House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 70% of the vote.
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns June 16th, 2021
With regard to free rapid COVID-19 tests distributed by the government directly to companies for the screening of close-contact employees: (a) how many tests were distributed; (b) which companies received the tests; and (c) how many tests did each company in (b) receive?
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns June 16th, 2021
With regard to the planning of the government’s announcement on April 29, 2021, about the launch of an independent external comprehensive review of the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces and reports that some of those involved in the announcement, including Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan, did not learn about their new roles until the morning of the announcement: (a) on what date was Lieutenant-General Jennie Carignan informed that she would become the Chief, Professional Conduct and Culture, and how was she informed; (b) on what date was Louise Arbour informed that she would be head of the review; (c) was the decision to launch this review made before or after Elder Marques testified at the Standing Committee on National Defence that Katie Telford had knowledge about the accusations against General Vance; and (d) if the decision in (c) was made prior to Mr. Marques’ testimony, what proof does the government have to back-up that claim?
Petitions June 11th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, I have three petitions to present to the House today. These petitions have been presented from travel agents across Canada, particularly from my riding.
The petitioners bring to the attention of the House that more than 12,000 independent travel advisers of Canada have been without income for one year due to the government's COVID travel restrictions, and small business owners are the sole proprietors. However, federal assistance programs such as the CERB, CEWS and RRRF exclude the majority of these small business owners, leaving them to slip through the cracks and forcing them into bankruptcy.
Health June 11th, 2021
Mr. Speaker, the COVID-19 testing and screening expert advisory panel has officially recommended doing away with the failed Liberal hotel quarantine policy. Instead, the Liberals increased fines for non-compliance, and only the day before the Prime Minister left for the U.K. was it modified. When will the government immediately end, not simply modify, this non-science-based program? When will it be gone?
Health June 8th, 2021
Madam Speaker, I think I talked about hotel quarantines. I did not mention the border once, which the parliamentary secretary focused on. I thank her for recognizing Alberta: For months and months, now approaching five, they have not enforced it. I thank her for recognizing that. I appreciate that.
Let us move to one other health topic. I have talked to optometrists. They are extremely concerned about what is going to happen as we have had children like my granddaughter averaging 19 hours a day in front of blue light from screens. We are going to see such repercussions for eyes. One might say that is health, that is Alberta again, but indigenous and Armed Forces are under federal jurisdiction. We need to look after eye care, and that is something we should be doing coming out of COVID because we are facing a tragedy. It is going to be brutal. We need to look at this federally.
Health June 8th, 2021
Madam Speaker, it is great to be in the House, as always.
I want to talk about doctors in Canada. I have a tremendous doctor in my constituency. He is my personal doctor, Dr. Van de Linde, who has been recognized for his commitment to the community. In the past, I was involved in a regional health board and met a lot of doctors in my area and community. They are fantastic people.
My doctor has given me some information that I think is really important at this time. I understand that health is part of the provincial mandate. I understand colleges of physicians and the role they play in every province as far as recognizing credentials for doctors goes. However, here is some information that my doctor shared with me: According to a survey of the Canadian Medical Association, 91% of physicians supported national licensure and believed that it would improve care for patients; 45% of physicians reported that if national licensure existed, they would work in other provinces to support their colleagues in times of need, as with COVID; 42% were willing to go to rural areas and remote regions; and 30% would do it again on an ongoing basis.
As we have seen in this particular time, this kind of move would be extremely interesting to pursue. I understand colleges of physicians and I understand the provincial mandate with health. However, we have a tremendous number of people with skills and licensing who have the mobility to move quickly from province to province. If we have an ice storm in Quebec, there are all sorts of tradespeople who can move from one province to another and to an area. We have significant professions that can move from province to province very quickly. However, for a doctor to do it, to be recertified in a different province, they are going back and looking for high school marks. At times it takes months to move from province to province. I think this is significant and we should be looking at it, especially as we come out of COVID. Doctors know it would mean better health care, and we need to follow their advice.
There is a different health topic that I would like to bring up: hotel quarantines. I think this was a boondoggle from the start. I have heard stories from constituents who had to pile furniture up in doorways of hotels because the locks had been removed. We have heard stories of people being loaded in vans with a whole lot of other people sitting side by side, and going to hotel lobbies crowded with people who are supposed to be in hotel quarantine. Some of those people in the hotel are in regular rooms.
An advisory committee suggested approximately 10 days ago that the hotel quarantine needed to be scrapped because rules are not being enforced in two of the four areas. It should be scrapped. It was not an idea that worked to begin with. It does not work. As the committee said, people are better off to quarantine at their homes if they are going to. It also said that if people are vaccinated somewhere else and are coming into Canada, quarantine should not be enforced either.
