Hon. Member for Outremont  Mr. Speaker, thank you and I thank my colleagues for giving me the opportunity to address you one last time before leaving this place for good this summer. What an honour it has been to serve here, the cradle of our democracy, and to represent the people of Outremont who honoured me by electing me four times.

Special Recognition  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank you for renewing a fine tradition in the House of Commons and giving us the opportunity to recognize those who, year after year, uphold the most noble mission of public service. Four of my closest associates are here. They have close to 50 years combined of loyal service to my constituents.

Raif Badawi  Mr. Speaker, in Saudi Arabia, freedom of expression, association, and assembly is severely repressed. For five years now, the young Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been the unwitting face of this oppression. He has been flogged and is still in jail despite winning a prestigious international award for courage in journalism.

Hanukkah  Mr. Speaker, I would like to join with my wife, Catherine and our family in wishing “Chag Hanukkah sameach” to all those lighting menorahs this week in honour of the eight-day Jewish festival of Hanukkah. As a festival of light, Hanukkah reminds us of our ability as humans to cast light into the darkness, and be a spark for change for a more compassionate world where we have a right to practise our religion.

Rohingya  Mr. Speaker, years of persecution, fuelled by anti-Muslim hatred, have exploded into an lslamophobic, government-led pogrom against the Rohingya in Myanmar. I had occasion to meet with special envoy Bob Rae during the recent Commonwealth parliamentary assizes in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Canada Post  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister himself made a campaign promise to restore home mail delivery to those who lost it. Ten months ago, the House of Commons committee that includes a number of his MPs recommended restoring the service, but since then it has been radio silence from his government.

Indigenous Affairs  Mr. Speaker, here is the reality. The Prime Minister promised a nation-to-nation relationship and to stop taking first nations children to court. Rather than comply with the Human Rights Tribunal's three separate rulings, two years into his mandate he is still spending millions of dollars to fight first nations children in court.

Indigenous Affairs  Mr. Speaker, does the Prime Minister really want us to look at the promises he has made? Let us look at another one of his promises. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the Prime Minister three times to put an end to the racial discrimination against first nations children.

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, no one talks a better game than the Prime Minister when it comes to climate change, at the UN and during NAFTA negotiations, name it. The Liberal Party promises that Canada will respect its commitments, but there is a problem. In order to meet our obligations under the Paris accord, our greenhouse gas emissions actually have to start going down at some point.

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, there it is. The Liberal government will actually be increasing greenhouse gas emissions. The Prime Minister is fond of lecturing everyone else, but he is the process of following Stephen Harper's plan, on Stephen Harper's timeline, using Stephen Harper's targets. However, he will never be able to meet them, because he has no plan for reducing greenhouse gases.

Taxation  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 like the Liberals promised, but the government refuses.

Taxation  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  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.

Aerospace Industry  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.

Aerospace Industry  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?