House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2019, with 40% of the vote.
Veterans Affairs December 11th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, mismanagement by the Minister of Veterans Affairs has created massive backlogs of disability claims. We have known this for over a year, yet the backlog continues to get worse.
The minister likes to compare his transition from TV host to minister with that of injured veterans struggling to rejoin the civilian world. However, unlike veterans, he has never been made to wait in an endless line by the very government he had to pledge his life to. The minister owes veterans an apology.
Customs Act December 11th, 2018
Madam Speaker, yesterday time allocation was again invoked by the government. The member for Winnipeg North commented on time allocation and talked about when he was in the third party in the last Parliament and sat in this corner. He referred to the fact that he became aware of how important time allocation was. I would remind that member and the Minister of Public Safety, when they invoke time allocation, and they know full well that it limits debate in the House, that the record will show the fervency with which the Liberals argued against it in the House. When they campaigned in the last election, they told Canadians they would do something different.
We find ourselves today in a unique situation. As we reach the end of this session, we find time allocation being used day after day by the government. We could check the Hansard record, which, frankly, I have not, but I could if we determined that to be necessary. How can the Liberals sit as a government and repeatedly use time allocation in good conscience?
Veterans November 27th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, here are the facts: dysfunction, mismanagement and incompetence. Twenty-nine thousand veterans are in a backlog waiting for a decision. Of those, 3,000 have waited for over a year. There has been $42 billion spent by the minister and nothing has improved.
When is the minister going to stop wasting time and money and help veterans directly?
Budget Implementation Act, 2018, No. 2 November 27th, 2018
Madam Speaker, the broken promise made during the last election campaign to run small deficits and come back to balance is obviously something that was thrown out the window in the very early days of the current government.
The small business tax reduction was something Conservatives put on the books to do and Liberals chose not to do it until they were pressured by small business itself. Because they wanted to increase taxation on small business, small business rose up and made them reverse what they were going to do. That is the reality of the situation.
The reality of the situation is the Prime Minister said the budget will balance itself and yet Liberals cannot answer the basic question of when the budget will balance itself. These are fundamental promises made to people during election campaigns and yet Liberals come here and try to spin it, saying their desire to tax and spend is for the greater good of the Canadian public. It is not for the greater good. When will they balance the budget?
News and Media Industry November 22nd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, veteran Sean Bruyea had the courage to call out the Liberals' broken promises to veterans. When he did, the minister smeared him in the press and sent in high-price lawyers to shut him up.
There was nothing for veterans in the economic statement, but there were $600 million for the media, whose union has launched a campaign in support of the Liberals.
Why is the Prime Minister trying to buy off the media in an election year instead of supporting veterans?
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns November 19th, 2018
With regard to the Veterans Affairs Canada service standard of 16 weeks in regards to decisions for disability benefit applicants for the 2017-18 fiscal year, or the last year in which statistics are available: how many and what percentage of applications received a decision within (i) the 16-week standard, (ii) between 16 and 26 weeks, (iii) greater than 26 weeks (6 months), (iv) greater than a year?
Remembrance Day November 1st, 2018
Mr. Speaker, each year on Remembrance Day we pause to remember the sacrifices made by Canadian men and women in uniform. The service and sacrifices of Canadian Armed Forces members during the time of war, conflict and peace have defined and shaped our country.
Throughout our history, Canadian men and women have bravely fought tyranny and evil around the world, defending our country, our values and our way of life.
This year's ceremony takes on a very special meaning. Canadians will not only be marking Remembrance Day but the 100th anniversary of the armistice on November 11, 1918.
The Canada and Newfoundland of November 1918 was a much different place from the land we live in today. Streetcars and automobiles still shared the road with horse-drawn carriages. Canadians and Newfoundlanders fought for King and countries. To this day, July 1 holds additional meaning for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador.
