Charlie Angus

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2023]

Madam Speaker, on the issue of the violence we are seeing, certainly the opioid crisis, the homeless crisis and the lack of mental health supports have really exacerbated senseless violence, but the issue of bail conditions also has to be addressed because we have violent offenders who are seriously impacting public safety.

However, I want to question my colleague on the fact that the justice committee is set to do a review, and yet the Conservatives, once again, are doing a massive fundraising drive on what they are pushing now. I remember the Stephen Harper government, when they would get up every week on a new “tough on crime” bill and they had more recalls than the Ford Pinto because they were never about doing “smart on crime”. They were just about hitting their base and coming forward with laws that, time and time again, broke the charter and the Supreme Court threw them out.

What does my hon. colleague think is with the Conservatives, that they are not willing to work with us on trying to find the solutions to get proper bail conditions, but they are just looking to get fundraising with their base?

[Business of Supply, February 2nd, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, my brother drives the Bloor-Danforth line every day. He says that the violence in the subways has become much worse, but he also says that it is caused by the homelessness. At 6 a.m., the subways are full of homeless people. It is also caused by the lack of mental health services and the crisis of the pandemic.

That being said, the need to address bail reform is a huge issue, because we have seen senseless acts of violence. I know my New Democrat colleagues in the justice committee have pushed for a review of this, because we need to do this right. I was here in all the Harper years, and every single one of their tough-on-crime bills was tossed out by the Supreme Court because they were playing to their fundraising base as opposed to doing smart, intelligent review so the laws lasted.

Would my colleagues support our call to investigate bail reform to make sure we get this right and we keep people safe? We also need to put the resources on the ground to deal with the clear mental health and homelessness crisis that is driving a lot of the senseless violence we are seeing in the city of Toronto.

[Indigenous Affairs, January 31st, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Wabano family of Peawanuck lost a beautiful child in a house fire this weekend, and we mourn with them and grieve with the 10 people who have been left homeless. In 2021, I wrote to the minister warning about the lack of fire protection for the Weenusk Cree. That warning was ignored, and now a child is dead. It is unconscionable that any community in this country is left without basic fire protection.

To the minister, I have a simple question: Will she stand today and promise to commit to build a fire hall and give emergency resource support to the people of Peawanuck so they can live in safety?

[Public Services and Procurement, January 31st, 2023]

Make it more comprehensible this time.

[Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act, January 30th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I have been here many years. We have gone through many debates on this, and I thank my colleague for her leadership on this.

I remember Conservatives standing in the House and saying that this was some kind of a city issue. I represent people in rural country where a husband may have to be on the road, travelling, trucking, working the drills, and the mother is working. The idea that this is somehow some kind of rural-urban divide is a falsehood.

The impact on rural women who have to work, who have to raise their families, often without support, is a serious issue.

I want to ask my colleague her sense of what we need to do to make sure that this plan represents women across the country, and that they are not being marginalized because they are from rural areas or urban areas, the way that the Conservatives like to do to try to divide people.

[Questions on the Order Paper, January 30th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I missed the part before Question No. 1100. Could the parliamentary secretary just repeat the first section? I have been trying to—

[Petitions, January 30th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. It is not up to me to tell the Speaker about the rules of House, which you have such great respect for, but I have heard one editorializing comment after another, and that is not what petitions are for. Members are supposed to simply stick to the petition. Throwing in all of these extra attacks on people who believe in women's reproductive rights is not fair game.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, December 14th, 2022]

With regard to the government's plan for a just transition for workers in the oil and gas sector, broken down by department since fiscal year 2015-16: (a) what initiatives, programs, and projects have been created for workers to transition towards a green economy; (b) what funding has been allocated for the purpose of carrying out the initiatives, programs, and projects in (a); and (c) of the funding allocated in (b), how much funding has been spent?

[Online News Act, December 13th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly found what was said very entertaining. I do not like to go down the dark wells of conspiracy minds very often, but it was nice to see how the Conservatives look when they look internally.

The member talked about Elon Musk and what a great breath of fresh air he is. The guy has almost crashed one of the biggest platforms in the world in the space of two weeks.

What is so fresh about Elon Musk? Well, there is the rise of anti-Semitism. Jeez, that is a breath of fresh air. There is Vladimir Putin's troll armies against the people of Ukraine. What a breath of fresh air that is for backbench Conservatives. Then, of course, Elon Musk wants to jail the United States' most illustrious doctor for the work he did in preventing the pandemic. I bet the Conservatives just love that. What a breath of fresh air that is. If only we could go after medical science.

Then, on the other hand, we have the big, bad CBC running everything. I thought it was George Soros doing this. I thought it was Klaus Schwab. When the leader of the Conservative Party said he was going to go after cryptocurrency, replace the Bank of Canada and shut down the CBC, I did not know it was because of the conspiracy that the CBC controls everything.

[Online News Act, December 13th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I am certainly not going to suggest the CRTC is the best avenue to deal with the digital giants. I listen to my hon. colleague and, when she talks about these big media companies, she is missing the fundamental fact that the biggest media company in the world is Facebook, with $82.4 billion in ad revenue.

The other fact of this ad revenue is that Facebook falsified its metrics, which anywhere else would be fraud, but when one has monopolistic control, people had no choice. Facebook is actually deciding what people see through the algorithms. We can get an extreme right-wing marginal publication such as Breitbart be one of the highest read on Facebook because of the algorithms. It is the editor. It is deciding what is being seen. It has falsified its metrics. Its profits are unprecedented.

I do not see why the Conservative Party is bending itself backward to defend a company such as Facebook, which has shown such dismal commitments to human rights, democracy and working for innovation, other than making Mark Zuckerberg, one of the richest people on the planet.