Tracy Gray

[International Trade, March 25th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we recently learned from a senior government official that the Liberals were not pursuing a complete exemption from President Biden's buy American policies and are only looking at sector-specific exemptions. The Conservatives negotiated a full exemption back in 2009.

Did the Minister of International Trade push for a complete exemption for Canada from buy American during her call with the U.S. trade representative on March 22, or is the government's position now just settling for second best?

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the hon. member said it very well and obviously his experience shines through. Basically we are dealing with a government that is not focused on transparency and accountability. Liberals are filibustering the committees in order to—

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for his comments and for sharing that really sad situation. My colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound wrote an opinion piece titled, “Canadian Armed Forces needs more Eleanor Taylors—not fewer”. It goes into her situation and looks at what some of the issues are. It is a really good opinion piece that I would encourage people to read. It lays out the desperate situation that a lot of women feel. It is definitely something that needs to be worked on.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, what we are seeing here is a coordinated effort to stalemate committees. As to the filibustering, we have seen these actions continue since last summer. We then saw the prorogation of Parliament, so these committees have not really been functioning properly for quite a long time. This is one of the reasons why we have this motion here: so we can get on. The member is absolutely right. Committees need to get on to the important work and look at other studies that are important to Canadians.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, a constituent in Kelowna—Lake Country wrote to me to say that “...the stonewalling and contempt for the intelligence of the electorate is staggering”.

We have seen their true character through the actions of the Liberals during this pandemic. Someone's true character often comes out during times of incredible stress. In times of crisis, we see heroes emerge who perform incredible acts of courage and physical strength, or beautiful gestures of care to help someone, or laser-focused leadership. What we saw from the Liberals during this time of crisis and stress was their true character: turning to the easiest of solutions and turning to Liberal friends. There was a lack of requests for proposals, giving sole-sourced contracts to known Liberal friends and not bothering with declarations of conflicts of interest. The Liberals and their friends will say, “Move on, there's nothing more to see here”, but every time a document is released or someone testifies, we gain new insights into the true character of how the Liberals govern.

In the end, we know that accountability comes from the top. That means there has to be accountability from the Prime Minister, his government and all who have been involved. It is also why this motion specifies that, should the Prime Minister instead appear before the committee mentioned in paragraphs (a) and (b) at any of the dates and times mentioned for at least three hours, the witnesses otherwise scheduled to appear, and any other witnesses scheduled to appear before the same committee at a later time, would be relieved of their obligation to appear pursuant to the order.

The other part of this important motion is regarding the national defence committee and getting answers there. I want to thank my colleagues on the national defence committee, including our shadow minister for defence and the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, for holding the defence minister to account and getting answers.

We learned, through defence committee testimony, that the Prime Minister was aware of the allegations around sexual misconduct by the former chief of the defence staff. This was confirmed by the defence minister, and the Prime Minister knew for three years.

Tens of thousands of women have served, and continue to serve, Canada honourably and without compromise in our military, but the government has failed to ensure that women have a safe environment, free from abuse or harassment by superiors and colleagues, to do this important work. We must ensure that this is corrected. We need to hear from those involved, including the Minister of National Defence's former chief of staff, on what transpired in the minister's office and why actions were not taken earlier, promptly, to get answers when the allegations first became known to them.

This government often likes to portray itself as a feminist government, yet it spent years without taking action and thoroughly investigating the sexual misconduct allegations the defence committee is finally looking into now. This is unacceptable. What message does this send to any woman who currently serves, or may in the future serve, our country in the military?

In summary, committees need all the tools available to them to do their work and to get answers for Canadians. We need to hear from these senior members of the government to ensure that the record reflects what has occurred, whether with the WE Charity scandal or with the allegations against the former chief of the defence staff. This motion would ensure that there would be accountability from the government, it would ensure that those who make decisions are accountable to parliamentarians and it would ensure that committees could continue to do their jobs: scrutinizing government decisions and finding answers we would normally not get out of question period or debate here in the House of Commons.

[Business of Supply, March 25th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Carleton, for splitting his time with me today so that I can speak to the opposition day motion before us in the House. I also want to thank my colleague, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes and Conservative shadow minister for ethics, for moving this motion. I appreciate the opportunity to represent my community of Kelowna—Lake Country.

The motion states very aptly in its first sentence, it is “to support the authority of committees in their important inquiries of public interest”. It should be no surprise that I believe committees do some of the most important work in the House of Commons when it comes to studies and getting answers. I have spoken on the importance of committees several times in the House before. I expressed concerns when the Liberals shut down committees almost completely in the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, leaving a lot of gaps in the scrutiny of legislation, emerging issues and important studies that needed more review. Many committees barely sat for most of the year.

One of the other issues is how committees can hear from witnesses, and I have seen first-hand how important committee work can be. During much of 2020, I was on the industry, science and technology committee, which met until the Liberals shut it down due to the prorogation of Parliament. It had important studies and heard testimony on emerging issues such as from the largest grocery stores, Internet giants on contact tracing and censorship, tourism stakeholders and more.

