Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2  Mr. Speaker, from the onset I will say that I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Calgary, the member for Calgary Signal Hill. As I have done before, I want to start with the Yiddish proverb, “To assume is to be deceived”. I believe that the Liberal government and the members of the Liberal caucus have deceived themselves into believing they can spend their way to a brighter future.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2  Mr. Speaker, between 2006 and 2014, the last year Statistics Canada has data on child poverty, there was significant decrease in the child poverty rate from 16.3% to 14.7%, thanks to our Conservative government . I would lay that on the record to show that it was a Conservative government that significantly decreased child poverty.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2  Madam Speaker, the member started so well. He was talking about fictional characters, and I wish this budget was fictional as well and that we would return to reality. I know the member has a love for Yiddish proverbs, as I do, so to be a critic is easier than to be author. I am mindful of that.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 2  Mr. Speaker, as we just heard from one of the ministers in the government, the Liberals are going to move time allocation again next week. It will be the tenth time they have moved notice. Why are they ceasing debate on the bill at this point? As a new member in the House, I was looking forward to an opportunity to hear what other members had to say about Bill C-29.

Business of Supply  Of course, Mr. Speaker, that member is no stranger to ratcheting up rhetoric in the House. I just wonder if he has actually read the opposition motion and his Prime Minister's statement. Our motion says that the House should do the following: ...express its hope and full support for the people of Cuba, that they may now begin to see freedom and a commitment to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, in order to ensure a brighter and better future for the Cuban people now and for generations to come.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, we all agree that we are here to support the Cuban people, just not the dictatorship of Fidel Castro, Raúl Castro, and the crime family that the Castros have become. We are talking about not supporting the Potemkin-style visits they organized for foreign leaders to show all the good stuff they are doing and to pretend the Cuban people are happy to be abused and terrorized by the dictators there.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to one point the parliamentary secretary made. She said that this was a moment of transition. This is not a moment of transition. Raul Castro is now the dictator of Cuba. He took over from his brother. What they are basically installing is a North Korea-style communist monarchy, where the kids will take over the dictatorship.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member for Gatineau. I am going to repeat something that the former justice minister, Irwin Cotler, said when speaking about Cuba. He said that Cuba was one of the countries that could have never sat on the UN Human Rights Council because of its human rights violations.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I will reply with a more personal anecdote. I have said this many times in the House before. My family fled Communist Poland. I was born in Poland and I fled here. Many of us consider Cuba to be the East Berlin of the Caribbean. Had Poland been closer to the United States, maybe 50 kilometres off its shore, or 50 kilometres off the shore of Canada, we would have a very large Polish population in Canada and in the United States.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Laurier—Sainte-Marie. I greatly appreciate the work that she does at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development with my Conservative colleagues. As she surely knows, I was not a member of Parliament in 2015. I therefore was never part of the Conservative government and I have never been a cabinet member.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Thornhill for his contributions and his introduction to this debate. He has made a lot of great points. This is an important motion we have before us today. It shows how poor the Prime Minister's judgment has been with the statement he issued upon Fidel Castro's death.

Criminal Code  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to join the debate on Bill S-217, an act to amend the Criminal Code, detention in custody. I will be supporting it. We are talking about an incident that happened in St. Albert, Alberta. This news story was talked about in my constituency. It was talked about in Calgary.

Canada Pension Plan  Mr. Speaker, I am sure it will not surprise the House, but I am happy to disappoint that member by voting against this bill. Let me set the record straight. To answer the preamble about what the previous Conservative government did, it introduced pension income splitting for seniors; twice it increased the age credit; it increased the GIS benefit for recipients who chose to work; it doubled the pension income credit to $2,000; it took 380,000 seniors off the tax rolls altogether; it increased the age limit for RRSPs to RRIF conversions from 71 to 69; it established October 1 as the first national seniors day; and actually, unlike the Liberal government, we had a minister of the crown looking after seniors' issues, which the government has not done.

Canada Pension Plan  Mr. Speaker, the member is always well-informed when asking questions and in his interventions in the House. In a previous life, I was a policy adviser. Pensions was one of the files I worked on for the then Alberta minister of finance, the hon. Ted Morton. It was one of the files I really liked working on, as well as the securities file.

Canada Pension Plan  Mr. Speaker, I am glad to join this debate since this is actually the last time we will be able to have this debate on Bill C-26 in this House. I want to start with something I used in the last session, a Yiddish proverb. “With money in your pocket, you are wise, and you are handsome, and you sing well too.”