James Bezan

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, June 11th, 2026]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals themselves are warning that public investment in ag research and development has fallen by 15%. Private sector R and D outsourced to universities is down 77%. The number of firms conducting research in Canada has dropped by 30%. However, the Liberal agriculture minister is slashing $115 million in agriculture research. Science took the hit for 75% of the cuts in his department.

Did the agriculture minister personally approve these cuts, yes or no?

[National Defence, June 10th, 2026]

Mr. Speaker, let us separate the fiction and actually have some reality here. Most of our troops are not seeing a bump in their paycheque because the Liberals continue to claw it back at every opportunity. Rents are up by more than 5% for military housing. Housing support is down in more than 10 of the major housing posting locations. These reckless cuts are making retention and readiness much worse.

How can our brave women and men who serve in the Canadian Armed Forces trust these Liberals when they give with one hand and claw back with the other?

Will the defence minister reverse these bad policies and actually start improving the retention of our brave women and men?

[National Defence, June 10th, 2026]

Mr. Speaker, everything the Liberals say about our military is just an illusion. They promised our troops raises, but they never materialized. Retention benefits for reserves are missing in action. The Liberal minister is gutting housing support for our troops by up to $7,000 a year, plus he is hiking housing rents on Canadian Armed Forces members. Our military is short over 8,600 personnel and over half of our military occupations are suffering critical staff shortages.

Why is the defence minister making retention worse for our soldiers, sailors and aviators?

[The Economy, June 8th, 2026]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal Prime Minister has driven Canada into a full-scale recession. Our economy has been shrinking for three of the last four quarters. We are the only G20 country in an economic downturn. While the government tries to downplay it, families know something is wrong. They feel it every day at the checkout counter. Manitobans are worried. I have spoken with farmers, families and small business owners, and they all say the same thing. Everything costs more: groceries, gas, fertilizer and housing.

At a time when we are seeing record food bank use, the Prime Minister is spending nearly $195,000 on luxury inflight catering. That is outrageous. The budget watchdog said the government has no chance of meeting its own fiscal targets. Growth is slowing, unemployment is growing, and businesses are leaving Canada.

Manitobans cannot afford the Prime Minister's out-of-touch leadership or his luxury lifestyle. It is time the Liberals replace their costly and inflationary policies with solutions that put Canadians and Manitobans first, not last.

[Protecting Victims Act, June 4th, 2026]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to poke holes in the justice minister's argument over the length of debate on Bill C-16.

We only debated this for two days at second reading, and then we let it go on division so we could get it to the justice committee for study. We asked for eight meetings to actually do a proper study on this bill and to bring in the proper witnesses. The Liberals shut it down to only four meetings. We have only had one day to debate the bill at report stage, and they are already moving closure.

My question is for the minister who wraps himself in this paper tiger, saying that we do not respect the process and that there has been plenty of debate. We know that on the Liberal side, the only person who ever gets up and talks is the member from Winnipeg North who has said the most words ever, but has said the very least.

Why does this minister hate democracy, and why is he undermining parliamentary processes?

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2, June 1st, 2026]

Madam Speaker, although we are legislators, it is our responsibility as members of Parliament to carry out our fiduciary duties and responsibilities to the taxpayers of Canada and to properly vet all of the legislation and spending of the government. This bill opens up a huge abyss of extra spending. We are not against spending on national defence. I know the minister tried to say that I am trying to stop it. I want to make sure that we are spending money wisely and respecting the Canadian taxpayer.

In this bill, which establishes the Defence Investment Agency act and makes changes to the Defence Production Act, the Liberals are adding in an exclusion that the minister can exclude companies and reduce the way companies can compete. It gives the minister an out so that he does not have to give reasons why any corporation is excluded. This is where it gets really interesting. It is giving the power to the minister, through an order in council, to “procure the incorporation of any one or more corporations for the purpose of undertaking or carrying out any acts or things” in the act. It also gives the power to the minister to “remove any members, directors or officers of a corporation”.

Would the minister agree with me that this is overreach by the government, that it stinks of far-left policies, and that it is the nationalization of some of our industries here in Canada, which we witnessed under Pierre Elliott Trudeau?

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2, June 1st, 2026]

Oh, oh!

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2, June 1st, 2026]

Madam Speaker, I have to say I am quite disappointed that here we are again with the Liberals' shutting down parliamentary debate on such an important bill. Bill C-31, the budget 2025 implementation act, no. 2, is a giant omnibus bill, over 330 pages long, with some proposed major changes to the way government operates.

Under division 16 in the budget implementation act is the new defence investment agency act, and that act would open up a door of potential abuse and unethical behaviour by the government. In the section that actually talks about having competition, the Liberals list over 20 different different exemptions from competition, and it would make the minister responsible for the Defence Investment Agency immune from any criticism and give them a get-out-of-jail-free card for why any particular project or competitor is disqualified from that competition.

We have this motion, instead of proper debate in the House right now that would allow Parliament to actually explore all the problems within division 16 of the budget implementation act, and instead of actually talking about how defence procurement could be used and abused by the government in power. Why not have the debate? Why do the Liberals always resort to shutting down parliamentary processes, in the name of cover-ups and Liberal largesse?

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2, May 27th, 2026]

Madam Speaker, as my colleague from Yellowhead knows, Justin Trudeau said he would never buy the F-35. He then ran a competition, and they ran it again. Guess what. The F-35 beat all the other fighter jets every single time, on cost, lethality, survivability and interoperability.

The Prime Minister is now playing politics with a jet we need in order to protect Canada and to work with our allies.

[Budget 2025 Implementation Act, No. 2, May 27th, 2026]

Mr. Speaker, I can tell my colleague that if we look at actual things the Liberals have bought for our troops, we see that they have not resulted in increased lethality or kinetic capability within the Canadian Armed Forces.

It took the Liberals over 10 years just to replace the sidearms for our forces. Today, members of the Canadian Armed Forces in Ottawa, in the national capital region, have been asked to turn in their rucksacks, sleeping bags, frag vests and body armour because there is not enough to be sent abroad for the people who are deployed in Latvia, where there could be a hot conflict in short order. We know that the people going through basic training right now do not even have enough uniforms, and there are not enough beds.

This is a failure of the government to recognize what we need to keep our troops healthy, as well as to make sure that our Canadian Forces has the equipment to deal with the conflicts of today and tomorrow.