Todd Doherty

[Elections Modernization Act, December 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I thought what I would do instead of answering that question, because we know it is untrue, is recognize we have incredible groups of people who help us operate every day here. There are the pages who sit through these speech each and every day. There are the parliamentary security fellows and ladies who stand guard for us. They wear their green hats as they are still without a contract. Again, that is probably another failure from the government. I would like to wish them a merry Christmas and thank them. It is very important as they sit through long hours with us.

[Elections Modernization Act, December 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. colleague owes me an apology. I clearly did not say she lied.

[Elections Modernization Act, December 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, as I outlined in my speech, when the Liberals say something, we cannot believe what they say, and that is just another example of—

[Elections Modernization Act, December 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, Bill C-76 is about electoral reform. It is about what we do in the House. It is about how we govern.

Our national economy is directly related to this, how we function. Pipelines and softwood lumber all relate to this. It is, yet, another Liberal failure. We still do not have a softwood lumber agreement. Pipeline workers in Alberta have been told to hang in there.

The Liberals failed miserably with Bill C-76. It is evidenced by the number of amendments offered by committee members, over 330 of them and only a handful were accepted.

It brings me back to, I think it was 2016, when we were pressuring the government to do something with softwood lumber. We were nearing the end of our softwood lumber agreement and our grace period. We were almost to that critical point. We challenged members across the way, at the natural resources committee, to hold an emergency meeting, to bring folks in from the industry and to find a team Canada approach to getting a softwood lumber agreement done. We were told that it was a waste of time and a waste of money.

There are sweeping mill closures, work curtailing and layoffs in my province of British Columbia. That is because government failed to secure rail access to our forestry manufacturers. It has failed to get a new softwood lumber agreement in place. The government has done nothing regarding the unfair tariffs and duties placed on our forestry workers. We are under attack, and the government has done nothing.

I will bring us back to the Prime Minister's very first speech on the world stage. There was no mention of softwood lumber in the minister's mandate letter, no mention of softwood or forestry in the Speech from the Throne. In his very first speech, he said that under his government, Canada would become known more for our resourcefulness, than for our natural resources. It is shocking.

I have talked about how far we have fallen. When someone who crosses our borders illegally, we cannot call it “illegal”, it is “irregular”. That goes to Bill C-76 as well, and I have mentioned it before. It is about that foreign interference and protecting us from those who come in to Canada.

There are so many holes in the bill. That was outlined through the many amendments. As my hon. colleague from Calgary Midnapore offered, there are holes big enough to drive a Mac truck through. This is not dissimilar to the government's leaky border policy. Do members remember the tweet “Welcome to Canada”? What is that costing Canadians? By 2020, that crisis will cost Canadian taxpayers $1.6 billion.

Let us go back to the deficit and why that is such an issue. It is another promise that was broken by the Prime Minister. He would say anything to get elected and once he was in here it was “I didn't really mean it.” He promised that 2019 would be the final deficit and that the Liberals would return us to surplus in 2019, just in time for the election. Now we know there is another, possibly, $30 billion added to that.

Bill C-76 could potentially open the door for what proposes to dissuade, instead of taking this opportunity to ensure foreign influence, 114 different foreign-funded groups.

I mentioned veterans. I mentioned first responders. The government has failed them. Earlier this week at a meeting with veterans, the Minister of Veterans Affairs actually used his transition, of retiring from the media to political life, as a way to understand what veterans went through because he assumed it was similar to what he went through, going from the structured life of media. It was unreal.

Let us talk about ethics. The Prime Minister is the first prime minister in the history of our country to be found guilty of an ethics violation. Then there was the finance minister, guilty. Then there was the fisheries minister, guilty. Now there is a Liberal MP, who we are not sure whether he has resigned or not, tied to another minister and some shady land deals, and perhaps money stuff going to other foreign entities. This has been a year of failure.

If I seem a little riled up, it is because I was sent here with great hope for all of us. Sadly, the Prime Minister and his front bench, and then some, are failing Canadians. It is only those of us in the opposition who are doing whatever we can to hold their feet to the fire, yet they say we are calling them names and being divisive. All we are doing is standing up for Canadians. We will continue to do so.

