James Bezan

[Public Services and Procurement, November 30th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we can do that competition within two years and select the proper fighter jet. There is absolutely zero logic to the approach of the Liberals to replacing Canada's fighter jets. The procurement minister has signed a blank cheque to buy a fleet of obsolete fighters. Procurement experts know that this is going to cost taxpayers billions of dollars.

After ignoring the air force, the Liberals unilaterally changed the number of fighter jets that our military needed. When the Liberals decided to sole-source the Super Hornet, who wrote the statement of requirements? Was it our air force or was it the PMO?

[National Defence, November 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals did not consult with the air force. They made this decision entirely in isolation, and this was politically driven by the PMO. They put a lifetime gag order on over 230 federal employees to cover up this political interference.

Will the minister confirm that General Hood was pushed to the sidelines, while the minister forced his politically driven decision on our air force?

[National Defence, November 29th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, Royal Canadian Air Force commander General Hood confirmed yesterday that the Liberals unilaterally changed the number of jets the air force needed. When asked why, he said, “I'm not privy to the decisions behind the policy change”.

On a decision of this magnitude, why is the Minister of National Defence not consulting the commander of the air force? Why is the minister playing politics with our military?

[National Defence, November 28th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is dangerously naive about world affairs. He admires a brutal communist dictatorship, which raises doubts about how he views other global threats and how to address them.

Our security is too important to be left to the Prime Minister's risky ideological whims. Our troops are in Iraq and will certainly be in Mali fighting jihadi terrorists, but the government will not call it a combat mission.

How can the Liberals put our troops in harm's way when their ideology is based on making sure the worst regimes in the world feel comfortable at dinner with Canadian diplomats?

[National Defence, November 28th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we have just learned that a CF-18 fighter jet crashed at CFB Cold Lake. Our thoughts and our prayers are with the pilot, the families, and indeed with everyone in Cold Lake and in the armed forces throughout Canada.

Could the Minister of National Defence update the House as to the status of this terrible accident?

[Foreign Affairs, November 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, for not making a decision, there seems to be a lot of information coming from the government on what it thinks should happen. The decision is imminent. It knows where it is going and is not telling Canadians, not telling our troops, and definitely not telling parliamentarians what the goal is, what the plan is, and how it is in our national interest.

It all comes down to the fact that if we are going to be sending our troops to deal with dangerous jihadist organizations, as we are doing in Iraq, we should send them over with the right equipment, the right command and control, and the right rules of engagement. Even though the government likes to say that what we are doing in Mosul is non-combat, what we are seeing is that our troops are taking the offensive as they continue with the attack against ISIS.

If we are going to go into northern Africa, whether it is in Mali, the Sudan, the Central African Republic or the Republic of the Congo, we need to go in, first and foremost, with the ability and equipment to combat terrorism.

The difference between what is happening in Africa versus what we see right now in Iraq is that at least we have local government troops and the Kurdish peshmerga fighting alongside. That does not exist in Africa, and that is why it is so dangerous. There is no peace to keep. We cannot send our troops into a peacekeeping operation where they are putting their lives on the line for nobody, other than a photo op for the Prime Minister so he can get a seat at the UN Security Council.

[Foreign Affairs, November 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it is good to be able to get up again to address a question I raised after Remembrance Day, as I was not satisfied with the answer from the Minister of National Defence.

As members may recall, the Minister of National Defence, at Remembrance Day services in Vancouver, announced that Canada was going to be sending our troops on a UN mission that was going to go on for three years, and that was going to be all over the place, even though the chief of the defence staff at one point had said that there was going to be no African mission.

The minister has now said that there is not going to be just one mission but many missions in Africa and that we are going to be there for three years. It is going to involve 600 troops and $450 million. Then, of course, the Minister of National Defence's press secretary had to retract the minister's statement, saying that he got a little bit ahead of himself about where the government is at.

This is a problem with the Liberal government on this file, and on many others. It is the lack of transparency. It is pushing out the idea of going on a UN mission, partially to garner a seat at the UN Security Council, and partially to say that it has carried through on one of its campaign promises, that of returning Canada's military to peacekeeping.

We know that the minister has great interest in Mali. He just returned from there in recent weeks. We know that this is one of the most dangerous missions in the world, and is definitely the most dangerous mission in Africa. Over 106 peacekeepers on the UN mission have already been killed. That is not even counting the French troops who are there. There are over 4,000 French troops on the ground and 13,000 peacekeepers. It is the biggest mess going on with numerous different jihadist terrorist groups pledging alliance to ISIS and al Qaeda. They are using blue helmets for target practice.

There is no question that we have the best troops in the world. They are well trained; they are ready to go to war at the drop of a hat. They like to be deployed and they like to be in theatre. We believe that our armed forces, the brave men and women who serve this country, are more than adequately trained and equipped to do the job in the right mission.

Should they be fighting terrorism? Of course they should. Should they be helping stop the migrant flow, and helping in the migrant crisis that we are seeing from Syria and North Africa to Europe and elsewhere? Yes, they should. However, is the UN mission the right place to go?

If we are going to have this discussion, and if the government wants to be transparent, we need to have that debate in the House of Commons, so all parliamentarians have the opportunity to pronounce themselves. It has to be voted on before we put any of our troops in harm's way. We have already established the normal practice here, that before troops are deployed, we have a vote.

