democratic order. When we see that he has posted a Putin troll to be in charge of intelligence, and when he is posting a man for the head of the FBI to target his political enemies, that is the undermining of democracy. His attack on Canada, a 25% tariff, threatens serious economic harm. We are going to have to stand up as a nation. We are going to have to stand up with some unity. We are going to have to stand up for Canadian values.
We cannot demonize the immigrant and migrant people who are coming here. We cannot use them to appease Donald Trump. Donald Trump is talking about fentanyl. He is accusing Canada of being the supply chain for the fentanyl crisis in America, when we know that it was OxyContin from the United States that created the crisis here and the huge death rates that we are still suffering. The fentanyl crisis is an unprecedented crisis. What does the guy who lives in a 19-room mansion say? He claims that the Prime Minister legalized fentanyl and put it on the streets.
We have rules about decorum. I cannot call that man a liar. That would not be civic, but he can use the deaths of thousands of people. He does that normally, but it is different when Donald Trump is accusing Canada of being a fentanyl chain into the United States and the impact will be 25% tariffs. That is when we put aside our pitiful partisan games and say there is a bigger issue here, but no, because he will burn our country to the ground to score a point. We can bet that Fox News will be having him on, and we can bet that the Conservative sock puppets who obediently repeat these falsehoods will be quoted again and again to justify the 25% tariffs that will cause economic havoc.
We have been through much worse times economically, but there was always a notion that we would come together on the key elements across party lines. I disagree with the government on a thousand things, and I will fight it on a thousand things, but I will put the security of my nation first. That was why I was elected.
This “burn our country to the ground” approach that he is using with Donald Trump is the way he went after doctors in the opioid crisis. He named doctors who then got death threats, doctors who are on the front lines. What has this guy ever been on the front line of, other than getting free food in the House of Commons' lobby? I have seen him in the front line there, but he attacked medical doctors and they got death threats.
Then he attacked independent journalism. Of course, he attacks CBC. He attacked CTV. He had workers fired for doing their jobs. He attacked Rachel Gilmore from Global, who was fired, and she received death threats. He thinks the independent media is a threat to the falsehoods of a party that lives on bumper sticker slogans. If someone runs an entire party based on dumbed-down slogans that all its members happily repeat, they cannot have an independent media, so they attacked CTV. He attacked CBC. He attacked Canadian Press. He attacked the Toronto Star. He is attacking the fundamental checks and balances in our system.
However, that is not all. Last week, the Leader of the Opposition went after municipal councillors.
It is really hard right now to encourage people to participate in democracy, and if we do not encourage good people to participate in democracy, democracy does not exist. I have never, ever seen a situation where some guy, whose only job, apparently, was at a Dairy Queen when he was young and then as a political attack dog for the rest of his life, goes out and states that Canada's municipal councillors are greedy. He said they were BS'ing the public, that they were swimming in money and that he would cut the taps off.
I know municipal councillors who get death threats for doing their job. We know that the mayor of Gatineau just stepped down. She did not want to do it anymore. I have talked to councillors who say it is not worth representing people. If those people do not step up, we do not have a democracy. However, the member for Stornoway decided that it was Canada's mayors and councillors who are now his new enemy because he gets bored with his old enemies.
We cannot run a democracy when one level of government decides that it is going to turn the dogs on another level. We can disagree, but someone would have to be some kind of special to be able to blame every municipal councillor and every mayor and every community in this country for causing the problem of housing when he has got no plan for housing. The Leader of the Opposition's plan for housing was to take out Patrick Brown. That was the plan.
Now, we are seeing from CSIS more and more evidence of the interference that took place. We just learned from Radio-Canada that Patrick Brown's head of the campaign, the member for Calgary Nose Hill, was approached by representatives of the Modi government to pull out support. We know that he got 170,000 memberships in the last 48 hours. I ran for party leader. I know that just is not done. That is something they generate in the backroom.
CSIS has been raising question after question regarding how that man got into Stornoway and how the Conservatives took down Erin O'Toole. I had lunch with Erin the other day. He said, “You keep saying nice things about me in the House.” I said, “I know, Erin. Once you are gone, I will be nice to you.” I said, “Erin, you would have been a good prime minister.” Erin is a man of dignity. Erin and I disagree on a lot of things, but Erin served his country and will always serve his country, and he was taken down.
Therefore, we need answers with respect to the interference. The guy who lives in Stornoway says people cannot afford to eat and then tells his people to vote against food for children. He is the guy who was supposed to help us in the mental health crisis but told his people to vote against a suicide hotline. He is the man who ran an election on an HST break and then voted against it. Mister axe the tax is more like mister axe the facts.
At Stornoway, there is $170,000 in repairs. It is $190,000 a year and he gets a chef. That is what he lives with, in a 19-room mansion. I guess taking down Erin O'Toole was worth it.
Here is my thing: If he really were serious, why do we not forgo the chef? Now, I know “forgo” is a big word for Conservatives. It is kind of an older word, and it might not fit well on a bumper sticker. How about we just say, “Eff the chef”? This is my call to the member who lives in Stornoway. If he is serious at all about anything, eff the chef. I would put that on a bumper sticker. Do members not think people would support it? Eff the chef, and then maybe we could forgo the guy who is living off the chef. However, “eff the guy who lives in Stornoway” is too big. I am going to work on it. I will come back next week, and I will have a better one.
Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I will be here all week. If you need me for anything, just ask me, but I do want to bring forward an amendment at this time. I will keep talking and someone will get me the amendment. They never let me do amendments. Seriously, in all my time here, have I ever done anything procedural that you can remember, Mr. Speaker?
Anyway, let us just keep going back to the guy who lives in Stornoway. Now, here is another fact: I am not mad at all the Conservatives. I have great respect for some of them. The member for Wellington-Halton Hills, for example, said in The Globe and Mail on October 23 that there is a reason the leader of the Conservative Party may not get a security clearance, and it is because “security clearances involve a rigorous process that includes...checks on family members, credit and criminal checks and...questions about one's sexual partners or whether they ever used drugs”. I did not say that. A Conservative said that. He said that Conservatives fear that that would be used for politically motivated purposes.
I will end on this: What the heck is in that closet in Stornoway that he is so afraid of that he will not or cannot get a security clearance? We need to know what is in that closet because Canadians are paying the cost of that closet and of the chef who feeds the guy who has stuff hidden in that closet.
Here we are for round two. I move that the motion be amended (a) by adding, after the words “right to strike”, the following: “(iv) whereas the NDP leader said the Conservative leader has ‘deep connections to billionaires and CEOs’, (v) whereas the NDP leader said, ‘the Conservative leader voted against giving kids dental care despite having publicly paid dental care for nearly two decades’; (vi) whereas the NDP leader said, ‘the Conservative leader would use his power to cut health care and other services that people rely on’” and (b) by replacing all the words after the words “the House proclaims” with the following: “its disappointment that for decades, the Liberals and Conservatives have stacked the deck for corporate CEOs against working Canadians.”
I will be here all week. I am glad that, in the end, the Conservatives showed up. I will send them the YouTube clips.