[Elections Modernization Act, December 13th, 2018]

I appreciate your intervention, Mr. Speaker. My colleague across the way should have listened to this debate, as I have, from the very beginning, by all members of Parliament, especially in the last couple of days, because this is our last day in the House. I would challenge my hon. colleague to look through Hansard and see if some of the speeches by her own colleagues were relevant throughout. As a matter of fact, I prefaced my comments today by saying that Bill C-76 is yet another Liberal failure and that I would be speaking to the other failures and how they relate to Bill C-76. With that, I will continue.

Let us talk about natural resources and the hundreds of thousands of pipeline workers, softwood lumber workers and forestry workers—

[Elections Modernization Act, December 13th, 2018]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak for probably the last time in these hallowed halls. It is an honour to stand once again to speak to what has been deemed amendments to Bill C-76. I am going to focus my speech on Bill C-76, which represents yet another failure of the government.

I want to bring Canadians back to day 10 of the 2015 election, when the member for Papineau, who is now the Prime Minister, said that under his government, debate would reign. The Liberals would not resort to Parliamentary trickery or invoke closure on debate, because every Canadian deserves to have a say.

Here we sit today debating a very important piece of legislation. Over 50 times, the government has invoked closure. I have said this a number of times, but this just shows the contempt of the Prime Minister and his team for this House, and indeed, for electors, electors who vote opposition members in. This House is not the Prime Minister's. It is not the Speaker's, and it is not mine. This House belongs to Canadians and those who elected the 338 members of Parliament to be their voices here in Ottawa.

The message the Prime Minister and his team send when they invoke closure is that if members are on the opposition side, their voices really do not matter, and the electors who elected them really do not matter. That is shameful. That is just one broken promise by the Prime Minister and his team. Bill C-76 is yet another broken promise. The Liberal platform in 2015 called for real change. The Liberals talked about omnibus bills, yet here we have another omnibus bill.

The Liberals talk about wanting to get this bill through. It is important that we get it done for the 2019 election. We have heard testimony from all our colleagues on this side of the House that this is because of the Liberals' failure to manage their legislative agenda. They are now at the eleventh hour having to push this through by invoking closure. They want to get this done before we rise. The Liberals said they would never limit debate, yet here we have seen it over 50 times.

The Liberals also talked about being open and transparent. I believe the member for Papineau, now our Prime Minister, said that his government would be the most open and transparent in the history of our country. Have we ever seen the government be open and transparent? It is so open that if one is a Liberal insider, one will get an appointment. If one is a Liberal family member or a former Liberal colleague, one will get a quota, such as the surf clam quota.

Mr. Speaker, if you can sense a little frustration in my voice, it is because I was elected here, and while the national outcome was not what I had hoped for, I came here with the best intentions. I came here with great hope for all of us, the 338 members of Parliament. We all put our names down with the intention of doing good for our country.

We have seen arrogance. It is not from all members on that side. There are good people on that side, but the front bench has let them down and has let Canada down. I am angry, and Canadians are angry.

The Liberals talk about Bill C-76 making things better for voters. I will bring members back to 2015. We had the highest voter turnout in the 2015 election. They said that somehow Prime Minister Harper was trying to suppress voter turnout, that the changes he made to the Elections Act were somehow going to suppress voter turnout, but we had the highest voter turnout. Speaking of voter ID, we increased the number of acceptable pieces of ID for voters. Not everyone has a driver's licence or a passport.

The hon. colleague who spoke just before me said that as candidates, people have to have ID to show that they are who they say they are and that they are not just nicknames they are putting on their candidate forms. I do not know how it works on that side, but on this side of the House, we have to prove who we are. I actually had to have a criminal record check as well. It is unbelievable.

It is funny. When other groups make changes, the Liberals say that it is an attack on democracy, but we heard the parliamentary secretary just a little earlier say that these changes will enhance Canada's democracy. Why is it that when it benefits the Liberals to do something, they say it is enhancing Canada's democracy? It would do nothing. This bill is another broken promise, another Liberal failure.

My speech today is a compilation of the Liberals' failures, case by case, citing critical examples. I talked about a few just now.

