Kennedy Stewart

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 9th, 2016]

I thank my colleagues. We are sick of this, and for what? For 10 bills, six of which did not have a chance of failing, really. This is very disappointing and here we are moving into debate on a bill that we cannot afford to get wrong.

When I was paying compliments to the Conservatives earlier about at least having a competent administration, I do not agree with them on CETA. I was open to it. In the last Parliament I was open to it because it is very important to get our trade deals with Europe right. They are too important to get wrong. I do find it quite rich for the Liberals to take credit for the Conservatives' work because—

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 9th, 2016]

Credit where credit is due. Compare this administration versus that administration. Here we have 10 bills through Parliament with royal assent. We have a stacking of the Senate that has happened and it is supposed to be easy for the Liberals to pass bills through, yet they are too incompetent to get it done and seem very confused.

When we look at things like the democratic reform bill, which the Liberals promised would take place before Christmas and we would have all these reforms, what have we seen? We have seen really nothing. We have mass confusion about what the government thinks about what electoral formula should be used. We have a Minister of Democratic Institutions who apologizes day after day for screwing up, and then she comes back in here and does the same thing.

We have disingenuous answers from the other side when it comes to question period. If I have to hear the stock answers one more time from the House leader about cash for access, I think I will hang myself, because we do not have—

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed again that the government is trying to shut off debate on the bill, and the only reason I heard from the other side was that they are tired. I do not think that is what we are paid $170,000 a year to do, to stand up and say that we are tired and we do not want to debate important things like trade deals. It is shameful. It also shows the contempt the Liberals are showing for this House.

I want to put the bill in a bit of context, given what we have just seen here. When we check how many bills have been put through this House since the great Liberals came to power, there are 10. There are only 10 bills that have gained royal assent. Five of them have been money bills, so they have to pass. One of them was ordered by the court, which was the assisted dying bill. If we think about the amount of work the government has actually put forward in this place, it has been minimal, yet we are still seeing the Liberals move to closure, to cut off debate, and to say that they are too tired to debate these things, but where is the work we are supposed to be doing?

If I look back to the previous Parliament in which I was privileged enough to sit, the Conservatives were in power at that point. I really disagreed very strongly with a lot of what the Conservatives did, but at least they were organized. At least the cabinet knew what it was doing. I would stand up and disagree, vote against and argue. I of course argued against the many closures that were put in place, but at least Prime Minister Harper knew what he was doing. Now what I see on the other side—

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I very much enjoyed my colleague's speech. I think he has a very in-depth knowledge of not just this trade deal, but of many other trade deals. That is the kind of discussion we need here in the House, to hear the pros and cons of both sides that are well informed.

I had two things that struck me while the member was speaking that I would perhaps like him to comment on, if he cares to.

The first would be that, to me, it seems that when this deal was starting to be negotiated, Britain was in the EU. It was pre-Brexit. It was also before the election of Donald Trump as the president. It seems the world has kind of moved on from where we were when we were first negotiating this trade deal.

I wonder if perhaps by signing this deal, the Liberals are committing us to the past. The Conservatives certainly negotiated this deal under a different global setting. The Liberals kind of picked it up and are taking credit for it, but I wonder if they could have done a better deal, looking more at what is coming down the pipe. Trade with Europe is too important to get wrong

I am wondering if my colleague could perhaps comment on the Brexit side of things, how the world has changed, and how Canada might suffer if we sign this agreement.

[Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, we asked a question in question period about the health care escalator being cut by the Liberals, so my question concerns health care costs, in particular the cost of pharmaceuticals.

We know that CETA will increase the cost of pharmaceutical drugs in Canada. I wonder if my colleague would elaborate on what that would mean for his constituents if, for example, seniors and people with long-term needs are forced to pay higher health care costs because of pharmaceuticals and do not have private insurance to cover that or do not get it through their employers. What will it mean for people in his riding who have to pay higher pharmaceutical drug costs?

[Health, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, world-leading rhetoric, perhaps.

Speaking of Stephen Harper's targets, the Minister of Health set the end of the year as a deadline to finalize a new health accord, but all she has done so far is adopt Harper's cuts to provincial funding.

According to Newfoundland's health minister, the talks on the health accord have “gone silent”.

All provinces have confirmed that the Liberals' cuts to the health escalator will hurt Canada's health care services.

Will the Prime Minister honour his election promise to negotiate fairly, stop unilaterally dictating funding, and negotiate a health care accord that improve services for all Canadians?

[The Environment, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, so we get rhetoric and Stephen Harper's targets. It is not very impressive.

The Prime Minister is expected to announce a national climate change plan after meeting with Canada's first ministers, but today it was reported that the deal will not be unanimous and may require Ottawa to buy costly carbon credits from other countries to meet its 2030 targets.

The Liberal emission targets are already too weak to meet our Paris accord obligations. Are we really going to pay other countries to do the work the government has failed to do?

[Oil Pipelines, December 9th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister broke his promise and betrayed British Columbians by approving the Kinder Morgan pipeline. In doing so, he has given the company control of a 150-metre-wide strip of land from Edmonton to Burnaby. He has empowered Kinder Morgan to use section 73 of the National Energy Board Act, which allows the company to expropriate public land, private land, land from churches, land from schools, municipal land, and even land from first nations' traditional territories and reserve land without consent or social licence.

To add insult to injury, the natural resources minister said he would use the army to help expropriate land and ram this pipeline through our province.

I tabled this week Motion No. 107, which calls on the government not to use military or paramilitary force to help ram this pipeline through our beautiful province. I have been fighting against this pipeline since 2011. My party is against it. What I am calling for is for the Liberals on that side of the House to stand with us and choose British Columbia—

[Petitions, November 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, over the weekend, thousands of people opposed to the Kinder Morgan pipeline marched in Vancouver, and I had the honour of speaking at a rally held at the end of the march.

I am here to present a petition today signed by dozens and dozens of British Colombians who are opposed to the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion. The petitioners are calling on the government to reject this pipeline.

I urge the government to pay careful attention to this petition before it makes its decision on this pipeline before December 19.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2, November 15th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my colleague's speech.

Since we are talking about pipelines, and he was talking about pipelines in his speech, I wonder if the member could define for me what he understands the word “consent” to mean.