Rachael Thomas

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 13th, 2023]

With regard to requests made by the government to Google since January 1, 2016, broken down by department, agency, or other government entity: what are the details of all requests, including, for each, the (i) date, (ii) title of who made the request, (iii) reason for the request, (iv) summary of the request, (v) title of who received the request, (vi) resulting action (request granted, denied, etc.)?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 9th, 2023]

With regard to government requests to remove, edit, or alter information in the media, since January 1, 2016: (a) how many requests has the government made to social media companies, including for any article, post or reply; (b) what is the breakdown of (a) by social media platform, year, department, agency, Crown corporation or other government entity that made the request; (c) what are the details of each request to a social media company, including, for each (i) the date, (ii) the platform, (iii) the description of the post or reply, (iv) a summary of the request, (v) the reason for the request, (vi) whether the information was removed, edited, or altered, and if so, what changed, (vii) the title of the individual who made the request; (d) how many requests has the government made to traditional media companies; (e) what is the breakdown of (d) by media outlet, year, department, agency, Crown corporation, or other government entity that made the request; and (f) what are the details of each request in (d), including, for each, (i) the date, (ii) the media outlet, (iii) the title of the individual who made the request, (iv) the description of the content subject to the request, (v) whether the content was removed, edited, or altered, and if so, what changed?

[Canada Early Learning and Child Care Act, June 6th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to request a recorded division.

[Carbon Pricing, June 5th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals want to blame emissions on the senior who simply wishes to visit her grandchildren or the farmer who takes the bounty off his field and turns it into finished goods to go on grocery store shelves. The Liberals would rather penalize the single mother who has to drive long hours to provide for her family than face the fact that it is neither making a difference for the environment nor, certainly, for Canadians. Adding insult to injury, the government is planning to up the tax by adding a second one on July 1. The Liberals sure know how to party, do they not?

Canadians cannot at all afford this, and they are calling for change. Seniors are delaying their retirement, students are using food banks at astronomical rates and half of all Canadians are reporting that they are close to bankruptcy. The answer to climate change is not more taxation but, rather, more technology. This means that Canadians are the solution rather than the problem. They are the way forward. They are the problem solvers; they are the innovators that this nation needs. It is time for the government to celebrate them as such.

On this side of the House, we are calling on the government to axe the tax.

[Passports, May 11th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the Prime Minister could be more out of touch with the reality of Canadians.

It really was not too long ago that people literally lined up and stayed the night, camping out, to get their passport renewed or a new one altogether. People missed out on being able to go see a dying loved one before they passed away. They missed out on weddings. They missed out on funerals. They missed out on family celebrations. Why was that?

Well, it turns out that it was because this government was more concerned with erasing history by removing Terry Fox, Quebec City and Vimy Ridge from our passports, rather than getting passports expedited to Canadians. Why is the government so hellbent on erasing Canada's history?

[Carbon Pricing, May 11th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for interrupting.

[Carbon Pricing, May 11th, 2023]

It was coming equally from that side and from this side.

[Journalists' Sources, May 11th, 2023]

Mr. Speaker, as if censoring what Canadians can see, say or hear online was not bad enough, the Liberals had to go even a step further. That was this past weekend at their convention. They decided to put forward a policy that would require journalists to give up their sources in order to be published online. It was not enough to censor Canadians at large; they had to target journalists.

Imagine this for a moment. Imagine what would happen if journalists had to be vetted by the government in order to release a story on, say, donations given by the Beijing government to the Trudeau Foundation, or foreign interference in our elections, or the many, many ethical breaches of the government. I wonder what would happen if journalists had to be vetted in order to release those stories. They probably would not go public, which begs the question, is the government simply acting pre-emptively in order to get ahead of future stories they know will be coming? Why is the government so hell-bent on censoring the media?

[Privilege, May 9th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, my colleague highlighted something really important and that is that the motion that was at hand had to do with calling what is happening to the Uyghur people within China, at the hands of Beijing, a genocide. This place passed a motion to that effect, which means the government has a responsibility to act, and it has not done so yet.

[Privilege, May 9th, 2023]

Madam Speaker, I genuinely appreciate the question. I think it is a very good one.

There is this balance between protecting individuals' privacy and access to information and data ownership. Those are all definitely very important questions. There is also this question around safety, security and transparency.

I think what is at stake here is not necessarily the individual's privacy. Rather, we are asking for there to be greater transparency around what happened. Why is it that the government was aware, for more than two years, that there were threats being made against my colleague? Why is it that the government knew there was interference from Beijing in the 2019 and 2021 elections and did nothing?

We know that the Prime Minister had access to those documents, and we know, based on the testimony of his chief of staff, that he reads everything that he is given. We have no other conclusion to draw than the fact that the Prime Minister had the documents, read the documents and did nothing. Canadians deserve better.