We have an advisory committee for the government that said we should change this and get rid of it. What did the government do? It increased the fines, which are enforced in only two out of the four provinces. Hotel quarantines should be gone.
Canadian Heritage June 3rd, 2021
Madam Speaker, not to be a repetitionist, but there is another issue that has developed this week that is really of significant importance.
COVID really destroyed the airline industry in this country, hugely, shutting it down and losing all sorts of parts of our airline industry to travel. There were 20,000 people at all different levels who lost their jobs. Every type of employee was affected. Travel agencies lost their businesses, 85% of them female.
There was a bailout negotiated by the current Liberal government, using taxpayer money for loans and money. The executives suffered from the pain of firing 20,000 and negotiated a bailout, reacted decisively and got millions and a buyout and bonuses. This is the wrong thing for the bonuses.
Canadian Heritage June 3rd, 2021
Madam Speaker, tonight I will talk a little about Bill C-10. We have talked about free speech and net neutrality. There have been a lot of words mentioned by the minister about foreign big tech and the Conservatives supporting them. When I look at lobbying, and I look at all of those people from big tech, the Amazons, the Netflixes, the YouTubes, they are not coming to lobby me. There is a registry that shows who gets lobbied, and they seem to spend a lot of time in the minister's office, not mine, so I am not sure where he is getting that from.
There has been some discussion about tax. Yes, if businesses are doing business in Canada, we agree there should be a tax, but we are going to be honest about that because the users are going to be paying up to 50% more because of that tax. The Biden administration is saying that, if we tax those companies like that in Canada, there are going to be tariffs, so where is that cost going to go to?
We are talking about funding this for culture, but who gets it and where does it go? The parliamentary secretary was the chair of the heritage committee when we looked at where our funding was going for cultural groups in Canada. Is it a surprise that Alberta got 50% less per capita than the rest of the country?
Who decides where it goes? The CRTC is involved in this, but who is the Canadian Radio and Television Commission? It is made up of nine appointed commissioners, and if we look at the Yale report, which a lot of this supposed legislation in Bill C-10 is based on, it recommended that one has to live in Ottawa, the national capital area, if one is on the commission. That is interesting.
There are no minutes for the CRTC. It has no record of debates and no record of votes. Is this transparent and accountable? We know that in the private sector, algorithms have been developed for Amazon or Netflix. They have developed the algorithms, so, if people like a movie, it will suggest some more like it, or if we are buying one thing, it will suggest more we might like.
They are driven by profit and data. We know that, but now we are taking the content, which is what we object to at the CRTC. It did protect individuals, but it pulled off the protective content, so now the CRTC, these non-transparent commissioners, are going to develop algorithms that are driven not by data but by content.
Would someone have a concern about the content of an organization that is going to develop algorithms based on Canadian content? That means they are going to look at whatever they think is Canadian content and develop algorithms that say this one is more Canadian than that one. It will say we should be watching these Canadians more than those Canadians.
That creates winners and losers in our creators of Canadian content. We have 200,000 people who have created and uploaded their content. We have 25,000 people in Canada who have been very successful at making a living. Our concern is to protect individual rights, and the content should be left alone. That is freedom of speech and it should be net neutrality. That is why we are concerned about Bill C-10.
Government Accountability June 2nd, 2021
Mr. Speaker, it is no secret the government lacks accountability. Last week, we learned that third party consultation fees cost $1.3 billion more than an earlier estimate of just two months ago, totalling $17 billion in 2022.
Since the Prime Minister took office, the public service bureaucracy has ballooned by 10,000 employees per year, totalling 380,000 employees and costing $47 billion in 2020 alone.
The government believes it can spend its way out of trouble using money taken from the people it governs, then the Prime Minister tells people that they are taking on the burden so that we do not have to. Well, these are hard-earned dollars of the taxpayers, not the government's money.
The Conservative Party has a plan to secure accountability in government and reel in this irresponsible spending so that government serves its people once again, not the reverse.
Canadian Heritage May 28th, 2021
Madam Speaker, heritage department memos reveal that Bill C-10 has the potential to grant the CRTC regulatory powers to affect online services, including sports streaming, news sites, podcasts and apps. The Liberals are still pressing for the bill to be passed, which would cause tech giants to pass down the tax increase costs to my Bow River constituents by 50%, approximately.
Why did the minister ignore his department officials and proceed to present this destructive bill that will pick winners and losers based on unknown criteria?