Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that the New Democrats are wrong in their assertion of the priorities. There are many different reports sitting there that could be debated. As I said previously, this is an important issue. However, at the end of the day, we could be deb

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, first, it is important to recognize that they are two totally different systems. The other thing to recognize is that we have an incredibly professional civil service that has done an outstanding job in meeting the demands. Also, as a government, we need to support t

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I was lucky to be a parliamentarian in 1988. Back then, not all civil servants had computers. Technology has been able to assist government in many different ways, and I have not even touched on the web. At one time we did not have anything but paper, and it took

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to a very important report, but there are some things on which I would like to comment before I get into some of the details of the report or issue that we are debating today. It is interesting to note that the report was tabl

Export and Import Permits Act  Madam Speaker, absolutely, I think the parliamentary secretary is right on. When we think of Canadian values and the issues of peace and security, human rights, and gender-based violence, the way forward is to pass this legislation with its legal obligations and risk test, which

Export and Import Permits Act  Madam Speaker, my colleague across the way is fairly knowledgeable about House proceedings and today we are debating Bill C-47. That said, we have told the Conservative members that what they are saying is just not true. It is factually incorrect. One would think that our bluntne

Export and Import Permits Act  Madam Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise today to address this very positive legislation. Once again, we have before us another legislative initiative that will put in place a commitment we made to the Canadian people back in the last federal election. We now have been in

Export and Import Permits Act  Madam Speaker, the member across the way said that Russia and China are not part of the agreement or pact. It is interesting that she would be pointing that out and suggesting that Canada should join Russia and China and not be a part of it. I take no offence to what it is she is

Points of Order  Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order in response to the opposition House leader's point of order a few minutes back. I want to point out that Friday's Hansard has a clear transcription of what the House leader said. It is all there in black and white. The Speaker read the

Criminal Code  Madam Speaker, I find it interesting that yet again the Conservatives are opposing what I believe is good, sound legislation. The New Democrats recognize the value of this and how it would make our system that much more robust, but yet again the Conservatives are feeling that thi

Federal Sustainable Development Act  Mr. Speaker, in committee, the Conservative Party moved an amendment to the legislation to allow members of the sustainable development advisory committee to claim their airfare for travel. Therefore, if they flew to Ottawa, they could recover that cost. It provided that clarific

Federal Sustainable Development Act  Mr. Speaker, in the last two and a half years, we have seen strong leadership on the environment file. When we talk about the importance of sustainable development, I would argue that one of the best examples is the Trans Mountain pipeline. We have a government that listened to t

Federal Sustainable Development Act  Mr. Speaker, reflecting on the importance of leaving a healthy economy and environment, could my colleague share his thoughts from a constituency perspective?

Federal Sustainable Development Act  Mr. Speaker, the member wants to see action as opposed to words. Within this legislation, there is action on all three. We have seen a high sense of co-operation among the different parties at the committee stage. We talk about accountability. Here is the question I would put t

Federal Sustainable Development Act  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague from Winnipeg Centre, someone I have gotten to know and who I know is very sensitive on a number of files. On the issue of sustainable development, I would ask for his thoughts from an indigenous perspective on just how i