Charlie Angus

[Committees of the House, November 21st, 2024]

Madam Speaker, let us talk about them thinking people are soft in the head when they figure people have no memory. Tony Clement stole $50 million of border security money to buy gazebos in his riding that left us open to handguns coming in. Stephen Harper cut 1,100 CBSA positions to allow handguns in. Crime prevention programs were cut under Stephen Harper. This party has manipulated and falsified information to scare people while they supported criminals and while Tony Clement was taking money, which should have protected people, to buy fake boats and create fake lakes all across Muskoka. He did not even get re-elected.

[Veterans Affairs, November 19th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Remembrance Day is a sacred day. It is the one time we put aside our differences to pay tribute to our veterans. We mourn, we celebrate, and yes, we pray for the fallen.

This past week, the Conservative leader whipped up misinformation and rage for political gain by falsely claiming that prayers have been banned at the cenotaph. On the one hand, we have the Conservatives, who will exploit Remembrance Day and cut veteran services, and on the other hand, we have the Liberals, who continue to fail veterans

When will these two tired old parties stand up for the men and women who have served our country?

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I would sincerely like to apologize, but I do think the conversation was that he had done some stuff by getting the procurements. I think it was unfair, but I do retract—

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I appreciate the high level of debate, but I was not sure if the Speaker ruled that it was a fake point of order or not a point of order.

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague. I have a great amount of respect for the work he does. I have seen a lot of scandals over the years. This one, to me, is very tawdry. It has been like an endless line of scandals with the member for Edmonton Centre, but there is something really deplorable about someone who has the power of government and then presents themselves as indigenous in order to secure contracts from the government. This seems like the ultimate grift. It is also a slap in the face to anything that speaks of reconciliation in this country. It just cannot be allowed to stand.

I want to ask my colleague why he thinks the member for Edmonton Centre is still sitting on the front bench.

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I thought my colleague gave an extremely powerful speech. When I see the Conservative members come into the House and say they believe in indigenous reconciliation, I feel as though a crocodile is inviting me down to sit by the river's edge and have a picnic with them. They say, “Trust me, we will get along famously.” We have seen the long history of the Conservatives; we have also seen the complete failure of the Liberals, year in, year out, all the way back to Confederation.

In our region, Treaty No. 9 signed over to the state what were pretty much the richest gold, iron, copper, hydro and forestry lands in the world; it built Canada. Our communities were left on these postage stamp-sized reserves. We still have it happening with the Ring of Fire; Doug Ford said he was going to drive a bulldozer into the Ring of Fire himself. Meanwhile, he is ignoring Neskantaga First Nation's 28 years without water; he will not even talk to Neskantaga. He will not even talk to Eabametoong First Nation, yet he says he is going to get at the wealth of Treaty No. 9's territory for an Australian mining giant.

What does my hon. colleague think of the Conservative promises?

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, reconciliation is an issue because Canada attempted to perpetrate a genocide, and the first step of the genocide was to target the children. The second step was to bring in hunger and forced famine to force people off the land.

I think my colleague would agree that, many days, the House of Commons is like The Jerry Springer Show. However, we are not hearing any talk about the genocide in Gaza or of the fact that, two days ago, Human Rights Watch found that Israel is guilty of crimes against humanity for using famine and targeting children. About 70% of the deaths in Gaza are women and children. That is a targeting of a people to destroy them. We have seen nothing from the Prime Minister on the international stage.

Why do the Liberals continue to tiptoe around a genocide that is happening in real time as the world watches?

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it has been a dismal experience watching the member for Edmonton Centre. He has been like an ethical dumpster fire from the first day he walked in here. I say that because it has been one issue after another, one red flag after another, yet he was moved up into cabinet. I know there are some hard-working Liberals who will never get near cabinet, but he did.

There is something very egregious about this, because after hundreds of years of deeply racist policies that have tried to destroy indigenous life, culture and the ability to live on the land, we finally had one program that was going to be fair, and what did we see? We saw grifters taking advantage of what should have been a profound commitment to reconciliation. The fact that grifter number one may be sitting in cabinet calls on the Prime Minister to take action, yet he is still standing there refusing to explain how the minister got into this position in the first place.

[Committees of the House, November 18th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, one of the issues we have dealt with in the northern Treaty 9 region is the incredible inequity faced in the communities themselves. In Attawapiskat, people are literally living almost on top of each other. There are no other communities up there except the Cree, yet the federal government and the provincial government of Doug Ford just refused to sit down to talk about a reserve extension.

However, when De Beers went up to open a diamond mine, all the permitting happened very quickly. What ended up happening was that there was within the community a sense that if the company was coming simply to extract the resources, the government was willing to come to the table. However, when there were basic issues like housing and the right to expand the reserves so we could build livable communities, neither the province, particularly Doug Ford, nor the federal government has come to the table. There are now lawsuits saying that they are going to stop economic development until they get those basic issues of inequity dealt with.

[Privilege, November 18th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I think the member just misrepresented. The disgraceful comment was by the leader of the Conservatives, who said that indigenous people needed to learn how to work hard—