Tracy Gray

[International Trade, May 31st, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, a new report from the U.K. is raising alarms about solar panel parts manufacturers in China who have been linked to the potential use of forced labour by Uighurs. While Canada says it has trade measures in place on forced labour, the trade minister could not tell me back in April if Canada had even stopped one shipment using them.

Can the minister confirm now if these trade measures have stopped any imports of solar panels made using the forced labour of Uighurs?

[Forestry Industry, May 27th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of International Trade met with the U.S. trade representative last week. It was noted that she “reiterated that it was in the best interest of both countries to reach an agreement on softwood lumber.” Instead of coming out of that meeting with a win, such as making progress on an agreement, on Friday we learned that U.S. tariffs are set to double on our softwood exports.

On trade, every single file we have with the U.S. is getting worse. Why is the minister failing so spectacularly to manage the trading relationship with the new U.S. administration?

[Business of Supply, May 13th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the member said that she absolutely did not want an election, and that is very similar wording to what we hear from her Liberal colleagues. However, the member is part of the government that created confidence votes that were not part of the regular business of government. Of course, the government is the only one that can create confidence votes.

Specifically, in the fall there was the prorogation of Parliament that led to the creation of confidence votes, following the throne speech. Then, for the first time ever in 150 years in Parliament, the government created a confidence vote for creating a committee.

How can members of the government say that they do not want an election if they create confidence votes that are not part of the normal process of government?

[Business of Supply, May 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, the government cannot seem to manage its legislative agenda. Important legislation is not tabled, or it is tabled at the last moment and then there is limited debate or the Liberals shut debate down.

Now we see the government trying to put through this election bill quickly, rather than prioritizing small business owners and families, getting people back to work and rebuilding our economy. Could the member comment on the rushing of this election bill as a priority?

[Petitions, May 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I am tabling a petition today on behalf of my constituents in Kelowna—Lake Country. To briefly summarize, animal suffering occurs at every stage of the commercial wildlife trade and Canada imported at least 320,081 wild animals in 2019. Over 75% of the imported animals were not subject to any import restrictions, and 80% were destined for the exotic pet industry.

The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to commit to end the international and domestic trade in wild animals and their products, which causes immense suffering of wildlife globally.

[Committees of the House, May 13th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I will be responding to the Canada-U.K. report.

I would like to express my appreciation to the analysts, the clerk and my colleagues on the Standing Committee of International Trade for their work in preparing this final report on trade between Canada and the United Kingdom, and I want to thank them.

Attached to the report is the supplementary opinion of the official opposition Conservatives. In this report, we highlight that we are pleased to see the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement come into effect on April 1, 2021, though we are disappointed that the government was not able to meet the initial deadline of December 31, 2020, when the CETA's application to the United Kingdom ended. It is truly unfortunate that the government left this critical trade agreement to the final sitting week of the final month of the final year the CETA's term no longer applied to the U.K., having to sign an interim memorandum of understanding to provide trade stability due to this delay.

The Conservative Party of Canada is pleased to see recommendations in the report on negotiations for a successor Canada-U.K. trade agreement, which we hope to see begin negotiations this year, including to address gaps raised by small businesses and those in the agriculture and agri-food sectors. Conservatives support the recommendations in the report and we look forward to the government's response.

Conservatives also recognize that we were in a unique situation where we did this Canada-U.K. trade study and we also had a separate study on Bill C-18,, the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act, where we also heard from witnesses whose testimony is regrettably not included in this report. We, in the Conservative caucus, do hope that the government takes the time to review the input from stakeholders from the Bill C-18 study, including concerns around non-tariff barriers, as well as non-indexation of frozen British pensions.

[Budget Implementation Act, 2021, No. 1, May 11th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, my colleague talked quite a bit about small businesses and the small business sector. Conservatives have supported more inclusive expanded programs during the entire pandemic, but one issue that I hear about quite a bit in Kelowna—Lake Country, and I wonder if the member hears this as well, is that businesses that opened in late 2019 or early 2020 are still ineligible for a lot of COVID relief programs. They are hit even harder because quite often they have personal and business debt intertwined.

How does this budget work to give hope to small businesses through an economic recovery plan that the member can see?

[Bill C-10, May 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I have heard from hundreds of constituents in Kelowna—Lake Country expressing their concerns about the Liberal government’s attempted overreach to regulate individual Canadian Internet users through Bill C-10.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute stated Bill C-10, “constitutes a full-blown assault” on free expression.

University of Ottawa Professor Michael Geist, Canada's Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, said that Bill C-10 represents, “an exceptionally heavy-handed regulatory approach where a government-appointed regulator decides what individual user generated content is prioritized”.

The CBC reported, “free speech is at risk”.

However, the Prime Minister says that those in Parliament who question him on this topic wear tinfoil hats.

Now the Liberal Minister of Canadian Heritage has been trying to undo the confusing pretzel of information he has twisted, but Canadians in this free and democratic country are smarter than he thinks they are.

Conservatives will persist in standing for the freedoms of Canadians who post their content online.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague for her good work on this special committee. One of the points she touched on was the recommendations and specifically working on the contingency plans. With all the testimony heard, with all of the witnesses and with the questions in the House of Commons, has she heard of what the short-term and long-term plans are for this, depending on what decisions are made over the next couple of days?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, May 7th, 2021]

With regard to federal grants and contributions to the Council of Newcomer Organizations, since January 1, 2018, broken down by department, agency or other government entity: (a) how many grants or contributions have been allocated; (b) what are the details of each grant or contribution, including the (i) amount or value of the federal contribution, (ii) program under which the grant was provided, (iii) summary of purpose or project description; and (c) do the terms and conditions of these grants or contributions specifically prohibit the advocacy of the recipient on behalf of a foreign government, and, if not, why not?