Michelle Rempel

[Carbon Pricing, February 15th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is so expensive to live in Vancouver that people are buying flights twice a week to commute from Calgary to Vancouver, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and costing them so much money. It is unbelievable that the Liberal government has created a cost-of-living crisis that is so profound that people feel they have to fly back and forth from Calgary to Vancouver twice a week just to make ends meet. That is insane. That does not help greenhouse gas emissions, and it does not help people make ends meet.

When will the Liberals axe unnecessary taxes and help people make ends meet?

[Carbon Pricing, February 15th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I quote:

Canadians turn to GoFundMe to tackle cost-of-living challenges. Record-high inflation and affordable housing shortages have profoundly impacted Canadians, who have been turning to the GoFundMe platform to rally support. Since early 2020, GoFundMe has recorded a 274% increase in Canadian campaigns that mention “cost of living”.

This is a text taken directly from the GoFundMe website, which now has a record number of Canadians, hard-working Canadians, who cannot make ends meet in spite of working multiple jobs and now feel that their only recourse is to resort to digital begging. On this particular page there is the story of Claude. Social worker Leigh Adamson set up this GoFundMe campaign to support her friend, who was forced to live in his car due to the soaring cost of living. There are so many stories about this.

Also, if members go to different mom Facebook pages, instead of seeing stories about sharing vacation photos or recipes, they will see people asking for support to buy groceries. That is because, as GoFundMe said, of soaring inflation.

One of the key drivers of this cost-of-living crisis is unnecessary taxes like the carbon tax. In fact, the carbon tax is set to rise as much as 17% in April of this year. Despite pleas from people across the country to axe this tax, which does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions and does not work, the Liberals are just keeping it, and it is costing people. It is making them digitally beg to deal with the cost of living.

Instead of axing the tax, what the Liberals are doing is spending money on consultants to rebrand the tax. I really feel the Liberals should have some compassion for people, not make them resort to digital begging on platforms like GoFundMe. They should be looking at affordability measures.

There is no way to make the carbon tax affordable. It increases the cost of everything. The Parliamentary Budget Officer, Parliament's top watchdog on public spending, said that as the carbon price is expected to increase over time, “most households will see a net loss”. People cannot afford that. They cannot afford to put a roof over their head. They cannot afford to buy food. They certainly cannot afford to pay a tax that does nothing to protect the environment but only goes to make their lives more unaffordable.

Will the Liberals have some compassion and axe the tax?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, February 12th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am responding to that point of order. I would remind the House that the Chair has ruled in the past that, on unanimous consent motions, if a member is seeking unanimous consent and there is no consent at that time, there is no obligation for the House to listen to the entirety of the matter at hand.

[Committees of the House, February 9th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in debate on the concurrence motion regarding the report from the Standing Committee on Science and Research, “Revitalizing Research and Scientific Publication in French in Canada”.

A fun fact about me is that my maiden name is Godin. My father and our family anglicized us. As an anglicized child, I feel very strongly about the importance of accessing French language training and the preservation of the French language in Canada.

I just want to draw from the supplementary opinion to this report, written by the Bloc Québécois, and read two lines into the record:

However, the Bloc Québécois feels that the report does not go far enough and does not fully respond to Quebec's demands in terms of research and education.... The Bloc Québécois believes that the most obvious remedy to this problem is for the federal government to withdraw completely from this field of activity, while granting Quebec the means to assume these responsibilities.

The problem is the funding of research in French and access to French language research projects, etc.

With regard to the line that says the report “does not fully respond to Quebec's demands in terms of research and education”, I note one of the Quebec government's most recent demands. I will read from an article from True North news by an author named Elie Cantin-Nantel. The title of the article is “Quebec higher education minister denounces EDI practices in letter to universities”.

This whole situation started to arise in March 2022. This is an article from the Canadian Press: “Quebec university criticized for job posting that excludes white men”. That is a headline from a CTV article.

It says, “Ministers in Francois Legault's government took exception on Wednesday to a call for candidates from Laval University that they consider exaggerated and even discriminatory.” This relates to a funded research position from the Canada research chair program.

In response to this issue, the Quebec government went so far as to pass a motion in the National Assembly on December 7, 2022. A National Post article said that the motion “expresse[d] a commitment to merit-based hiring on university campuses and reject[ed] the imposition of racial or gender quotas by the federal government.”

I guess I am just wondering if, in the supplemental report, where the Bloc says that the report “does not fully respond to Quebec's demands in terms of research and education”, that line is, in fact, referring to this recent motion that was put forward in the National Assembly regarding calls for merit-based hiring, particularly when it comes to Canada research chairs.

