Stephen Harper

[Democratic Reform, April 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, just last week when I was in the House, the leader of the NDP said that, under the fair elections act, all existing investigations would be cancelled.

That was yet another false statement by the leader of the NDP. I do not see him dealing with that particular issue.

On the fact at hand, it is a matter of fact that the voter ID card of Elections Canada is not a secure piece of ID. That is why we have, instead, allowed 39 other pieces of identification.

[Democratic Reform, April 8th, 2014]

I have spoken to him and congratulated him, and I think all of us in all parties have noted that Quebekers have rejected the holding of another referendum and want the government to focus on job creation and the economy. We will work with the government of Quebec to do that.

[Democratic Reform, April 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, while I will address that, I would like again to congratulate Mr. Couillard for his great victory last night.

[Democratic Reform, April 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I just spoke with Mr. Couillard. I congratulated him and noted that Quebeckers have rejected having another referendum. They want a government that is focused on the economy and job creation. Those are our priorities as well, and we look forward to working with this new premier.

[Democratic Reform, April 8th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Couillard on his victory last night.

[The Environment, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, as you know, the government remains committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, while doing so in a way that obviously respects Canadians' jobs and protects our economy. I am happy to note that under this government, for the first time in history we have both growth and jobs and we actually are seeing emissions reductions. The government will continue to work on getting our emissions down.

[The Economy, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, what is readily apparent is, if the leader of the Liberal Party were with middle class Canadians, he would not actually know whether they were middle class or not.

In answer to the question, we have seen that Canada had the largest increase in income of major developed countries. As for the debt issue, interest rates are very low. Obviously, we encourage prudence with such economic measures.

[The Economy, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, like all Canadians, I am scratching my head about what the leader of the Liberal Party means by “middle class”. Yesterday, apparently a bank executive could be a member of the middle class, but today the middle class means someone who lives pay cheque to pay cheque. So that would exclude people of modest incomes who have saved something, like pensioners who are not living from pay cheque to pay cheque; and it would include people who have a very affluent lifestyle and spend all their money even though they get a very large pay cheque. So I have no idea what the leader of the Liberal Party is talking about, and I suspect he does not either.

[Foreign Affairs, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the leader of the Liberal Party will know that I met with my G7 counterparts in Europe last week, where we are not just moving forward on an existing body of sanctions but looking at other options to deal with this particular crisis. The Minister of Foreign Affairs has been in Europe this week, talking to our NATO allies about further coordinated action on that front in terms of the electoral mission. Obviously, it is the government's intent to provide a large electoral mission, and I would be pleased to update the House at the appropriate time.

I thank the leaders of the Liberal Party and the NDP for their support on this matter.

[Ethics, April 2nd, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the New Democrats obviously think Canadians are foolish. They think Canadians cannot understand that it is not a proper use of parliamentary funds to run a party office in a province where they do not even have a single parliamentarian. That is one of the many reasons why Canadians understand one does not have to have ever been in power to be a hypocrite that big.