Justin Trudeau

[Carbon Pricing, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are facing global challenges right now. As much as the Leader of the Opposition would love to bury his head in the sand, global inflation and climate change, which is impacting everyone around the world, require us to be working together.

Standing up for peace and justice on the world stage, standing up for women's rights or standing up for opportunities for the middle class requires us to work together, something the Leader of the Opposition cannot do. He cannot even work with his own MPs. He has to muzzle them. He is not letting them be voices of their communities in Ottawa. Those are the real colours of the Leader of the Opposition.

[International Trade, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the Bloc Québécois leader's choice to go meet with senators.

We regularly work with senators to get good legislation and good bills passed for Canadians.

As I said, we will protect supply management. We completely agree with our Bloc Québécois colleagues on the importance of protecting supply management and our farmers.

That is why we acted accordingly. That is why we are committed as a government to never undermine supply management in any future free trade negotiation.

[International Trade, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we have always been very clear. As a government, we will protect supply management in any present or future free trade negotiations.

As such, we support the Bloc Québécois's bill to protect supply management. In the event that the bill fails in the Senate and if we do not manage to pass it here because the Conservatives will vote against it, we will be there to protect supply management, even if we have to take government action to do so.

We are here to protect supply management, period.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Canada enjoyed the fastest economic recovery among our peers after the pandemic. This was partly because we decided to welcome people to address the labour shortage we were experiencing across the country.

Now we are in a different situation. We are fixing the problem and adjusting our immigration targets, adjusting the number of temporary workers coming in and adjusting the number of international students.

Those are things a responsible government must do to ensure appropriate growth for our country.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the irony of this is that the Leader of the Opposition likes to rhyme off facts and figures, but he will not even take a briefing that will allow him to understand the security threats facing this country. For some strange reason that he will not admit to, he has refused to get a security clearance. He has refused to take the briefings necessary to keep Canadians safe. Therefore, any time he chooses to rhyme off facts and figures, we know that he is not actually caring about Canadians; he is caring about himself.

[Housing, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the government in which the Leader of the Opposition was the failed housing minister deliberately chose to get out of the business of housing, which meant we needed to step up with a national housing strategy in 2017, and with record investments, not just to create more housing but to change the way housing is built in communities across this country. That is money put into the pockets of municipalities to invest, to densify and to accelerate permitting, money that he is promising to take away and that his MPs are trying to speak out to defend.

[Housing, November 20th, 2024]

Again, Mr. Speaker, with the little performances. What the Leader of the Opposition would rather not admit is that when he was Stephen Harper's failed housing minister, he created a total of six affordable housing units across the country. He was part of a government that completely pulled back from any investments in housing. Yes, as a government we have had to step up and make record investments, but even as we are making record investments to accelerate the construction of housing in Conservative ridings across the country, he is preventing his Conservative MPs from standing up for their communities to solve this housing crisis.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, these little performances that the Leader of the Opposition puts on are not fooling anyone. The only thing he is interested in is his own interests, his own quest for power. He is asking his MPs to not be strong voices for their communities, including in communities that are relying on the investments in their housing so they can respond to growing populations and housing pressures caused by increasing population. These are the things we are busy solving, but he would rather muzzle his MPs in order to look good when he is doing his little show.

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, following a pandemic that had devastated our economy in a short-term way, Canadians needed, and businesses needed, extra support and so asked for more temporary foreign workers, asked for more international students, and we gave them. Our economy grew. Our economy got back faster than the United States and got back faster than many other countries of the world.

We are now in a different situation where we have had to step up and reduce immigration numbers to make sure our housing issues can catch up. This is what a responsible government does. It puts forward solutions that are right in the moment and corrects them when they are no longer needed.

[Taxation, November 20th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, if the NDP wants to join with us in making life more affordable for Canadians, all it has to do is help us end the Conservatives' filibuster in Parliament.

Parliament is supposed to be working on behalf of Canadians to lower the cost of living, but the Conservative Party's filibuster and the NDP's inaction on this issue are delaying critical legislation from passing, including funding for dental care, school meals, housing, indigenous services and so much more. The NDP has to work with us. We need to stop the Conservatives from blocking the help that Canadians need.