Kyle Seeback

[John McDermid, December 9th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to talk about my friend, the Hon. John McDermid. He was the member of Parliament for Brampton—Georgetown from 1979 to 1993 and a cabinet minister in the Mulroney government from 1988 to 1993, when he retired.

John generously gave of his time in the community. He was an honorary colonel in the Lorne Scots. He was the chair of our local hospital board.

I met John in 1988, when I was 17 years old, and I volunteered on his campaign. John returned that favour in spades in 2019 when he helped me get re-elected. Over the five years that followed, John became a mentor and a friend, and he shared so many amazing anecdotes from his time in Brian Mulroney's government.

On Thursday night, I had the opportunity to give John a King Charles III Coronation Medal in his hospital room, surrounded by many of his closest friends. On Friday night, John passed away, surrounded by his family.

John was a true gentleman. He was a patriot. He served his country with honour and distinction. Godspeed, John. God bless him and his family.

[Committees of the House, December 5th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, if the NDP members are uncomfortable with my words, perhaps they will listen to the Halifax International Longshoremen's Association's words. It said, “On Monday the NDP has the opportunity to reinforce that they will not bring in back to work legislation by supporting their own leader's words.”

This is why we are having this debate trying to prevent the Conservatives' confidence motion. This is why NDP members continue to interrupt me. They are increasingly uncomfortable with the fact that they will have to vote on a confidence motion on their leader's words and how the Liberal government took away the rights of workers to strike. They are trying to avoid this by putting forward a procedural motion that normally is not brought on an opposition day.

The NDP has done this for the purpose of avoiding a confidence vote. As such, to prevent further meltdowns, I move:

That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.

[Committees of the House, December 5th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I am not maligning anyone's intent. I am clearly stating what their intent is. There is no malice in that, so I do not see the relevance of the point of order.

[Committees of the House, December 5th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, the meltdowns continue. It is now the third interruption of my speech, as I put to the members their uncomfortableness with how their leader is forcing them to continue to prop up the corrupt Liberal government and how afraid they are of the Conservative confidence motion with respect to the NDP leader's own words. I understand why they are so afraid. The Halifax International Longshoremen's Union said on Monday—

[Committees of the House, December 5th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, we are continuing to see the meltdown. Now NDP members are melting down to interrupt my speech because they are unhappy with the fact that the NDP leader continues to prop up a corrupt Liberal government.

There was a time when they had an NDP leader who stood up against corruption. Former NDP leader Jack Layton brought down a corrupt Liberal government as a result of the corruption in which its members were engaging. Unfortunately, what we see now is an NDP party that supports the continued ongoing corruption, such as the corruption in the green slush fund. We have now seen corruption in the CEBA business loans. Very obviously, some members are—

[Committees of the House, December 5th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, what we are witnessing today is an attempt by the NDP to stop our confidence motion on the NDP leader's words. What we are seeing today is a continuation of the meltdown by NDP members because of our confidence motion that uses the NDP leader's words that purport to stand up for unions and the unions' right to strike.

We actually saw a terrible meltdown last week, as the NDP had to continue to prop up the government. NDP members are clearly frustrated and upset that their sellout leader continues to do this. In fact, they charged a Conservative member's seat—

[Labour, December 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, the minister's defence of his decision to take away a worker's right to strike is to talk about some things from a few years ago. Unions have unilaterally condemned section 107 referrals. The NDP leader said that he intervened to take away unions' power. That is true. He took away the Teamsters' right to strike. He took away the ILWU 514's right to strike, but when Unifor 1541 asked him to intervene to prevent union busting, the minister disappeared.

However, the leader of the NDP has a choice to make. Will New Democrats keep propping up these guys that make these anti-worker decisions, or will they stand with his words and vote—

[Labour, December 2nd, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I agree with the NDP leader, who said the Liberal government will always step in to make sure unions have no power. The minister's section 107 referrals took away workers' rights to strike. As a result of this, Conservatives believe that the Liberal government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons.

This puts the NDP and the NDP leader in a tough spot. Will the NDP leader support his own words and support workers or continue to prop up the NDP-Liberal government? Will the government throw its coalition buddy a line and call a carbon tax election?

[Privilege, December 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is nice to have a relevant question and not questions from the government trying to dismiss and distract from this.

This is 100% true. We have to go back to what I said in my speech. This whistle-blower makes great points, so we have to ask ourselves why the Liberals are covering up and hiding these documents. It is because they know how damning they will be, not just for their government but for the ministers involved. It is the only reason.

With the terrible mismanagement of this program, either the minister involved was incompetent and should, therefore, be fired or the minister was involved in the corruption, which is why Liberals are trying to hide it.

[Privilege, December 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, in law school, we learned a maxim: When we have the facts on our side, we argue the facts; when we have the law on our side, we argue the law; and when we have neither the facts nor the law on our side, we raise our voices and bang our desks. That is exactly what we just saw from the NDP-Liberal member.

Let us talk about a couple of things. If the Liberals want to improve national security, they can release the names, which is what we have been calling for, just as they could release the documents. Do we see the pattern? They claim all kinds of privileges while they hide information they claim is not necessary. The Prime Minister has allegedly had access to all this information and has not done a single thing to protect anyone in this country from a single scintilla of foreign interference, but somehow the so-called security briefing, which is mostly a muzzling order, would change things. It would not.

Let us have sunlight. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Liberals should release the names of the people alleged to be involved in foreign interference and release the documents. Let us have some transparency. Wait a minute, they ran on being an open and transparent government nine years ago.