Thomas Mulcair

[Taxation, September 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, here is what the Liberal platform promised: “an overdue and wide-ranging review of the over $100 billion in increasingly complex tax expenditures that now exist”. That is precisely what we in the NDP are calling for, to widen the consultations and go after tax havens and stock option loopholes as the Liberals promised, but the government refuses. The Minister of Finance said that “that issue is not something that we've backed away from. It's just not something we've moved forward on.”

Will the Liberals respect their own platform and finally go after tax scams for the rich?

[Taxation, September 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, in 2015, Canadian companies hid nearly $40 billion in tax havens, which cost Canadian taxpayers between $5 billion and $8 billion in unpaid taxes. The Liberals claim to want a tax system in which everyone pays their fair share.

When are they going to crack down on companies that take advantage of tax havens?

[Access to Information, September 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, just a quarter of the requests were answered within the normal 30-day time limit, and a third of all the requests included in the audit received no response. When journalists do get answers, the documents are totally redacted, pages and pages of black ink.

Open by default is what we were promised. Will the Prime Minister admit that he messed this up?

[Access to Information, September 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, from the Liberal platform, “We will make Parliament open by default. We will ensure that access to information applies to the Prime Minister’s and Ministers’ offices.”

From an audit released today on how open the government truly is, “...even worse than in the latter years of the former Stephen Harper government.”

Yesterday, the Access to Information Commissioner said she was “very disappointed” with the government.

As a former teacher, what grade would the Prime Minister give his government's performance on access to information?

[Aerospace Industry, September 27th, 2017]

Watching the government deal with Trump is like watching Bambi deal with Godzilla, Mr. Speaker. It is not an even fight.

Is that the Prime Minister's answer? Tens of thousands of jobs across the country are in jeopardy.

When will the Prime Minister finally stand up and fight for aerospace jobs here in Canada?

[Aerospace Industry, September 27th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, thousands of Canadians are worried about their jobs. Yesterday, we had a reality check with the Trump administration in Washington when it imposed ridiculously high tariffs on Bombardier, but it is not just the employees of Bombardier who are worried. Across Canada, companies that are part of its supply chain have every reason to be concerned.

What concrete action will the Prime Minister take to save those Canadian jobs?

[Ethics, September 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, it has been almost 10 months since the Ethics Commissioner launched an investigation into the Prime Minister's private billionaire island vacation. It is coming up on a year since the Lobbying Commissioner began looking into Liberal fundraisers hosted by the head of pharmaceutical giant Apotex. By the way, we just learned that Apotex is suing the Lobbying Commissioner to stop that investigation. It is hard to keep track of all these scandals.

My question for the Prime Minister is, what the heck happened? What happened to his promise of respect for Parliament and empowering the independent officers? People say that power corrupts, but boy, this was awfully fast.

[Ethics, September 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, he is not prohibiting the use of the fruits of torture. That is what is wrong here.

What do the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Commissioner of Official Languages, and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner have in common? All three investigated the Prime Minister and all three are looking for a new job.

The government has spent more than $2 million looking for a new commissioner. All we got was the botched nomination of a partisan Liberal. That cost $2 million.

What is really going on? Could it be that the Liberals want lapdogs instead of watchdogs?

[National Defence, September 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, he says that torture is poison, but he is not shy about using the fruits of that poisonous tree.

Earlier this year, in this place, the Minister of Public Safety stated that torture was contrary to the charter. He also said, “torture is found to be abhorrent by Canadians, and we reject it.”

They cannot claim to stand up for human rights on the one hand and be complicit in torture on the other. How can the Prime Minister stand in this place and defend the use of information obtained by torture?

[National Defence, September 26th, 2017]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the government issued new directives on torture. Those directives still allow the use of information obtained through torture. To the NDP, there is no context in which torturing a human being is defensible.

How can this Prime Minister, who brags about being a great defender of human rights, approve the use of the fruits of torture?