Ken Hardie

[Business of Supply, February 18th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, there is another consideration I would like the hon. member to think about. We are asking for benefits to be paid out of the EI fund. I am wondering if there are circumstances when that is really not the appropriate source of funding to provide these benefits.

For instance, take somebody injured in a car crash. Through the auto insurance system in each province, there is a requirement for the insurance company to provide those kinds of benefits for the lifetime of the person, in many cases.

I am currently sponsoring a petition from people who have been injured as a result of taking a vaccine, and there is no compensation system at all for them. Would my colleague agree that some source of funding other than the EI system, and that attaches the loss directly to whatever has caused the loss, is a more appropriate way of funding some of these benefits?

[Petitions, February 5th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to table petition e-2297, signed by residents from across metro Vancouver. They are calling on the federal government to support traffic congestion relief through a permanent annual allocation of $3 billion across Canada, with $375 million per year allocated to our region.

This petition was initiated by John Aldag, who continues to work for the people of Cloverdale—Langley City, whom he represented in the last Parliament.

Metro Vancouver is always prepared with shovel-ready projects that will maximize the economic, environmental and quality-of-life benefits from all our federal investments. Our west coast ports are Canada's biggest, so anything we can do to improve the transportation network in metro Vancouver improves the productivity of our ports, which has benefits right across the country.

[Business of Supply, February 4th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the conversation we have almost started here would be a very useful one with respect to sex workers and using the term “workers” as a way of framing that activity. However, I want to go back to the question at hand.

If this goes to a committee, what sorts of things does the hon. member think the committee should be thinking about in terms of its approach to getting to the bottom of this? I can think of a number of different angles that could be pursued here, but I am wondering what line of questioning he would want to see take place if he were sitting on that committee.

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I have a question for my colleague across the way and who knows what the answer will be.

He knows very well the difficulties and challenges of negotiating trade agreements. He was certainly engaged in CETA. I am not sure if the CPTPP was an issue when he was trade minister. Nonetheless, we noted with great interest that former prime minister Stephen Harper's advice to Canada on these negotiations was to give the Americans what they want because the trade relationship with the United States is prime and so key that we cannot afford to annoy them. In fact, that is not the advice we took. Canadians understand it was the Liberal government who brought CETA, the CPTPP and this trade agreement across the finish line.

I am wondering if the former prime minister's advice to just give whatever the other side wants was something that shaped the member's negotiations when he was negotiating those trade agreements.

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, January 30th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I would like to take the opportunity to ask the hon. member a question that my colleague tried to ask a little earlier, just to make sure we are clear on the nature of that question. Was there anything in the old agreement, the one currently in force, that we lost that we should have tried to preserve?

[Resumption of debate on Address in Reply, January 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the hon. member to think about his home territory and the petroleum sector. He refers to it as the energy sector, and in that there is a problem, because when we use petroleum for energy we burn it, and when we burn it, we contribute to climate change, at least a lot of people believe that.

I would be interested to know what the member hears at home from that industry about its innovations in the non-energy side and the sorts of things that will continue, like the toothbrush that the hon. member mentioned, which have a need and a place in our economy.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 11th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I neglected to do this earlier, but I should have said in my first intervention a couple of days ago that I am very happy to be back here to represent the folks of Fleetwood—Port Kells in Surrey.

A thought that came up about our oil and gas sector is that the problem a lot of people have with it is when we use those products for energy, when we burn them. Their contribution to greenhouse gases and climate change is something that we may differ on the extent of, but we know that it does exist.

I wonder if my colleague could speak to the other uses that we could put those products to. The fact that we can use compound plastic to 3-D print a house in a day suggests that we have opportunities here to open up new markets, new products and new ways of using what Alberta produces so well in a way that does far more productive things.

[Business of Supply, December 10th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, I have two quick questions for my colleague across the way.

First, in terms of the position that the Conservative Party is taking on the matter of China, has it consulted with constituents on the Prairies, particularly those in the agricultural sector? Obviously, China represents a major market and the absence of that would be hurtful to many of the folks that the member represents.

My second question has to do not so much with Huawei, but with 5G generally. Many people who we refer to as wearing tinfoil hats are really concerned about that technology and the impact of the radio frequencies used, the possible health implications, etc. I am wondering if the Conservatives have heard the same thing and what they think about it.

[Resumption of Debate on Address in Reply, December 9th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, I am a native Albertan and when I was a young fellow, the Turner Valley southwest of Calgary was pumping more oil than any other place in the Commonwealth. However, Turner Valley is dry now. The oil is gone. There should have been a lesson there for Alberta to diversify, but here it is, all these years later, and perhaps not enough has been done.

We also see, and this gets to my question for the hon. member, that in spite of the obvious difficulties that Alberta and many families are having there, Albertans' mean family income after taxes is still the highest in Canada.

While I agree as an Albertan that we need as a country to do more for our province, would the member not agree that diversification also has to be a priority and that income inequity in Alberta is also a major problem, which her predecessor and now Premier of Alberta should also invest time into solving?

[Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement Implementation Act, June 18th, 2019]

Madam Speaker, it is a little difficult to hear criticism from the Conservative side on this, simply because Conservatives played such a great part in Team Canada. Rona Ambrose, John Baird and others were there, shoulder to shoulder with our negotiating team, and yet there was the spectacle of members on the benches opposite appearing on American media and undercutting the work we were trying to do. It seems that the effort put in by Team Canada on this, with the governors, congressmen, senators, even the mayors, right across the United States, has really established a firm foundation for an ongoing relationship that will remain strong, in spite of the leadership of the United States, which loves tariffs an awful lot.

I am wondering if the member for Davenport could comment on what she sees in the future for Canada-U.S. relationships based on what we have accomplished in this round of negotiations.