Rona Ambrose

[Foreign Affairs, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, it seems like the Prime Minister's principles cannot withstand anything more than a stiff breeze. Back in August, his Immigration minister explicitly rejected a formal extradition treaty with China so long as China still had the death penalty, but today, the Prime Minister is at the table hammering out an agreement.

I follow the news. I do not recall any headlines that China has abolished the death penalty.

What has changed in China in a month to lead the Prime Minister to completely abandon Canada's principles on human rights?

[Foreign Affairs, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, today we learned, through the media, that the Prime Minister has entered into negotiations with China on an extradition treaty.

According to Amnesty International, the Chinese justice system's use of torture is widespread and systematic, and the repression of human rights is a regular occurrence. Does the Prime Minister not understand that our openness to China should be about encouraging them to adopt our values for human rights, as opposed to us giving in to theirs?

[Foreign Affairs, September 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned about the Liberal government's motivation for deploying our men and women in uniform to sub-Saharan Africa. Our soldiers are not pawns on the Prime Minister's political chessboard to use as his fastest way to a UN Security Council seat.

There is no transparency about this dangerous mission. There is no commitment to a vote on it. Canadians deserve an answer.

How can they trust that the Prime Minister is not just using our troops as pawns to achieve his own political goals?

[Foreign Affairs, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in 2014, the Prime Minister had this to say about the deployment of troops to fight ISIS, “Canadians expect the highest standard of openness and honesty from a leader who wants to send our forces to war.”

He asked the government to allow the House of Commons to debate and vote on the issue, and that is what the previous government did.

Will the Prime Minister walk the talk and allow debate and a vote in the House?

[Foreign Affairs, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the most difficult and important decision that any government can make is to deploy our Canadian Forces in a war zone. Canadians must be able to trust that these decisions are made in our national interest, not the political interest of the Liberal Party. Sending our troops on a dangerous African mission appears to be about a purely political goal—getting a UN Security Council seat. However, our troops are not pawns on a political chessboard. Why has the Prime Minister decided that this is the best way to win over his friends at the UN?

[Foreign Affairs, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has a romantic notion about peacekeeping that simply does not match up to reality. This is 2016, not 1956. Increasingly, there is no peace to keep. The conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa are dangerous. Even Roméo Dallaire agrees that a mission there will be deadly.

Does the Prime Minister understand this is not a peacekeeping mission but rather a dangerous deployment that will risk Canadian lives, and does he think it is worth it?

[The Economy, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, our priority is to be here to fight for hard-working Canadians, but they are clearly not a priority for the Prime Minister. Thousands of Canadians were laid off this summer, household debt is at an all-time high, and Canadians do not believe that the Prime Minister can manage the economy. Canadians are worried about their future and jobs are not being created, so what is his answer?

[The Economy, September 19th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, common-sense Canadians know that when we borrow money, we have to pay it back. The Liberals have borrowed a lot of money, and guess who is paying it back? Canadians. They have raised taxes on families and on small business, and now they are forcing through a carbon tax hike and a CPP tax hike that will cost many Canadian families thousands of dollars a year. At the end of the day, how much more money are they going to take from hard-working Canadians?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister still, after three questions, does not even understand the issue. These girls are not refugees. They are not considered refugees. They are languishing in camps as displaced people.

However, we have a special program that the Prime Minister has the power to use to bring these girls to Canada, so I ask him again, when will he take action and help these girls?

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, Yazidi girls as young as nine years old are being used as sex slaves by ISIS.

On International Women's Day I asked the Prime Minister if he would step up and ensure that these Yazidi girls get placed in Canada's joint sponsorship program, and he had no answer.

Germany has now taken in 1,000 of these girls and given them safe haven, so I am asking again for the third time, will the Prime Minister step up and follow Germany's lead and help these girls?