Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act  Mr. Speaker, when Jean Chrétien was the prime minister of Canada, we had citizenship processed in under a year. Under the current government, we have seen the processing of citizenship for those who qualify and meet the criteria taking 28 months, or almost two and a half years. N

Canada Pension Plan  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that there is a great deal of merit in the bill, and we will be supporting it. However, if I was going to stand up on OAS and our pension program, the CPP, my first inclination would be to talk about the government's actions with respect to increasing th

Victims Bill of Rights  Mr. Speaker, that is why I said I look forward in anticipation of future budgets, because it is more than just the legislation. It is important that we recognize resources, and by resources I am referring to finances, obviously, among other things. Finances is a very important as

Victims Bill of Rights  Mr. Speaker, I had an unfortunate and sad experience. I was with a mother when it was first announced that her son had been brutally murdered. The police officer walked in and said, “We have found your son's body, and he has been murdered.” The profound impact that had on this in

Victims Bill of Rights  Mr. Speaker, it has been an issue with the government on virtually all the legislation related to crime. The government likes to come across as if it is really tough on crime. That is the message it is trying to communicate. If we read through some of the legislation, we will fi

Victims Bill of Rights  Mr. Speaker, what I indicated at the outset was that we in the Liberal Party look at this as a continuation, in good part, of actions that were taken back in 2003 when there was a great deal of effort put into revising the Canadian Statement of Basic Principles for Justice for Vi

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, I have a petition from the residents of Guelph, which was provided by my colleague from Guelph. Petitioners across Canada there are calling for the government to require all producers and manufacturers to include potassium on the nutritional facts table on all food l

Victims Bill of Rights Act  Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise to speak to Bill C-32 this afternoon. It is really interesting to be able to stand and recognize that the government has actually done a fairly good job on this piece of legislation. It is one of those things for which time allocation

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act  Mr. Speaker, most of the member's speech emphasized how happy he is that the minister is going to have the power to get rid of a person's citizenship. One of the concerns that I have, and I have had the opportunity to express this on several occasions, is the significant increas

Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act  Mr. Speaker, one of the ironies with this piece of legislation is the fact that the government is trying to give the impression, by passing this proposed legislation, that it would be speeding up the process for citizenship once a person qualifies. The Minister of Citizenship and

Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, I have a question related to trade, but it goes beyond just free trade agreements. As the member would know, Canada already trades, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, with Honduras. If we use the logic of the New Democrats, we should not have trade agreements, b

Canada-Honduras Economic Growth and Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, I do not necessarily mean to be mean and pop the member's bubble on his speech, but I must say I am somewhat surprised on two points. The one is that he never acknowledged the wonderful performance of former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who actually initiated the d

Economic Action Plan 2014 Act, No. 1  Mr. Speaker, the budget implementation bill is one aspect of the overall budget wherein we saw significant cuts to the CBC. A good number of jobs will be lost, but more importantly, concern has been raised with respect to the overall impact the cuts will have on the CBC's future.

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, this is one of those issues where there needs to be a higher sense of co-operation among the different stakeholders. In particular, we need to recognize that the most significant role to be played in this is likely at the provincial level. It is an issue that I have

Criminal Code  Mr. Speaker, in reading the bill, I am pleased to note it is an issue with which I have been somewhat associated for a number of years. At one point I was the health critic for the Liberal Party in the Province of Manitoba. I believe that we underestimate the cost, both social a