It would be another year before we could begin gathering around radios for news and entertainment. Most would first learn of the armistice from their daily newspaper or ecstatic neighbours who had already read the news. Together, they would flood into the streets. “PEACE” read the bold banner headline of the Toronto Star, but beneath that headline and deep inside the pages would come news foreshadowing great misery to come.
The Globe and Mail would report that the terms of surrender were a humiliation to Germany, but on that day and in that moment there was no room for fear or worry. Peace had been achieved. Canadians would soon see themselves projected onto screens by grainy newsreels that recorded the happiness that drove them and millions more across the world into the streets, where they rejoiced in the war's end.
Perhaps it was the images and memories of that day that would encourage Canadians to join each other a year later to mark the very first Remembrance Day.
Perhaps it was that the Great War, the war to end all wars, had scarred our nations so deeply and cost us so immensely.
Perhaps it was that the war spared no one and had exacted such a heavy and personal toll from everyone that people all across the Commonwealth would see fit to begin marking its end together.
We know for certain what Kenneth Lawrence, a World War I veteran from my riding of Brantford—Brant, was thinking. He was the last Canadian to be wounded in World War I and was quoted at the time as saying that there were thousands who were physically wounded like him, and thousands more not physically but mentally and morally wounded. It would take our nation generations to come to terms with those mental wounds that Kenneth Lawrence spoke of.
Those dispatches, buried under the headlines heralding peace, foretold of future war, a war that would trace its roots back to the fragile peace of November 1918.
Indeed, Canadians would be called upon time and time again to leave the comfort of their lives, don their country's uniform, deploy to foreign lands and once again display a willingness to sacrifice all to achieve another peace, from World War II to the Korean War, to Afghanistan, to the fight against ISIS and everything in between.
The men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces have not wavered in their resolve to defend our country, our values and our way of life, so let us take time today to not only pay tribute to those who have sacrificed all, but to thank those who stand ready today to do the same.
This Remembrance Day, I urge all members to join me in extending a heartfelt thank you to Canadian veterans and those serving today. Let us not forget that on that first Remembrance Day there was great sorrow, but along with it great joy in the peace that had been achieved.
I would like to read a poem. It is not the poem members might think I would read today. This is a poem, a stanza of which all of us as members of Parliament who attend various Remembrance Day ceremonies in our communities and around the globe will say as an act of remembrance.
This poem, For the Fallen, was written by Laurence Binyon during the war. He had been on the front lines and witnessed what was happening in the Great War. He writes:
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Lest we forget.
Veterans Affairs October 30th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, it has been two months since the outrageous news broke that convicted murderer, Chris Garnier, was receiving veterans benefits despite having never served a day in his life. At the time, the minister promised veterans answers, yet no answers came.
When given a chance, every member on the Liberal side of the House voted against stripping Chris Garnier of these benefits. Since then, we have learned that veterans applying for benefits they have earned are being forced to wait months, and sometimes years, for those benefits. We have learned that the Liberal government's pension scheme is a shell game, and if people challenge the government on it, like Sean Bruyea did, it will send in high-priced lawyers to shut them up.
Susan and Dwight Campbell, the parents of Chris Garnier's victim, Catherine Campbell, are still waiting for answers. Enough is enough. The Prime Minister needs to show leadership, step in and revoke these benefits.
Veterans Affairs October 24th, 2018
Mr. Speaker, every Liberal stood in the House and voted to maintain the benefits to murderer, Chris Garnier. True leaders, when they realize a mistake has been made, correct it. Chris Garnier never served one minute of his life in a military uniform, yet he is getting benefits for which veterans are waiting. This is outrageous, and we demand the government take leadership and revoke his benefits.
Veterans Affairs October 2nd, 2018
Mr. Speaker, yesterday we learned that the Liberal government was excluding ill and injured veterans from its job placement program. The minister claimed it was not true, but internal briefing notes from his own department clearly state otherwise.
The Liberals said that the new program was meant to support veterans “who leave the Canadian Armed Forces for reasons other than illness or injury.”
Why are ill and injured veterans being blocked from receiving this benefit?