Government Spending  Mr. Speaker, Canadians are fed up with supporting the Conservatives, who are borrowing $6 billion to offer tax breaks that do not benefit 95% of our businesses, and at the same time, making cuts to the arts, culture and assistance for newcomers, to name just a few areas. Canadi

Government Spending  Mr. Speaker, we are looking at a $56 billion deficit, yet Conservatives want to borrow another $6 billion just to give Canada's wealthiest corporations a tax break they obviously do not need because tax rates are already low. Meanwhile, small businesses, those who employ more th

Government Spending  Mr. Speaker, we know that the government would rather spend our money on prisons and punishment instead of on policing and prevention, on an irresponsible purchase of jets to please the Pentagon and on tax breaks for large corporations, while they raise taxes for SMEs. When will

Jean-Marc Léger  Mr. Speaker, the entire Francophonie is in mourning. Jean-Marc Léger, one of the architects of the strong bond that unites French-speaking countries, passed away on Sunday. Mr. Léger was a veteran journalist, first with La Presse and then as an editorial writer with Le Devoir, an

Foreign Affairs  Mr. Speaker, these days, capital mobility is almost limitless. With the click of a mouse, millions of dollars can be transferred to the other side of the world. For weeks, the Minister of Foreign Affairs has been dilly-dallying on the issue of freezing the assets of former Tunisi

Foreign Affairs  Mr. Speaker, like all dictators, Ben Ali and his family built their colossal fortune on the backs of their own people. The minister told us he was waiting for an official request from the Tunisian government to take action. Tunisia's ambassador to Canada already said some weeks a

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be in the House today to discuss immigration. This is a very important issue for Canada and for Parliament, but also for the future of the families and people who have come to Canada to build their lives and to contribute to this country. Our cou

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, when the agreements were signed in the fall of 2005 with Ontario, they were based on a range of studies and analyses looking into where the needs were. In 2005, the immigration focus was much more on Ontario than it is right now. It is wonderful to see that immigrati

Political Financing  Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's Quebec lieutenant, the Minister of Natural Resources, was also an active participant in the Conservatives' election fraud. In his riding of Mégantic—L'Érable, he tried to perform a little sleight of hand trick with $20,000 in false invoices. It

Nordic World Ski Championships  Madam Speaker, this is akin to the United States winning soccer's World Cup in Brazil or Switzerland winning the gold medal in hockey at the Vancouver Winter Games. Yesterday, in Oslo, Norway, the birthplace of cross-country skiing, Canadian skiers Alex Harvey and Devon Kershaw w

Access to Information  Mr. Speaker, North Africa is going after tyrants and fighting for democracy, but here in Canada, it is the Conservatives who are attacking our democracy. They continue to refuse to be held accountable by covering up anything that could enable Canadians to judge their actions. Th

Access to Information  It has come to this, Mr. Speaker. In order for members of the House to do our jobs and make informed decisions on behalf of Canadians, we need to pry scraps of relevant information out of the Conservatives' clenched fists and drag it out of them as they kick and scream at committ

Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, an immigration minister wields an enormous amount of power over new Canadians. He gets to decide if they get to stay and become Canadians or whether they will be reunited with their loved ones. Yet this minister also operates as the Conservatives' recruiter-in-chief

Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, my website is paid for by the federal Liberal riding association of Papineau. We are also seeing a very harmful confusion of roles. On the one hand, the minister wields an enormous amount of power, but on the other hand, he is also the Conservative Party's main rec

Citizenship and Immigration  Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Immigration has such elastic ethics that he does not even see that he has become the incarnation of a conflict of interest. He is supposed to be the guardian of Canadian citizenship, but instead of helping new Canadians build better lives, he prefers