Garnett Genuis

[Points of Order, September 26th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, false and defamatory comments have been made about me. I am providing a response, and I hope members will benefit from reviewing the context of what happened.

There was $9 million spent on a luxury condo on Billionaires' Row in New York. In a question from the Leader of the Opposition, various luxury—

[Points of Order, September 26th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, false or defamatory comments have been made about me. If members want to hear a response, I will provide one.

The Leader of the Opposition pointed out that $9 million was spent on this extravagant condo and identified a number of luxury features associated with that condo, including an extremely luxurious bathtub. Following that, the Prime Minister made no comment whatsoever about those features. Instead, he spoke about the kinds of international engagement that the government does. As Hansard clearly—

[Points of Order, September 26th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, there was an exchange yesterday in question period about extravagant spending by the government, with $9 million spent on a luxury condo on Billionaires' Row. Now, the Leader of the Opposition asked a question—

[Points of Order, September 26th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say briefly that the NDP whip, in particular, has a history of making false and defamatory comments about me, and this is no exception. Members know this. It is very clear—

[Criminal Code, September 24th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we have just finished debate in the House on a Conservative motion of non-confidence in the government. After nine years, so many Canadians are suffering as a result of the failures and frankly, in many cases the malicious failures, of the government that have undermined our national well-being and our social cohesion, as well as had a devastating impact on our economy.

I am looking forward to voting non-confidence in the government tomorrow. Tomorrow's vote will be a clear indication of where members stand. It will show which members of the House stand with the government and allow the government to continue, and which members of the House want to replace the government and give the Canadian people a chance to decide.

Our Conservative priorities are clear. We would like to bring Canadians a carbon tax election and present our proposals for axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime.

Now we are debating Bill S-205, a Conservative private member's bill that seeks to advance our agenda of stopping the crime. It is a Conservative bill that would combat domestic violence by creating expanded measures for electronic monitoring. When I addressed the House about the bill last time, I noted that the bill would create a mechanism whereby a judge could mandate that a perpetrator would wear an electronic monitoring device, and also that victims would be consulted in the process of judges' making decisions about the kinds of orders that apply to perpetrators.

In giving judges additional tools for facilitating the monitoring of perpetrators, the bill is simply common sense and would provide additional protection and confidence for victims. It is a bill that would facilitate accountability for criminals and a greater degree of security for victims.

Sadly, the Liberal response to Bill S-205 follows a familiar pattern. When it comes to violence in general and domestic violence in particular, we hear plenty of words of solidarity from Liberal politicians. The Liberals are eager to verbally express that they care about people who are victims of domestic violence, yet when it comes to voting on measures that would actually make a concrete difference in making people safe, they back away. In fact they put forward amendments at committee and supported amendments at committee that have weakened the bill substantially.

Here at report stage, Conservatives are proposing to reverse the acts of vandalism to the good bill before us that happened at committee. We want to restore the bill such that it would live up to what was proposed and what was passed by the Senate to protect victims of crime. It is sad to see that, despite how members of all parties make statements opposing violence against women, when it comes to actually supporting measures that would meaningfully impact that reality, Conservatives are often standing alone. Certainly, we are trying to build coalitions in this place, without the support of the government, to advance the important legislation before us.

I am very proud to speak in support of the bill, vote in support of the proposals from my colleagues that would reverse the damage done to the bill at committee, and allow Bill S-205 to pass and do the work that it is supposed to do to effectively stop crime, combat domestic violence in this country and give women a greater sense of security that those people who commit acts of violence against them would be held accountable.

[Public Services and Procurement, September 23rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member says that all parties voted in favour of the motion to bring Kristian Firth before the bar. Actually, when Kristian Firth came before the bar, the government refused to participate in the questioning. They did not want the questioning to proceed, and it is clearly on the record that they refused to participate, so while members of all the opposition parties, even the Green Party, participated in the questioning, the government did not.

I am just struck, listening to the parliamentary secretary, by how often corruption just happens to the government. They are dismayed by all the things that are happening in the government that they are supposed to be running. The core problem with the government is that, while pursuing malicious policies that undermine the common good, they would like to pretend that somebody else is responsible for everything that goes wrong.

Will the minister and the parliamentary secretary take responsibility for all the corruption that has happened under their watch?

[Public Services and Procurement, September 23rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is good to be back in this place after the summer, a summer, though, in which I heard a great deal from my constituents about how frustrated they are with the cost, the crime and the corruption they are seeing under the NDP-Liberal government. The government has so badly failed, and that is why tomorrow the Conservatives will bring forward a motion of non-confidence in the government, and we will see where the various parties stand. Conservatives are clear that the tenure of cost, crime and corruption over the last nine years must come to an end.

We will see which parties want to allow the government and the Prime Minister to continue and which parties in this place want to make their case to the Canadian people and give the people a chance to elect a government that reflects their aspirations and hopes for what the future of this country can offer.

In the context of the cost, crime and corruption, we are seeing scandal after scandal that incorporate all three, scandals that involve significant cost to the taxpayer, that involve potential criminal activity that in some cases will likely lead to criminal charges that have already spawned RCMP investigations, and that clearly involve forms of corruption.

I am following up tonight on a question I asked about the arrive scam scandal, a scandal that members will recall led to Kristian Firth from GC Strategies, the principal company involved in the scandal, being hauled before the bar of the House of Commons because he refused to answer questions asked at committee. I pointed out in my question that GC Strategies got tens of millions of dollars in the arrive scam scandal for no work. It simply received the contracts and then subcontracted. It did not do any actual IT work. It did not build the app. It just received a contract and subcontracted.

The company was found in 2015. What else happened in 2015? That is the same year the Prime Minister and the government took office. The Liberals came into office promising change. The only promise they fulfilled was real change; a lot of things certainly changed in the last nine years. In the same year, GC Strategies was founded. The company has gone on to do very lucrative business with the government, and its activity is staff augmentation. It receives contracts and subcontracts.

We have an app that could have been built in a weekend by an actual IT firm, but instead of hiring a firm with IT expertise, the government hired subcontracting middlemen who got the contract and subcontracted all the actual work. Right before Kristian Firth came before the House, there was an RCMP raid as part of an RCMP investigation into GC Strategies' activities.

There are the costs; Canadians spent tens of millions of dollars on the glitchy app that did not work and sent over 10,000 Canadians into quarantine by accident, Canadians who met all the requirements. There is cost, waste, inefficiency, corruption and the RCMP investigation into criminal activity. The government persists in using the GC Strategies model, in wasting huge amounts of taxpayers' money.

It talks about how other parties would cut. I submit that with the waste we have seen with GC Strategies, there is a lot of opportunity to save taxpayers' dollars without having any noticeable impact on frontline services.

[Committees of the House, September 23rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order.

If motions are now finished, we should proceed to petitions.

[Committees of the House, September 23rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, earlier in the debate, NDP members were talking on and on about grocery lobbyists. I am thinking that Gurratan Singh is somewhere thinking, “I'm right here, bro.”

The NDP members talk about grocery lobbyists, but they never talk about their own connections to grocery lobbyists. I wonder if the member has any thoughts on why that is.

[Committees of the House, September 23rd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the member is being both irrelevant and unparliamentary in the insinuation—