I have said in the House before that the committee I sit on now, the Standing Committee on International Trade, only met once between April and September of 2020, losing time to do important work such as hearing from exporters and importers on how COVID-19 and its related restrictions had affected them, doing studies on domestic wineries having to pay excise tax due to a WTO challenge, and doing a pre-study on the Canada-U.K. trade agreement, which the committee finally began halfway through November 2020. This was only thanks to the Conservatives moving a motion, as there were deadlines that we knew had to be met in order to give certainty to businesses.

My colleagues on the Standing Committee on National Defence and the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics are working to get answers on two very important issues that Canadians and my constituents are concerned about. Unfortunately, the Liberals have gone to great lengths to prevent MPs from getting answers and finding out the truth, including blocking key witnesses from appearing.

The ethics committee has been working to get answers on the WE Charity scandal and the $500-million contract offered to it to manage the proposed Canada student service grant. Let us not forget how the Prime Minister and the then finance minister, Bill Morneau, failed to recuse themselves from cabinet discussions on this issue despite their personal ties to the charity. As Conservatives and other opposition parties tried to get answers, Liberals prorogued Parliament and filibustered committees to try to delay and cover up this issue for as long as they could. This put the governance of our country at a standstill.

Speaking of committees, let us remember that five months ago, in October 2020, the official opposition sought to pass a motion to establish a committee to look into the government's actions and further investigate exactly what transpired with the sole-sourced WE Charity contract. During this time, the government threatened to call an election over this and the motion did not pass.

It is important to note that this was the first time in over 150 years of Canadian history that a prime minister turned a motion to create a committee into a confidence vote, where the government could fail. How incredibly desperate were the Liberals to not have their actions looked into? Canadians deserve an ethical government that is focused on their priorities. It was disappointing that this vote failed at the time, as it would have allowed parliamentary committees to get back to work for Canadians rather than be tied up by Liberal time-wasting filibusters.

Further to the importance of supporting the authority of committees in their important inquiries of public interest, as is outlined in this motion, at a recent defence committee meeting, testimony from the Prime Minister showed he was aware of the allegations around sexual misconduct by the former chief of the defence staff. This was confirmed by the defence minister, and the Prime Minister knew for three years.

At a recent ethics committee meeting, Craig and Marc Kielburger claimed that a senior adviser in the Prime Minister's office, Ben Chin, had no role in setting up the $500-million Canada student service grant. However, documents released to the finance committee last summer proved that this was simply not the case.

This is a serious contradiction, and Canadians deserve answers about what actually happened. Craig Kielburger said that the Prime Minister's Office had no role in setting up the grant, which would have given the WE Charity a half-billion-dollar program to administer, and that is taxpayer dollars. Then we heard that Mr. Chin had a written message about the PMO adviser's efforts to “shape our latest program”. The committee absolutely must hear from top Trudeau advisers. Canadians deserve the truth.

A constituent in Kelowna—Lake Country wrote me to say—

[Criminal Code, March 11th, 2021]

Madam Speaker, the minister is debating the reasons he is supporting the bill, yet what we are talking about right now is whether parliamentarians have had the time to speak fully on it.

The allotted time that the minister is mentioning includes debate previous to the Senate amendments. We have not fully debated the Senate amendments and allowed members who wish to do so to represent their communities. My phones and email have been flooded over the last few days. This is likely one of the most important bills that this Parliament will be dealing with, so I implore the minister to allow us the time to properly debate it.

[Rolli Cacchioni, March 11th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, we lost a leader in Kelowna—Lake Country with the recent passing of Rolli Cacchioni.

Rolli and his wife Mary celebrated their 50th anniversary this year. Rolli had a long career as a teacher and principal. He was the president of every local teachers or principals association, and was a professor at UBC Okanagan. He was elected as a school trustee in 2005, was board chair for four years and served until his passing.

Rolli served on the City of Kelowna advisory planning commission, Kelowna Museums Society, Rutland Residents Association, Central Okanagan Bursary and Scholarship Society and, after retiring from long service on the board of Interior Savings Credit Union, a bursary was created in his name.

Rolli was a founding member of the Central Okanagan Sports Hall of Fame and museum. He coached hockey, rugby and soccer and was active in football, including with the Okanagan Sun.

Rolli had a big smile, big heart and big personality. He will be missed, and I am sure he is teaching or coaching right now.

[Human Rights, March 10th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Toronto Star reported that despite the government putting in measures to stop the import of products made with the forced labour of Uighurs in Xinjiang, not a single shipment has been stopped from entering Canada. At the international trade committee yesterday, Liberals voted down a Conservative motion to conduct a study to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures, which are clearly not working.

Can the Prime Minister tell the House why the Liberals voted down this important study? What are they trying to hide?

[Canada—United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement Implementation Act, March 9th, 2021]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's work on the committee as well, where we work collaboratively. Supply management is very important. We are staunch supporters of supply management, so as I said earlier, we were very happy to see it in Bill C-18, so that all of those sectors can have certainty and stability during this time. That was one of the first questions that we posed once we heard there was an agreement coming forth. We were really happy to see that in this agreement, as we are discussing today.