I have to point out, talking about missions in Africa and how dangerous they are, Anthony Banbury, former United Nations assistant secretary general for field support, said:

Our most grievous blunder is in Mali. In early 2013, the United Nations decided to send 10,000 soldiers and police officers to Mali in response to a terrorist takeover of parts of the north. Inexplicably, we sent a force that was unprepared for counterterrorism and explicitly told not to engage in it. More than 80 percent of the force’s resources are spent on logistics and self-protection. Already 56 people in the United Nations contingent have been killed, and more are certain to die. The United Nations in Mali is day by day marching deeper into its first quagmire.

We have had this type of experience before, in Rwanda, Somalia, and the UN mission in Bosnia. The only way we fixed Bosnia was to turn it into a NATO mission. Our suggestion to the government is that if it wants to put our troops on the ground to do counterterrorism and stop the migrant crisis in North Africa, it should be as part of a NATO contingent, not under the quagmire that exists in the United Nations.

[National Defence, November 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Liberals refused to answer how much the obsolete Super Hornet will cost and how many jobs will be lost in Canada's aerospace industry.

Former national defence procurement head Dan Ross said, “This was probably the worst possible option.... The taxpayers will bear the cost of this...”.

Experts have unequivocally stated that operating an interim fleet will significantly increase the air force's operational costs.

Why are the Liberals wasting tax dollars, breaking the rules, and breaking their promise for a fair and open competition?

[Aerospace Industry, November 24th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, when the Prime Minister decided to exclude the F-35 from an open and fair competition, workers in Canada's aerospace industry were rightly alarmed. The Liberals' uninformed decision to sole source the obsolete Super Hornet has thrown the industry into a world of uncertainty. There is no region more concerned than my province of Manitoba.

The Prime Minister's politically driven decision has put thousands of high-skilled Canadian jobs at risk. There are more than 70 companies in Canada that are benefiting from over $1 billion worth in contracts through the joint strike fighter program, and all are now in jeopardy.

Magellan Aerospace, in Winnipeg, has said that future work will become uncertain due to the Prime Minister's election promise. What is worse is that the Liberals did not properly consult.

Manitoba premier, Brian Pallister, raised concerns on the impact of the federal announcement on our province's aerospace industry, and criticized the lack of dialogue with local industry on the decision to sole source the Super Hornet.

On this side of the House, we are fighting for good-paying aerospace jobs in Winnipeg, and right across Canada. Why are the Liberal MPs in Winnipeg so conspicuously silent?

[Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement Implementation Act, November 23rd, 2016]

Let us drink to that is right, Madam Speaker.

This is a product that is world renowned that can now move into the European market a lot more easily because of CETA.

The final major beneficiary of access to the European market is the freshwater fish we catch in my riding. A lot of people are surprised about that. Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman is an agriculture-based riding north of the city of Winnipeg, with about 2,700 ranches and more than 3,000 commercial grain and oilseed farms.

I also have over a thousand commercial fishers and their families who will benefit from this deal, especially now that the Province of Manitoba has moved to release the shackles of the draconian Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation, a federal crown corporation that has really kept them below world prices of fish, especially for great things like our walleye, our whitefish, and others. This gives us an opportunity to move this high-quality product into Europe at zero-rate tariffs. This is a product that is in great demand around the world. Of course we are going to go where it is easiest to get the most money and where it is easiest to go into the marketplace. Thanks to the work of the previous Conservative government, we are able to do that with CETA.

We have to continue to be vigilant. Canada should still pursue an aggressive trade agenda. Despite the rhetoric we are hearing from the NDP, there are huge opportunities here for us as we see a change in the administration in the United States, through the election of Donald Trump as the president-elect. We know that he wants to renegotiate trade deals. He has been somewhat noncommittal to multilateral trade deals like TPP, so let us capitalize on getting preferential market access for Canadian farmers, manufacturers, and businesses so that we can put those trade dollars into our own pockets.

We are looking at a market that is worth over $20 trillion in Europe. With this agreement, based upon some very good research, let us say a 20% boost in our trade with the EU, that would amount to over $12 billion for our GDP. It would create 80,000 new jobs. It would increase household incomes. This is something everyone should be celebrating, not fighting.

The same is true with the TPP. Even though Donald Trump has already said he is not going to sign the TPP, there are many countries that sit at that table that want to move forward. I know the Liberal government would rather do business with Communist China, but I would encourage the Liberals to go forward with our partners with the TPP and actually take the opportunity, given to us by Donald Trump himself, to sign that deal and have preferential access into that large market and give us a competitive advantage over the Americans.

For far too long, the U.S. has enjoyed most favoured nation tariff rates in almost all countries, putting our beef and pork producers, our grain and oilseed producers at huge disadvantages because we have to pay higher tariff rates going into those markets than what the Americans pay. That is why we need these free trade agreements: CETA, TPP, and NAFTA. The European free trade alliance agreement, that we signed a number of years ago; Israel; Chile; and Morocco are all key countries that provide us with more opportunities for those in our ridings. It does not matter if they are a steelworker, an auto worker, a grain farmer, or someone working in an abattoir packing beef, these are jobs that depend upon our trade. If we are not trading, we are flooding our own market. If we are flooding our own market, we are depressing prices, and if we are depressing prices, then we will see guys exiting the industry because they are going broke. If they exit the industry, then those jobs disappear.

We have to take the big-picture approach here to ensure that everyone who is involved in the production of our foodstuffs, the service industry, and those supplying transportation to move our various products across the country into export position also have the ability to participate. Our truckers, our rail companies, along with all our shipping industries, depend upon trade.

As I wrap up, I just want to again congratulate all those on our side of the floor who have negotiated CETA. We are finally seeing it. After seven dutiful years of research, study, and negotiation, we have come up with the best possible deal that Canada could ever have that benefits all Canadians.