Charlie Angus

[The Environment, February 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, I made an accusation against the environment minister that his government had held 370 backroom meetings with big oil in just two years. I withdraw those comments, because it turns out that it actually rolled out the red carpet for 1,224 meetings with big oil. That, my friends, is the definition of carbon captured, so it is no wonder that under the Prime Minister Canada has fallen to the bottom of the G7, in terms of climate action.

When is the environment minister going to stop acting as the head butler for the oil lobby and start standing up for Canadians?

[Emergencies Act, February 17th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I certainly agree that it should never have come to this. The fact that a protest was allowed to become an occupation speaks to failures at every level.

The problem I have with my hon. colleague and her party is that they are saying that if the Prime Minister had just gone out and talked to the nice protesters, everything would have been settled. However, when Pat King, an organizer for the protest and the spokesperson, said that this was going to be settled with bullets, a line was crossed.

I know that talking about shooting the Prime Minister may not seem like a problem, but it should be a problem, and it should be a problem to every parliamentarian. I will not negotiate with anyone who talks about shooting a prime minister in this country. They need to start addressing these issues.

[Emergencies Act, February 17th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, having been in Ottawa for most of this blockade, what I have seen is a complete lack of willingness by the police to do their job. This should never have spiralled. It was allowed to metastasize and create a crisis at our borders, cutting off hundred of millions of dollars of trade. I remember when the Conservatives were saying that if 10 unvaccinated truckers did not get to cross the border, we would have all our supply lines and our stores shut down. When that did not happen, their supporters actually shut the border.

I would like to ask the hon. member to consider this. Now that we are at this point, it does speak to the absolute failure of the government to have shown leadership throughout. We should never have been in a situation where we had to use the Emergencies Act against people who were setting up hot tubs on Wellington Street because of the lack of rule of law.

[Emergencies Act, February 17th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I have been here for much of the last three weeks, and what I have seen in Ottawa is a complete failure of civic officials and a complete failure of the police. This should never have been allowed to spiral. In Quebec City and Toronto, we saw that the police did their job. At the Ambassador Bridge, we saw the ridiculous situation of our bridge being shut down for eight days without action.

Now we are having to take these measures. The minister is talking about anti-terrorism measures. Is the government able to tell the House that it has evidence that there is terrorism and extremism that can justify this measure, or do we just have to clean up the mess from the failure of what happened here in Ottawa?

[Emergencies Act, February 17th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, we had the lowest death rate in the western world and the highest level of vaccination. The solidarity of Canadians was incredible, yet there was an absolute failure and exploitation of fear by members in the House. The Leader of the Opposition said they wanted to exploit this. There was a failure of the Prime Minister to stand up and show vision, and a failure of police to defend people in the streets. We should never have been at this moment. We are looking like a failed state.

What steps will the leader of the New Democratic Party take to hold the government accountable? It has failed us at every step of the way in this crisis. How can we trust it at this point? How can we say to Canadians that we will make their streets safe and return the rule of law, but we will make sure the Liberals are accountable? How will we do that?

[Climate Change, February 15th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to assessing the Prime Minister's credibility on the climate crisis, the truth is found in the lobbying registry. Over the last two years, his government rolled out the red carpet for big oil with over 370 meetings. No wonder big oil is not sweating his promise of a tough emissions cap. In fact, representatives told our committee they plan to vastly increase production, and that position is backed by the energy regulator.

This is for the environment minister. What kind of credible cap is there that includes massive increases in oil exports?

[Government Business No. 8—Proceedings on Bill C-10, February 14th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I am rising on a point of order.

I think I speak for everyone in the House. I will sit very quietly and patiently if at least we can cut the time down to five minutes rather than 10 minutes.

[An Act Respecting Certain Measures Related to COVID-19, February 14th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, one of the real concerns we have had throughout the pandemic is the huge economic crisis. We saw seniors who applied for CERB, but then suffered clawbacks from the government.

Can we get a confirmation that the government is going to work with New Democrats to speed up payments so that seniors are not losing their homes and their savings, that the government's mistake will be ended immediately, and that we will see funding to the seniors who need it?

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, February 4th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, it is really distressing to see the Conservatives waving their fists at us—

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, February 4th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I note that medical workers in Toronto are being told not to wear their medical clothes outside this weekend because of the threats they are facing. I hear the Conservatives calling this a “vaccine vendetta”. We have descended so far down that our medical teams, which are keeping people safe, have to listen to what the member is saying, the misinformation and the vaccine lies that have been spouted. He keeps quoting this mystical trucker who cannot go into a restaurant because of provincial legislation and who cannot cross the border because the Americans will not let him, yet the Conservatives stood by as people came here and desecrated the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They stood as upside down Canadian flags were waved with swastikas and they called them freedom fighters. This is the face of vaccine disinformation, and this is the face of the Conservative Party. Shame on them.