The Budget  Mr. Speaker, the minister of national defensiveness is now in his third week of reading a 31 page federal court ruling on veterans' pensions. The Conservative House leader, by contrast, has allocated a mere seven sitting days for a 425 page budget bill, a bill which amends over 7

Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to information supplied by the government of France to the government of Canada regarding secret bank accounts and possible tax evasion in Switzerland as of March 23, 2012: (a) since the government received the names of 1800 Canadians with bank accounts in Switzerland

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the House could get an update from the Minister of National Defence as to how he is getting along with reading the Federal Court judgment that ordered the Conservatives to stop clawing back veterans' pensions. When I first asked the minister about that o

National Nursing Week  Mr. Speaker, this is National Nursing Week and this year's theme is “Nursing - The Health of Our Nation”. We have over 266,000 registered nurses in Canada, constituting the largest group of health care professionals in Canada. Nurses work on the front line of our health care sys

Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, the three biggest industries in Prince Edward Island are tourism, agriculture and the fisheries. It has a population of 140,000 and gets one million visitors a year. While civil service jobs are extremely important to our economy twelve months of the year, the engi

Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act  Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to the budget implementation act. I am going to focus my remarks on three main areas. I am the member of Parliament for Charlottetown. Prince Edward Island is still a province, but it has been left out of this budget. I am going to focus

Old Age Security  Madam Speaker, I am happy to close the debate today on my motion to protect old age security. I first want to thank my colleagues from Halifax West and Cape Breton—Canso for their speeches today, and also my NDP colleagues from Churchill and Windsor—Tecumseh. I know they care ab

Old Age Security  Madam Speaker, no.

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, yesterday I attended the Military Police Complaints Commission hearings and met Sheila Fynes, the mother of a deceased soldier. I saw first-hand the impact his suicide is having on her. Compounding this enormous sadness was a 14-month delay in releasing the suicide n

National Defence  Mr. Speaker, what is unfortunate is that the minister decided to attack instead of explain. Corporal Steve Stoesz has defied orders and is courageously speaking out about the terrible state of mental health care services in the Canadian Forces. He said: “The country I fought

Jobs, Growth and Long-term Prosperity Act  Madam Speaker, I want to pick up on a couple of themes mentioned by the hon. member. In his speech, he trumpeted how good the budget is for Ontario. I am from Prince Edward Island, and we are not feeling the love. The public service has been gutted. The head office of the Depar

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, today the Veterans Ombudsman released a report in which we learn that 60% of Veterans Review and Appeal Board decisions reviewed by the Federal Court contained reversible errors of fact and law. He suggests that veterans are not getting the benefit of the doubt in th

Jobs, Growth and Long-Term Prosperity Act  Madam Speaker, I was interested to hear my friend say that this is a Canadian budget. I come from Prince Edward Island, the cradle of Confederation, and I might remind the hon. member we are part of Canada but we certainly feel left out in the budget. There are provinces where p

Veterans Affairs  Mr. Speaker, today the Federal Court ruled in favour of Dennis Manuge and other veterans who have been waging a court battle with the Conservatives over pension clawbacks. The government was wrong to litigate in the first instance, and now the court has ruled. Will the Minister

Citizen's Arrest and Self-defence Act  Madam Speaker, of course it is important. I touched on that in my speech. I hope we can count on judges and the courts to act judiciously when they consider this legislation. My response to my colleague is that, with the expansion of the rights with respect to defence of propert