Justin Trudeau

[Official Languages, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we are extremely proud of the work our team did on Bill C-13 to protect linguistic minorities across the country. We will always be there to protect official language minorities across Canada.

That is why we will continue to move forward. I would like to emphasize that it is also important, by the way, to stand up against the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause, an issue on which this member has unfortunately been weaker than the communities would have liked.

We will always defend linguistic minorities across the country.

[Child Care, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Scarborough—Agincourt for her question and for her incredibly hard work.

Women should not have to choose between starting a family or starting a career. In the Canada-wide agreements, provinces and territories committed to creating a combined total of over 275,000 child care spaces by March 31, 2026. To date, the creation of over 50,000 new spaces has been announced.

When accessible and affordable child care stops being a barrier, everyone in our society benefits. That is why we continue to move forward toward $10-a-day child care for everyone across this country.

[Foreign Affairs, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, we are clearly seeing, once again, that the Leader of the Opposition is simply not serious in his approach to reassuring Canadians about institutions, about our democracy, about the integrity of our elections. That is why we are proposing significant and serious steps and mechanisms to make sure that, independently and with expert advice, the right answers are being sought and the right answers are being shared with Canadians. Those are not our answers. Those are not their answers. Those are answers determined by independent panels of experts tasked with protecting our democracy.

[Foreign Affairs, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the excessive partisanship we are seeing on this issue that is extremely serious and extremely important to Canadians is exactly why we have chosen to appoint an independent expert to make the determination on how we can best reassure Canadians and ensure that our government and our institutions are doing everything to protect our democracy. That is exactly what we are doing.

We have seen experts say that a public inquiry is necessary. We have seen other experts say that it would not get to the truth. That is why an independent expert will make that determination.

[Foreign Affairs, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the selective partisan memory of the Leader of the Opposition is quite openly on display right now. It was just a few months ago when they were criticizing me for standing up directly to President Xi Jinping as I talked about the impacts of foreign interference in our country. I will continue to ensure that we are holding to account anyone who engages in illegal actions in Canada, including in foreign interference. We have never hesitated to take action where and when necessary, and we will continue to.

[Women and Gender Equality, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to assure my colleague from London West that we on this side of the House will never accept the anti-feminist, violent and downright dangerous rhetoric that minimizes the contributions of women and girls in our society. Supporting women's rights takes more than just words here in the House. It must be backed up with concrete actions like combatting violence online and in our communities, encouraging the full participation of every woman in society and condemning the use of sexist and misogynistic tags on YouTube posts.

[Democratic Institutions, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I see the Leader of the Opposition trying to backtrack from his heinous and disgusting accusations of disloyalty to Canada of anyone in the House, and I am pleased to see him back off from what was an absolutely despicable partisan approach. However, it does go to the point that Canadians need to have confidence that the answers they are seeking on foreign interference and on the integrity of our democratic institutions are being dealt with by experts. There are two ways of doing that. One way is by making sure that partisans and politicians of all parties get classified briefings on that, which the NSICOP does, and the other is to make sure independent—

[Democratic Institutions, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, it is unfortunate and despicable that any member in the House would question the loyalty to Canada of any other member in the House. I understand the very real concerns that Canadians feel about foreign interference, and that is why we have created mechanisms to keep Canadians safe. To suggest that anyone in the House is not devoted to serving Canadians and to keeping safe those who serve Canada in dangerous positions is quite disgusting.

[Democratic Institutions, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, on matters of national security, it is extremely important that we continue to give Canadians confidence that our experts and our officials are doing their jobs. However, it is also important to protect the women and men who serve in our security agencies and who do extremely dangerous work to keep Canadians safe. That is why we have created a committee where all parliamentarians from different parties can get top-secret clearance and look into these matters deeply, without compromising the safety of the people who serve this country.

[Democratic Institutions, March 8th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, those of us on this side of the House have confidence in the experts.

I think we have all heard some experts say we need an independent public commission, while others say a public commission would not be able to do all the fact-checking it would take to give Canadians confidence in our institutions.

That is why we chose to ask an independent, impartial expert to determine the best way to ensure that Canadians can have confidence in what was done.