Foreign Affairs  Mr. Speaker, the government has a track record of leaving citizens high and dry when they are abroad. This time it is a family that has been without their father and husband for 13 months while Pavel Kulisek is left to rot in a Mexican prison cell based on spurious evidence. Wil

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his consistency in this debate and being here for so many of the speakers, the questions that he has asked and his own sage commentary. Having not seen major points to be resolved, clearly benefits to businesses and consumers have be

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Bloc Québécois member for her enlightening comments. Although the Liberal Party supports tax harmonization and good-faith negotiations between the provinces and the federal government, I would like to know why the Bloc Québécois feels that this m

House debate  Mr. Speaker, I would be happy to have a debate about who protects the taxpayer because it is obvious. It was the Liberal Party of Canada that cleaned up a record deficit left by the Conservative government once before. It was the Liberal Party that left the Conservatives with an

House debate  Mr. Speaker, when I posed a question for the Minister of Finance some weeks ago, on February 10, he gave me what I felt was an unsatisfactory answer. Today I hope I will get a more detailed explanation of what the Conservatives are doing to address our economic crisis and to answ

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I received a phone call from a grocer in my community who sells organic products. The store is called Choices Markets, which is where I shop. The business owner said that the key business challenge and the key concern the store had right now was the power of the cr

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, the House is calling on the government to introduce comprehensive legislation similar to an act that was introduced in the United States. We need to be mindful that we are not the United States. We have a different situation in Canada. It is not a mild recession, w

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, a number of speakers have talked about the very high interest rates and whether the credit card companies and their banking partners have too much power. I think there is every indication that they do. What is missing in this motion, from how I read it, is any con

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Vancouver Centre. I am joining the debate on the motion in response to concerns that have been expressed to me in my constituency of Vancouver Quadra around credit cards, credit card companies and banks, the rates, the

Human Pathogens and Toxins Act  Madam Speaker, I have concerns about exemptions for the minister. One of the premises that was put to committee was that the bill itself is not very detailed. The lowest level of toxic products, pathogens that may be found in soil, in a laundry basket, or even normally found on

Human Pathogens and Toxins Act  Madam Speaker, this was a different situation from the ones that have been in the media where, unfortunately, the absence of proper inspection and the deregulation and the pulling back of inspection caused Canadian fatalities. The Conservative government needs to take responsibil

Human Pathogens and Toxins Act  Madam Speaker, I am pleased to make comments on Bill C-11, having been part of the committee and the process of reviewing the bill, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of it and taking action, as my Liberal colleagues and other committee members did, in what was, in the end,

Excise Tax Act  moved for leave to introduce Bill C-364, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on bicycles, adult tricycles and related goods and services). Madam Speaker, I rise today, on Earth Day, to reintroduce a bill, An Act to amend the Excise Tax Act (no GST on bicycles, adult tricy

Earth Day  Mr. Speaker, April 22 marks the anniversary of the first Earth Day in 1970, a milestone in the environmental movement and born from the frustration that our basic, life-sustaining and critical needs, such as clean air and water, biodiversity of plant and animal species, the healt

Forestry Industry  Mr. Speaker, thousands of forestry workers in B.C. have lost their jobs, while this minister is delivering a lot of words. The industry has been ignored by the Conservatives. Worse, they killed the 2005 Liberal plan to allocate $1.5 billion to this vital industry. This included o