In the 2015 election, there were 114 third-party groups that received foreign funds to campaign to get Prime Minister Harper out. We hear from others saying that we are sowing the seeds of fear and that it is just Conservative rhetoric. However, I offer this, as I did in a previous speech. There is a website called leadnow.ca. Just shortly after the 2015 election, leadnow.ca received an international award for getting Prime Minister Harper out. I have not checked, but I said in my last speech that if one goes to leadnow.ca, and I mentioned that my colleagues were probably googling it, there would be a picture on the site where they were probably receiving the award for getting Prime Minister Harper out. I do not know if it is still going to be there, but that was one of the entities. Bill C-76 does nothing to stop this. The Liberals want to talk about how they are strengthening our electoral process and stopping that foreign interference.

There is a bit of a pattern with the Liberal government and the Prime Minister. They promise big, and they under-deliver.

I want to go back to the speech the Prime Minister gave yesterday about the closure of this House and Centre Block. To me, it spoke to his contempt for this place. Maybe that is what happens when one is raised in the halls of this place. It becomes just another hall, just another building. These are hallowed halls. We look around and think about the history. His words were that this is just another building, just another room.

Thinking back to 2014, when I started my run, I never would have thought that a kid from the Cariboo would end up here. There is not a day I am not honoured to sit among all members of Parliament. I am honoured when I see the flag waving on the Peace Tower and the one over your shoulder, Mr. Speaker. I think of Canadians. I think of the veterans who signed up and of first responders who serve and protect us. They are all our silent sentinels, yet the government and the Prime Minister have failed them.

Let us go back to the Chris Garnier case. This is a convicted murderer who is receiving PTSD benefits from Veterans Affairs but never served a day in his life.

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, I will not dignify that question with an answer. We have all shown respect and courtesy throughout this. The member well knows I was not a member of the previous government.

The bottom line is this. There is a crisis before us today. The provinces, from my province right across the country, have called on the government to act and it has failed to do so. That is shameful.

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, people should have the opportunity to go into a treatment facility if needed. They should get the help when needed, wherever needed and for as long as it is needed.

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, the member gave me many options with that question.

When the Prime Minister sends a $50 million tweet, and nobody is discounting the good or worthiness of that cause, or if $600 million can be spent to purchase the media just before an election, or $400 million for Statistics Canada to harvest private data, or $800 million toward legalizing cannabis and then $250 million to be pledged, although only $50 million has really gone out the door, we need to do more.

I have said this before in the debate with respect to mental health. If I had a broken arm and walked into a hospital, I would get help right away. I think our hon. colleague said something very similar. If I walked in and said that I was just not feeling right, or may want to hurt myself, or I thought I had PTSD, it would be very similar. However, if someone is addicted to something, that person is told “We'll get to you when we get to you and just to take a number.” The next number served type of attitude just does not work, because we are losing people left, right and centre. People are slipping through the cracks.

I did not bring this up earlier, but I had an uncle who battled addiction for a long period of time. I feel strongly about this. My uncle was in a horrific car accident in the eighties. He went to a clinic in Vancouver, called G.F. Strong, with a head injury.

The dealers and drug pushers know that people are coming out of this with limited cognitive abilities and are taking advantage of them. At every step of the way people are told to wait. They do not have an opportunity for instant access.

I would agree with our hon. colleague across the way that we must do everything in our power to ensure those beds are available and the care that is needed is received on a timely basis.

[Opioid Crisis in Canada, December 10th, 2018]

Mr. Chair, I deeply respect our hon. colleague across the way. I am going to offer that I have not read the same reports that he is referring to. I would think we should first make sure that we have beds available. Let us make sure that we have treatment facilities available. Let us make sure that the drugs are not getting into our communities, whether it is our major centres or rural communities. Let us make sure that the drugs are not getting into the hands of youth. It is staggering to see the reports that this is an all ages epidemic. Children as young as 10 are ingesting this drug and they are dying. It is cut into everything.

We need to make sure that we are doing everything we can to combat this crisis. The first step would be to declare a national state of emergency with respect to the fentanyl and opioid crisis.