Matthew Green

[Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021, March 4th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spent much of his time in his intervention lamenting inflation and consumer costs, with zero reference to the stagnation of real wages for workers. He lamented taxation on incomes, but he made no reference to the record profits that have been hoarded by big corporations, complete with ridiculous CEO compensations and shareholder dividends.

The hon. member has made lots of criticisms on this, but no criticisms on the capitalism that fuels it. Would he care to comment on the impacts of inflation as they relate to real working class people, such as the folks I represent in Hamilton Centre?

[Online Streaming Act, February 28th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, on the topic of manipulated algorithms, I would tend to agree. One would only have to reference all the fake participants and followers among the Conservative leadership candidates. When talking about algorithmic manipulation, look at what just happened in the occupation.

Would the hon. member agree that big corporations, such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok and the like, have a disproportionate impact on our discourse and would he agree that they need to be perhaps broken up, as well as some of the big conglomerated mainstream media outlets that we have like National Post and others?

[Online Streaming Act, February 28th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, in my lifetime I have watched a dramatic shift in the media landscape, from local newspapers to the conglomeration of these multinationals. We have gone through from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0.

Has the government made consideration for the shift in the distributed model of user-created content? I will give an example. For instance, we have a company like TikTok, which provides content creator funds everywhere else, but not in Canada.

How are we going to ensure that the individual creators who are Canadians and who are creating content are adequately compensated, and not create a situation where the fund just goes to the multinational conglomerates that have completely captured our traditional media?

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, I believe the hon. member raised an incredibly important point of law around the protection of our rights and freedoms under our charter. It is necessary for him to clearly answer this point in order for us to fully understand the scale and scope of powers granted under the provisions of the proclamation.

I know the hon. member to be a learned lawyer who would have some knowledge of this incredibly important point of law as the former attorney general of Ontario. Will he please confirm and clearly state whether the rights afforded by the charter remain whole and intact; or is the government, through its declaration, attempting to surreptitiously rescue any potential charter breaches, violations and abuses of government authority through section 1 of the charter and thereby being compliant, as he has so far stated? The public and this House deserve to know.

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this moment to commend you and the other speakers for presiding over this debate with impartiality and care. I know it has not always been easy, given what is at stake.

I would like to thank the member for Hochelaga for her remarks outlining the Emergencies Act and summarizing all the ways it may come into effect over these next 30 days. I want to pay particular attention to the ways FINTRAC and the tracking of dark money coming into the country could be extended beyond these Emergencies Act measures.

What does the hon. member believe her government can do, beyond the Emergencies Act, to ensure that we do not fall back into the same type of event where we have foreign monies flooding over our borders to fund illegal activities?

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member for Kanata—Carleton stated what she believed were the points of law to support the declaration of public order and the various ways in which the declaration was needed in this crisis, including the financial measures in order to curb the dark money flowing in and supporting these illegal activities.

I asked her colleague this question and he did not seem to have the answer, so I am going to ask her. It was made clear very early on in the occupation that crowdfunding and cryptocurrency were being used to fund illegal activity and organizers who seek to put in place their own undemocratic government. This was a demonstrated gap in the reporting requirements.

Why did the government not take immediate action to ensure the proceeds of crime and terrorist financing regulations were updated to ensure these companies were not exempt from reporting transactions to FINTRAC?

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the intelligence assessments referenced by the previous speaker were prepared by Canada's Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre and were made available to the general public via The Guardian newspaper.

The thought was that tens of millions of dark money were flowing into the coffers of far-right extremist organizers like Tamara Lich and Pat King, into the coffers, potentially, of those currently charged with conspiracy to commit murder. It was made very clear early on in this occupation that crowd funding and now cryptocurrency was being used to fund illegal activities and the organizers who seek to put in place their own undemocratic government.

This demonstrated that concerning gap in reporting requirements. Why did the government not take immediate action to ensure that the proceeds of crime and terrorist financing regulations were updated to ensure these companies were not exempt from reporting suspicious transactions to FINTRAC?

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member tried to walk a very fine line in presenting this caring and compassionate middle ground. He stated that he would never be afraid to speak to people because of some label. Perhaps it is because he has never felt the existential threat of white supremacy.

How does the hon. member reconcile his attempts for this moderate position, while he totally disregards the very real threat of violent white supremacy caused to the communities it targets with vile hatred and violence?

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member completely failed to address the previous important question posed. He painted a picture of Coutts only being about holding hands and singing O Canada.

This hon. member's denialism of what happened at Coutts is completely in line with his party's ongoing denialism of the extremist white supremacist threat to our Canadian democracy. There have been 13 people charged with conspiracy to commit murder after finding firearms and a cache of ammunition.

Why does this hon. member continue to downplay the clear and present threat of highly organized and violent elements within this extremist movement by wrapping it in the Canadian flag?

[Emergencies Act, February 20th, 2022]

Mr. Speaker, flags of the far-right Québécois ethnonationalist group La Meute have been present at the occupation here in Ottawa and at related protests across the province of Quebec. La Meute, or the Wolf Pack, was founded in Quebec by two former Canadian Armed Forces members, Éric Venne and Patrick Beaudry. I call on the member for the Bloc to take this opportunity to denounce Le Meute and join my call for a secretariat or some other office to report on the radicalization in our Armed Forces and police.