Justin Trudeau

[Foreign Affairs, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we urgently need to build a credible path toward lasting peace. We oppose efforts by the Netanyahu government to reject a two-state solution. At the same time, Hamas, a terrorist group, currently controls areas in Gaza and has not laid down its arms or released its hostages. We are prepared to recognize the state of Palestine at the right time, not necessarily as a last step along the path. We were pleased to be able to support the NDP motion of a number of months ago. We will continue to work on promoting peace and work toward stability in the Middle East.

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, while the Conservative leader likes to go around saying Canada is broken, we choose instead to invest in Canadians, invest in supporting food banks, invest in community organizations that are on the front lines supporting vulnerable Canadians and invest in the kinds of programs that are lifting Canadians up, like the two million vulnerable seniors who are now accessing health care and dental care for the first time.

One hundred thousand people in just 22 days got dental care despite the Conservative Party, which has consistently voted against it and, indeed, tried to block it both in this House and across the country. We will continue to be there for Canadians.

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, no one in this country thinks that a Conservative government that does nothing but offer cuts and austerity is going to help address the homelessness crisis in the country. That is not how it works. It takes investment in affordable housing. It takes investment in programs to support the people who are homeless. It takes investment in programs that are rooted in compassion and backed by data to deal with addictions. Those are the investments that are needed. He is proposing nothing but cuts and austerity while Canadians are suffering. We are here to invest in vulnerable communities.

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, this government has chosen to invest to support Canadians through difficult times. We saw it through the pandemic where we stepped up to put money in Canadians' pockets, money in community organizations, money in businesses and restaurants, in mom-and-pop shops right across the country. We came out of it stronger economically. We restored full employment faster than the United States.

We know that investing when people need supports is the right way to build for the future. Confident countries invest in themselves. What the Leader of the Opposition is proposing is austerity and cuts to programs at exactly the time that Canadians need them.

[Housing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, whether it was the pandemic, whether it was global inflation, whether it was international economic situations, we have seen more and more Canadians suffering, including from the opioid and toxic drug epidemic that the Leader of the Opposition continues to attack and vilify.

The reality is that we have invested billions in countering homelessness. We are going to continue to invest in eliminating encampments and supporting Canadians in communities and in vulnerable communities across the country. The Leader of the Opposition's solution is to do less to fight homelessness, to invest less in vulnerable people. That is what he is doing when he votes against our current budget.

[Official Languages, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the Official Languages Act protects linguistic minorities right across the country. A big part of that, of course, is protecting francophone minorities everywhere outside Quebec. It also includes our responsibility to protect both official languages in a bilingual country and to protect all linguistic minorities. We will continue to do so. That does not prevent us from doing everything we can to protect the French language.

It is not the anglophone minority in Quebec that poses a threat to the French language in Quebec. We will continue to fight to protect French everywhere in Quebec and right across the country.

[Official Languages, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, we are the first federal government to acknowledge our special responsibility to protect the French language in Quebec.

We are concerned about the decline of French seen across the country, including in Quebec. That is why we are there to invest, to partner with the Government of Quebec and to protect the French fact in Quebec and official languages across the country.

We will continue to be there to defend the French language, not for political purposes, like the Bloc Québécois, but because it is the right thing to do for our country and for our future.

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, what we just saw is climate denialism at its finest. The fact is that, as global emissions rise, as carbon intensity in the atmosphere increases, extreme weather events like wildfires, droughts and floods will simply become more and more frequent. His plan is to do nothing and let future generations fend for themselves. Our plan is not only to reduce our emissions but to create the solutions that the world needs while we lead on fighting climate change, bringing down emissions and growing the economy.

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, in the Leader of the Opposition's desire to make clever rhetorical points, he actually completely ignores the basic facts.

The price on pollution is revenue-neutral for the federal government, which means that the money that comes in for the price on pollution, for the carbon tax, gets returned to the jurisdictions. That is why the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that eight out of 10 Canadian families in jurisdictions where the carbon price applies do better with the Canada carbon rebate, which comes in four times a year, than the price on pollution costs them. That is a plan to fight climate change and put money in people's pockets.

[Carbon Pricing, May 22nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, Canadians are facing the impacts of extreme weather events that come from climate change that are, unfortunately, getting worse and worse every year. That is why our government, from 2015 onwards, has stepped up in the fight against climate change. Not only are we reducing Canada's emissions to the lowest level outside the pandemic in 25 years, but we are also stepping up in the jobs and technological innovations that the world needs to successfully fight climate change.

We will continue to fight climate change and put more money in people's pockets while the Leader of the Opposition sits with his arms crossed and has no plan.