Garnett Genuis

[Ethics, November 18th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the company did actually receive funding from the Government of Canada.

The Minister of Employment's business partner claimed that their company was fully indigenous-owned. How would he have gotten that impression? Maybe it was because the Liberal Party repeatedly said that the minister was indigenous. Now, it is possible to get kicked out of the Liberals' indigenous caucus, not for corruption, but for refusing to participate in corruption, as Jody Wilson-Raybould found out.

After nine years, the Liberals have gone from firing the first indigenous attorney general to keeping the first fake-indigenous Minister of Employment. When will the Prime Minister fire this phony minister?

[Ethics, November 18th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, this minister deserves to be criticized in the people's House, the House of Commons. He said he was not the Randy involved in this company, but we know there is only one Randy at the company. He said he was not involved in the operations of the company, but text messages reveal that he is. He said he was indigenous to profit from government contracts, trying to steal from first nations communities.

When will the Prime Minister fire this phony for making false claims to steal from first nations?

[Ethics, November 18th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the minister from Edmonton is a fake and a phony. He said that he was not the Randy—

[Privilege, November 18th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for an excellent speech.

We are in the House today discussing the fraudulent, dishonest behaviour of the Liberal employment minister pretending to be indigenous, his company claiming to be indigenous-owned, to try to get contracts that had been set aside for indigenous entrepreneurs. There is a context to this. The AFN has testified before the government operations committee that, actually, a majority of those companies benefiting from these indigenous procurement set-asides are shell companies. There is rampant abuse in this program, with elite, well-connected insiders trying to take advantage of this program, people who are not indigenous trying to take advantage of a program that was supposed to be about creating economic development for indigenous people.

The Conservative Party is committed to real solutions that will advance economic development for indigenous Canadians, whereas the Liberals, it is clear now, have been using this program to try to advantage not only their friends but themselves. I wonder if the member can comment on just what the abuse of this program by the Minister of Employment's company says about how the government likes to talk, on the one hand, about reconciliation, but it is clear now that the Liberals are just using that as an excuse to try to enrich their friends and themselves.

[Indigenous Procurement, November 7th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, under the Liberals, well-connected government elite insiders have been pretending to be indigenous in order to take contracts intended for indigenous people, but until today, we did not know just how high the rot went.

Today, the Liberals' indigenous contracting scandal just got a bit “randier”, with revelations that the company owned by the Liberal minister from Edmonton Centre tried to identify itself as indigenous in order to get government contracts. Recall that when text messages came out about someone named Randy directing the affairs of the company in violation of ethics laws, the minister's partner claimed it was someone else named Randy. He later admitted that was false, but said the references to Randy were the result of autocorrect. In order to help get government contracts, they invented another Randy and pretended he was indigenous.

Here is the bottom line. Indigenous people in Canada have tragically high levels of poverty. This privileged, elite minister's fraudulent company tried to grab contracts that the government promised to indigenous people by pretending to be indigenous. It has never been more clear that the minister and the Liberals are only in it for themselves.

[Petitions, November 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, next I would like to table a petition regarding the human rights situation in Eritrea, as well as implications for foreign interference here in Canada. Petitioners observe that Eritrea has been ruled by an authoritarian, brutal dictator under a totalitarian system for the last 30 years with no constitution, no elections, no parliament, no freedom of the press, and no freedom of movement and association. It has been called the North Korea of Africa. Many Eritreans have been forced to flee and have sought asylum in various places. There is now a large, very productive and well-respected Eritrean community here in Canada.

The Eritrean community in Canada continues to be concerned about the long arm of the oppressive Eritrean government and threats of foreign interference that affect even people living in Canada. Petitioners therefore call on the House and the government to strengthen engagement with Eritrean political and human rights activists and pro-democracy groups, to take a stronger role opposing the Eritrean government's human rights abuses and support for Russia's neocolonial agenda in Africa. Petitioners also want to see additional steps to ensure that agents of the Eritrean government are not able to come to Canada and engage in political interference here.

Petitioners are also calling for the release of a number of political prisoners in Eritrea, including Swedish Eritrean journalist Dawit Isaak and 11 imprisoned Eritrean parliamentarians. They are also calling for strengthened sanctions against human rights abusers in Eritrea.

[Petitions, November 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the next petition deals with the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Petitioners highlight the history of the terrible persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Communist Party. They call on the House to take additional and stronger steps to try to combat the scourge of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

[Petitions, November 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the next petition is in support of Bill C-257. It is a private member's bill that stands in my name that would add political belief or activity as prohibited grounds of discrimination to the Canadian Human Rights Act.

This bill would protect Canadians from discrimination on the basis of their political views. Currently, while Canadians are protected in the federal jurisdiction from discrimination on the basis of many different criteria, there is no protection against discrimination on the basis of political views. This lack of protection can have a chilling effect when people maybe limit their public comments on issues that are important to them for fear they might face professional or other forms of discrimination or retaliation.

Petitioners call on the House to support Bill C-257, which would protect Canadians from political discrimination.

[Petitions, November 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I have a number of petitions to present to the House today.

The first petition is from petitioners who believe that regardless of circumstances, it is always wrong to kill a child. They are, as a result, deeply concerned by some of the discourse that has happened in this place, particularly proposals around the expansion of euthanasia to include babies from birth to one year of age. This proposal was made by a representative of the Quebec college of physicians, and this proposal for the legalized killing of infants, as a further expansion to Canada's already extremely liberal euthanasia regime, is certainly a further source of concern for these petitioners. They call on the government and the House to oppose this radical proposal to legalize the killing of small children in this country.

[Committees of the House, November 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I want to make an observation about the debate in response to something the parliamentary secretary said earlier. He complained about the idea that there would be an amendment that would provide an instruction to the committee. He said that these are games and that we should let the committee make its own decisions.

I had a recollection and did some research on this. Do members know what was the Prime Minister's first act when he was elected to Parliament, in 2008? He drew first for the private members' bill draw, and the motion he put before the House, his very first act as a member of Parliament, was, if members can believe it, an instruction to a committee:

That the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities be instructed to consider the introduction in Canada of a national voluntary service policy....

Does this not suggest that the parliamentary secretary, while he would like to wiggle out of any accountability for how the government has failed consumers and taxpayers in so many ways, is hypocritically trying to say that we cannot instruct a committee? The first act of the Prime Minister in the House was to do precisely that.