Mike Lake

[Criminal Code, October 19th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, a wise person, John Wooden, once said, “If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” The debate today is a perfect example of that.

Back in 2015, we were working against time to pass legislation, and now we have heard the hon. parliamentary secretary say this on a couple of occasions, and particularly this last time, that they found themselves having to bring forward this legislation because of a court judgment, because they did not get it right the first time. Here we are again, racing against time.

What the government could have done was challenge that ruling and heard from the Supreme Court in its wisdom. In parallel with that, we could have had a parliamentary committee study it, as mandated by the previous legislation, and we would have had a shot to get this right. Maybe the hon. member could speak to the importance of due process in getting legislation right.

[COVID-19 Pandemic and Other Matters, July 22nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, we know that the Prime Minister remains focused on some Canadians, at least.

Back in 2013, again as the opposition leader, he tweeted, “Take a minute to raise the bar on openness and transparency.” Clicking on that link led to a Liberal fundraising site where there were links to the Laurier Club and something called the “victory fund”. On that page, he said, “Canadians know the difference between right and wrong. Now I want your ideas on how we can ensure that our representatives in Ottawa play by the same rules as everyone else.”

I am wondering if someone on that side, perhaps the Prime Minister, can tell us whether anybody who does not donate to the Liberal Party has the same opportunity for input.

[COVID-19 Pandemic and Other Matters, July 22nd, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, it is great to be here today. I heard you earlier reference the House as being very emotional and tense. It is no wonder, after I watched the last interaction and the one before that with the Bloc member and the Liberal House leader, where she raised legitimate concerns that we are all hearing from our constituents about this scandal and a billion dollars, of taxpayers' dollars that was not managed appropriately. It was written off as a conspiracy theory. It would be interesting, certainly to my constituents and Canadians across the country, to know that their government views these legitimate concerns as a conspiracy theory.

I wonder if the Prime Minister would speak and tell the House whether he holds the same view that he held as opposition leader in 2013, when he tweeted, “RT to call on the Prime Minister to testify on the PMO Ethics Scandal under oath.”

Does the Prime Minister hold the same view he held then?

[Business of Supply, March 9th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to the hon. member's speech where she talked, over and over again, about the universal child care benefit.

I was proud to have been part of the government elected in 2006. One of our five priorities in that election campaign was the universal child care benefit. I was pleased that even after we introduced that, we still managed to pay down $40 billion in debt over the next few years while the economy was good. Then, when we went through a rough patch in the global economy, our government introduced a stimulus program and eventually got the budget back to balance.

Year after year, we defended spending for the universal child care benefit. When we wound up with a balanced budget in 2015, the balanced budget that the Liberal government inherited, we still had a very strong universal child care benefit.

I have the document here. After she is done with questions and comments, would the hon. member be interested in sitting down with me so that I could share with her the key to the success of the previous government, of how we managed to protect funding for something as important as the universal child care benefit and still balanced the budget in 2015?

[Business of Supply, February 28th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is very difficult to hear what the member is saying and contrast that to what my constituents are saying. For context, in my riding of Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, we had 63,000 votes in the last election. Looking at the election results, if we combine the member's results with those of the four Liberal members from P.E.I., it does not amount to as many votes as we had in Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. We have 47 Conservative members out of the 48 members of Parliament for Alberta and Saskatchewan. Nothing that the government does reflects anything that matters to the lives of the people of Alberta and Saskatchewan and other parts of this country.

They are not being heard. The member talks about political stunts. His deputy House leader and one of the ministers went to my riding last week. They did not call me. They did not let me know they were going. They met with mayors from outside my riding, including Naheed Nenshi. They are not listening to the concerns that matter to the people on the ground. People in my community are committing suicide because the economic measures the government is taking are absolutely destroying the lives of Albertans.

When will the member come to my riding, call me and meet with my constituents about the things that really matter to them?

[Natural Resources, February 27th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, those are just words. Yesterday in an interview, the natural resources minister was challenged regarding his government's lack of an emissions plan.

When asked when one would be unveiled, he repeated the word “soon” five times in 25 seconds. He acknowledged that investors do not currently “know what direction we're heading in and what the rules are”. He was not kidding. This is something that has been glaringly obvious to everyone but the Liberal government for the past four years.

How many more billions of dollars in investment and tens of thousands of jobs need to be lost before the Liberal government finally has a coherent plan?

[International Development Week, February 5th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, International Development Week gives me an opportunity to share an important story that too few Canadians know.

Leading the G8 in 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper brought the world's attention to something very close to his heart. Ten years into their 15-year window, two UN millennium development goals were critically behind. The first was to save the lives of children under five. The second was to save mothers in and around childbirth.

Harper's Muskoka initiative rallied world leaders to meet the challenge and delivered significant results, largely due to his relentless focus on accountability and transparency and the tireless work of the Canadian development community. The initiative would turn out to be a global game-changer, helping save the lives of more than three million children and 200,000 mothers every single year.

In the midst of a global economic crisis, Stephen Harper never lost sight of those around the world who were truly the most vulnerable. He became their quiet champion, and it is a story that should make all Canadians rightly proud.

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, January 27th, 2020]

With regard to the government’s international development funding, since April 1, 2019: what are the details of all funding provided to civil society organizations, including the (i) name of the organization, (ii) amount received, (iii) amount requested, (iv) purpose of the funding and the description of related projects, (v) date of the funding announcement, (vi) start and end dates of the project receiving funding?

[Accessible Canada Act, May 29th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, as I am sure the hon. member knows, the bill will pass in about half an hour or less. After a couple more speeches, we will be at that point. It is a good day for Parliament.

I have had the opportunity to serve with the member on the industry committee in a previous life, prior to the last election, and I enjoyed the non-partisan conversations we had at that time, just as I enjoyed his speech today. He rightfully gave commendation to the minister, recognizing the work she has done in sharing her life experience to help people who have had similar life experiences.

I would also like to recognize our former minister of finance, who did the same thing for 10 years in the House, using his life experience to inform his policy decisions.

This is questions and comments, and I am going to sit down and leave this as a comment, thanking the Minister of Accessibility for her work on this file and thanking the Minister of Transport, who just spoke, for his non-partisan speech.

In the spirit of this day, as we work together to create a better world for Canadians living with disabilities, I will end my comments there.

[Accessible Canada Act, May 28th, 2019]

Mr. Speaker, this is not going to be a super tough question. Full disclosure: the hon. member for Whitby is a good friend of mine and has been for the last four years as we have worked together on things that we very much care about. She spent her life before politics helping the most vulnerable.

One of my favourite sources of wisdom is John Wooden, a former basketball coach, and one of his pieces of advice was to “surround yourself with smart people who'll argue with you.” That advice is more welcome with some people than others. I very much welcome that advice. I really appreciate the fact that when I sit down and chat with my friend, I may not always agree with her but I am always challenged by her in terms of her ideas.

The question I have is relevant to her situation and her experience here after four years. What we have seen with this legislation is the ability of associations coming together and finding common ground. I would like the hon. member to comment on what lessons we can learn here in this place about the importance of working together on issues like this and finding that common ground in the best interest of Canadians.