Curling Champions  Mr. Speaker, I want to share with the House a recent unprecedented sporting achievement in Canada. On April 22, two teams representing northern Ontario, a boys' team and a girls' team, were crowned Canadian under-18 curling champions in Moncton, New Brunswick. It is very rare f

Regional Economic Development  Mr. Speaker, northern Ontario is a vast region with communities of all sizes scattered throughout the area. Promoting economic development is a challenge in this region. However, northern Ontario has many advantages and considerable potential. There is a large potential to be un

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1  Madam Speaker, on March 22, our government delivered its second budget and today I rise to talk about the ways in which budget 2017 is meeting the needs of my riding of Sudbury and, indeed, all of northern Ontario. Budget 2017 continues on our government's plan to strengthen the

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1  Madam Speaker, what I am very proud of is these are long-term investments. This is not short term. We are not looking at the next few years. We are looking over 10 years. These are long-term investments that families need. When we invest in housing, we cannot just do it over a nu

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1  Madam Speaker, talking about reconciliation, we have invested record amounts with our first nations. It is a long-term relationship that we need to build back. There is no doubt that our past relationship is not something to be proud of, but it is important for us to build the re

Budget Implementation Act, 2017, No. 1  Madam Speaker, one of the first things I did when I was elected in 2015 was to take stock of where we were with respect to the housing issue in Sudbury and northern Ontario. This issue is across the board. It is not just a northern Ontario thing, not just a Toronto thing. It is a

Sudbury  Mr. Speaker, I rise today to welcome to Parliament Hill many groups from the happiest city in Canada, Sudbury, which have come to advocate for the projects they believe will continue to make Sudbury a great place to live. Sudbury is a microcosm of Canada. It has a majority Angl

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to take part in this debate today to speak to the motion by the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. He asserts that Standing Order 111.1 should be replaced and should include the creation of a subcommittee on appointments of the Standing Committee on

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, it is important to look at how far we have come. We used to have a process whereby the Prime Minister alone selected the appointees. The Liberal Party decided to bring in an open and transparent process that anyone can participate in. A third party then conducts an

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, at this time the process is very clear. Concerning what has occurred in the case of Madame Meilleur, I was on the official languages committee that actually interviewed Madame Meilleur, and everybody was unanimous about her qualifications. She qualified. However, pa

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned before, we have come from a process where it was 100% decided by the Prime Minister. He just picked whomever he wanted, and from there he or she was named. We wanted to make it a more transparent, inclusive process and to attract the most highly-quali

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to discuss the Standing Committee on Official Languages’ report on the Translation Bureau. Before I get into the substance of my speech, I would like to remind the House why this report was needed. Although I am very pleased to hear my Con

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I partly agree. I agree with him that the Portage software is a comprehension tool. It features a corpus of data. When it was created, it was intended to assist translators. When a government employee used Google Translate to translate a sentence or paragraph, it

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, clearly official languages are a priority for the government. I have full confidence in the Minister of Canadian Heritage when it comes to official languages, which are part of her mandate. She is responsible for ensuring continuity and making sure that everything ge

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, several recommendations have been adopted and several of them have already been implemented. First of all, a CEO has already been hired. A chief quality officer will now have to be hired, but that will be up to senior management, obviously. Furthermore, hiring 50 st