Hurricane Fiona  Mr. Speaker, I want to underline that nothing in my speech was to take away from the great work that the Red Cross is doing in eastern Canada or in other parts of the world. Of course, it does have partnerships with local organizations, and I hope it will do its best to engage some of those local organizations.

Hurricane Fiona  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this important debate tonight about the impacts of hurricane Fiona on eastern Canada. As members know, I represent a riding in Alberta. We live in a big country, where a natural disaster could affect one part of the country and not another.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, that is the best question I have received all day. I did not live during the tenure of the previous Trudeau government, but I can say that my grandfather made sure that I knew about what happened. My grandfather was working as an engineer in Alberta during the national energy program, which was the last time we had a prime minister named Trudeau, and the last time we saw those kinds of really aggressive attacks on our regional economy.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, respectfully to my colleague, I have a number of points on this. Number one is that we have major challenges in our existing health care system. Rather than address those challenges, the parties of the left—

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, I do not mind the heckling from the government minister over here. I know he has strong views in support of the Liberal agenda, and he is using his voice in the House to defend Liberal policies. Many Canadians are disappointed by the fact that the NDP have really sold out.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, I have already identified a number of areas of spending that I think are not only not necessary but actually make Canadians worse off. It is a reasonable principle to have dollar for dollar to be able to identify those areas while talking about spending increases.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, I will be very clear. I am proposing, fundamentally, as a first step, that the government commit to reversing planned automatic tax increases for next year. The member thinks that this is not going to matter to Canadians for a long time. It will matter to Canadians right away.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, I would be happy to have that debate in detail at another time. I think that, in front of us, we are discussing the issue of affordability for Canadians. There is a lot of work to be done on the health care front. There is no doubt about that. There have been many challenges that have been exposed through the COVID pandemic that require significant work.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, I know the member for Timmins—James Bay is excited to hear the rest of my remarks and it sounds like he is chomping at the bit for the privilege of debate that may be coming. I look forward to his remarks. I would encourage him to make sure he has consulted with the rest of his party around the position he takes on that, because there may be some differences of opinion around that important and sensitive issue.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Madam Speaker, we are here in Parliament today talking about the affordability crisis that so many Canadians are dealing with, and in a way it feels like progress that we are even talking about this, because most of the debates that happen in Parliament are scheduled by the government, and for two years the government has been ignoring the problem of “Justinflation” that so many Canadians have been dealing with.

Hindu Heritage Month  Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to be able to resume the remarks I was making previously on this bill to create Hindu heritage month, a bill recognizing the immense contributions of the Hindu community to Canada's national life in so many different areas. The last time this motion came up, I was also speaking about the way we have moved from using heritage months to recognize ethnocultural communities to now increasingly recognizing religious communities as well.

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Mr. Speaker, I have a simple question for the government member who just spoke. The government talks often about how much money it is giving to people, saying that it is going to give them more money here and more money there. Does the government appreciate that it does not generate its own money?

Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 2  Mr. Speaker, respectfully to my hon. friend, there seems to be a bit of a confused sense of who is responsible for what. He says the federal government does not impact the price of gas or groceries and does not prepare cakes; it is not the one making and setting the price for this.

Privilege  Madam Speaker, I am sorry to have to interrupt today's debate, but this is an important question of privilege. I will be as brief as possible. I rise on a question of privilege regarding threatening comments made by Mr. Dale Smith, an accredited member of the parliamentary press gallery, following a question I raised in the House yesterday.

Petitions  The last petition that I will table today then relates to an Order Paper question that I put on notice yesterday about the situation in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Some of the specific acts in this petition are somewhat dated, although we have seen the resumption of conflict, so it is relevant again.