Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, I agree that we cannot have a healthy economy without healthy business. We need to put forward initiatives that will create jobs and help drive the economy. I talked earlier about the multiplier effect of spending money locally and keeping money in the hands of smal

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, yes, we need healthy communities. We know we need conditions for healthy communities to build a robust economy, things such a national child care plan. This does not deliver enough support for people to have child care. The Liberals take pride in the child tax offer

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I want to acknowledge my mother since it was Mother's Day yesterday and I was not able to join her. I also want to acknowledge all the mothers in Fort McMurray and Alberta who could not be with their families yesterday. We need to honour them.

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, the member touched on a number of different things in her speech, certainly inequality and helping to support the growth of the economy. Previously I was the executive director of a very successful chamber of commerce on the west coast of British Columbia. There wer

Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, before I get started, I want to send our condolences and our thoughts to the people of Fort McMurray. There are many people in Courtenay—Alberni who have family members there and who are affected by that horrible situation. I want to thank the members who have come f

Small Business  Mr. Speaker, small businesses are the job creators of our country. We thought the Liberals understood this when they campaigned to lower small business taxes, but Liberals have clearly broken that promise. New documents obtained by the parliamentary budget office show the Libera

Telecommunications  Madam Speaker, I thank the parliamentary secretary for his comments, for being here, and for bringing his energy. We certainly welcome the investments the government has made in supporting the broadband network in Canada. However, rate users are not seeing the benefits of that o

Telecommunications  Madam Speaker, I rise today to continue the debate about wireless rates in Canada and what the government plans to do to bring in more fairness. I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development for joining me tonight. A

Instruction to Committee on Bill C-2  Mr. Speaker, I want to the thank my colleague for his in-depth work and for bringing this forward. I, also, have gone back to my riding and talked to people. There is huge support for keeping tax-free savings accounts and for bringing it back to a reasonable amount that future g

The Environment  Mr. Speaker, Vancouver Islanders are happy to see the government listen to the NDP calls to remove a sinking 100-foot derelict tug from a sensitive area in my riding. The problem is that there is still no plan to deal with more than 400 other abandoned vessels. These pose a thre

Consular Affairs  Mr. Speaker, the Azer children who are my constituents were abducted eight months ago. These four Canadian children were taken to Kurdistan in the middle of a war zone and they now may be in Iran. These children did not choose this. We need urgent action. The Prime Minister has

Situation in Indigenous Communities  Mr. Speaker, earlier in the debate, one of our colleagues apologized for showing emotion with tears. I do not think there is a need to apologize for the tears. I think the children deserve our tears. If anything, we should be apologizing to the children that we have let down in t

Situation in Indigenous Communities  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all members in the House for being here tonight to talk about what is really a tragedy in our history and in our time. A fiend of mine, an elder of the Tla-o-qui-aht people, Moses Martin, when we were talking about building a recreation complex in ou

Income Tax Act  Mr. Speaker, I absolutely think that this is exactly the right time to help those people earning $17,000 a year. No, they are not included in this tax bill, actually, because anyone earning under $49,000 a year does not get a tax break with this bill that has been introduced. T

Income Tax Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the member because we both agree that tax-free savings accounts are important. They are important to help people save for the future. We want to encourage that, but at what cost? We have to define what it will cost future generations. W