The Bloc has called for, essentially, a devolution of research funding—

[Public Safety, February 9th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, eight years ago, under the last Conservative government, extortion was down. It is was five times lower, and the budget was balanced.

The mayor of Surrey has taken note. In a letter pleading with the Liberals to do something about the explosion of life-threatening extortion in her community, she said that she has “terrified” people in her community.

Conservatives would restore mandatory minimum sentences for convicted extortionists, and stop the crime explosion rate that is terrorizing Canadians across the country. Will the Liberals?

[Public Safety, February 9th, 2024]

Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, towns that used to be peaceful are being terrorized by foreign gangs that threaten our neighbourhoods with violence and arson. The rate of extortion across Canada is up a whopping 218%.

Canadians are living in fear for their lives because of NDP-Liberal bills like Bill C-5, which eliminated mandatory jail time for extortion with a firearm. This means dangerous criminals stay on the street.

It is time to stop the crime. Will the Liberals reverse this dangerous bill that keeps dangerous criminals on the street?

[Foreign Affairs, February 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I believe that the head of the UN Women association that my colleague mentioned made some sort of ridiculous statement about the need for the victims of this sexual violence to do more, saying that they were not doing enough to get justice. No, the world owes these survivors justice.

UN Women has done nothing, zero. Right now, the Canadian government should be condemning UN Women for its inaction and looking to reform the agency to actually get justice for the survivors of sexual violence, be it Israeli women or the women of the Yazidi community, who have seen no justice for the atrocities they have endured.

What material actions is the Canadian government taking to reform UN Women? What leverage are they using to see reforms so justice for women is not platitudes and asking—

[Foreign Affairs, February 7th, 2024]

Madam Speaker, four months ago I was on an airplane, and my phone started going off. I knew what was happening when I saw images of women with blood between their legs, in their sweat pants. Four months ago today, an atrocity of gender-based violence was committed by Hamas against Jewish women, because they were Jewish. It was an extreme example of the use of rape and gender-based violence as a tool of war. These women were used as a tool of extremism and genocide, and the world did not care.

We went through the #MeToo movement. Across the world, it does not matter what religion women are and it does not matter where they are, women's bodies are always used as tools of war and oppression, but this was an extreme example of that. After the #MeToo movement and after the world's lack of recognition of what happened to these women four months ago, I had to wonder whether it is “me too, except if I am a Jew”.

Canada's response on this, the fact that the Canadian government was so slow to condemn the rape and torture of Jewish women by Hamas, is a stain on Canada's ability to speak up against gender-based violence, and that has not been addressed in this place adequately in any way, shape or form.

When I asked at the time the question I am posing again today, which is whether the government would condemn, and push the United Nations to condemn, the rape of Jewish women, there was obfuscation. I am just going to say that everybody should be uncomfortable with that in this place. I stood here years ago, making the same case for Yazidi women who were raped, tortured and sold into sexual slavery at the hands of ISIS. They still have no justice to this day. In fact, some of the perpetrators and the sympathizers of the rapists and torturers were welcomed back into Canada with open arms.

Do members know what happens when there is no justice for rapists? That says to do it again with impunity, and that is exactly what happened on October 7. That uncomfortable truth should make the skin of every person in this room crawl with shame.

Rape and torture as a method of war should make nobody comfortable. There should be zero comfort with that, and the fact that the Canadian government took so long, equivocated and put up its finger to test where the political winds were blowing before condemning the rape and torture of women is really disgusting. Therefore, I will ask the government this: Why did it take so long for the government to condemn? I do not even think the government has done that.

What is the government doing? What actions is it taking to reform the UN to ensure that the delay it took in condemning the rape of Israeli women—

[Carbon Pricing, February 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, it is really spectacular to see what these Liberals will do, knowing how far behind they are in the polls. The reality is they are behind in the polls because they are not helping Canadians make ends meet. They are making it worse for them.

What we need to do is axe the carbon tax. We need to build more homes.

There is a motion in front of Parliament that would make life more affordable right now for Canadians. Will the government support our common-sense motion to stop the carbon tax increase on April 1?

[Carbon Pricing, February 2nd, 2024]

Madam Speaker, I can assure members that, unlike the Liberals, if Ms. Byrne had hauled the grocers in for a round table, prices would be lower by now.

The reality is the Liberal-NDP coalition has nobody outside itself to blame for high grocery prices, because of increased tax and deficit spending. This inflationary crisis was caused by it, so I ask a simple question: Will its members support our motion to cancel the increase in the carbon tax on April 1?