House of Commons photoLost her last election, in 2025, with 47% of the vote.
International Trade December 4th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, if the government is not going to get this done by its own deadline of December 31, exporters are facing tariffs in industries like lobster, auto, seafood and beef. I have asked the international trade minister numerous times what her plan is if exporters are forced to pay tariffs by the end of the year.
Can the minister name one part of the plan, just one part, or will she continue to leave exporters and businesses in the dark, just like parliamentarians?
International Trade December 4th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, we are now just five sitting days away from the House of Commons rising, yet the government has still not given any indication when it will be bringing legislation to Parliament on the Canada-U.K. trade agreement. The deadline is the end of this month. The international trade minister talks about predictability and stability for businesses, yet business owners have no idea what is in the text of this agreement. They have no idea if there are new processes or paperwork.
When is the minister going to be releasing the text of this agreement and bring it to Parliament?
International Trade December 1st, 2020
Mr. Speaker, the minister has used buzzwords like stability, predictability and certainty, but this means nothing if there is not a plan in place.
The minister told the committee that she does not want to make up policy on the fly. Well she would not have to do this if the government had taken this seriously from the very beginning and not left it until the final month in the final year. Can the minister tell us why she still has no policies for disruptive tariffs if a Canada-U.K. agreement is not finalized by the end of the year?
International Trade December 1st, 2020
Mr. Speaker, the appearance of the international trade minister at committee on Monday left us with more questions than answers about the Canada-U.K. agreement. We still do not have the text. We still do not have the legislation. Now we have found out that there is no plan for mitigating tariffs if the government cannot get this agreement done by the December 31 deadline. The minister says she cares about certainty for our importers and exporters, so when will the minister release this plan?
International Trade November 27th, 2020
Madam Speaker, the Minister of International Trade recently spoke about an agreement signed with Australia on wine excise taxes, saying she was pleased that we came to an agreement. This agreement will be devastating to Canadian domestic wineries as it gave Australia basically what it wanted, which was Canadian wineries paying an excise tax.
Can the minister please explain what is so pleasing about putting thousands of Canadian jobs at risk and having domestic Canadian wineries paying $40 million in new taxes?
International Trade November 27th, 2020
Madam Speaker, it has been a week since the government announced a new trade deal between Canada and the United Kingdom, yet we still have few details. We have learned the government failed to consult in any meaningful way with businesses and labour over the entire three years it was apparently working on this deal. It is disappointing, it is top down and it is certainly a missed opportunity.
Why did the minister not feel it was important to reach out and hear from businesses and labour organizations?
Health November 19th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, the B.C. premier is set to announce province-wide travel restrictions. People live, work and look after family members between municipalities. I am hearing from constituents who are stressed out. The federal government's approving of an at-home test could help this, yet the Prime Minister says it is not his job. Actually, it is his job to ensure that Canadians have access to the best tools available to fight this virus as quickly as possible, just like other countries have.
When will at-home tests be available in British Columbia and across Canada?
International Trade November 18th, 2020
Mr. Speaker, last week the Prime Minister stated he thought a trade agreement with the United Kingdom was an easy one to move on, and then he blamed delays on the U.K. lacking bandwidth. U.K. representatives have denied this claim. The Prime Minister patronized one of our most trusted allies.
The government has had years to work on this agreement and now there are only 23 more sitting days of Parliament to make this happen. When is the Prime Minister going to be bringing an agreement to Parliament?
Business of Supply November 17th, 2020
Madam Speaker, we have heard that the government is announcing this framework by the end of the year, working on China and putting a plan together. If the government is not including Huawei 5G, or how to combat China's growing foreign operations and increasing intimidation within Canada, which is what the motion is, what is included in the framework?
Business of Supply November 17th, 2020
Madam Speaker, in the conversations I have heard with a number of the telecoms, and of course I cannot speak for them but just being around a lot of those conversations, they are always looking at investments and investments are always changing. There is a lot of different software and hardware, so they are making long-term investments. We know there is a lot of investment that will be happening here over the next 20, 30 or 40 years, and those decisions are made very long term. We can certainly tag on to that. We know with a lot of the infrastructure they can use multiple different formats, so I think this is a matter of giving certainty.
Again going back to our Five Eyes allies, we want to have some consistency so they feel secure in how we are managing our data and infrastructure here.