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    Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of all the great residents of Simcoe—Grey.

    I just want to give a quick thanks. Last week was Remembrance Day, and I was invited to 15 ceremonies. I attended two of them on Remembrance Day, the only two I could go to during that time period since I was driving. I just want to thank the volunteers in my EDA for helping out to make sure that a wreath was placed at each event. I also had many volunteers out this weekend, as we had two parades, one in Angus and one in Collingwood. We have many parades. I thank them for their support.

     For those who were not here the last time I spoke, I was talking about seeing scandal after scandal, whether it is WE Charity, SNC-Lavalin or, probably the largest one, the green slush fund, and about our frustration. I was talking about some of my residents, like Stephanie, who started a new poultry farm in my riding. She was due a GST rebate in April but had not received it by June, so she reached out to my office. In July she was told it was under audit and to follow up in three months. Already frustrated after the three months, she said that the GST refund could really help keep her new business going. However, it is government, so we waited until October 3, and guess what we were told. There was no audit noted on her file at all and no one was sure what was holding up the refund.

    A week later, the CRA said there was no agent on her file at all. For nine months, this brand new business waited for a much-needed rebate cheque, but the CRA had no one on the file, could not say why the refund had not been processed and could not tell her when it might be. It is another incredibly frustrating experience for a Canadian just trying to get ahead.

    As I have said here before, all of this is while the Liberals directed $338 million to projects in which board members of the green slush fund had a direct conflict of interest. For anyone who is paying attention right now, that is why so many people are frustrated with the Prime Minister and want him to go. Even some members of the Liberal Party are starting to understand that as well.

    I am going to end my speech with the words of one of the courageous whistle-blowers who helped bring the Auditor General's attention to the corruption at the green slush fund:

    I want to take this opportunity to thank that whistle-blower, who brought this to light. We do not need it, but it is why we are seeing frustration.

    It is time to axe the tax. It is time for us to build the homes. It is time to fix the budget. It is time to stop the crime. Frustrated Canadians have had enough. They are worried about another budget and what the government will do to all Canadians and how it is going to affect their lives. It is time for us to call a carbon tax election and let them decide what the right thing to do is. It is time to bring it home.

    Mr. Speaker, the multi-million dollar game continues as members of the Conservative Party want to send a very strong message to Canadians: They are more interested in the interests of the leader of the Conservative Party than anyone else's. They are not listening to what Canadians are saying and continue to play a multi-million dollar game. I say shame on the Conservatives.

    If they wanted to contribute something positive and change the dial, one thing they could consider doing is recognizing that the leader of the official opposition still refuses to get a security clearance to deal with the issue of international foreign interference. My constituents still want to know why the leader of the Conservative Party does not want to get a security clearance. What is he hiding? Is there something in his past that he does not want to tell Canadians?

    Mr. Speaker, I find it quite comical to get that type of question. Last week, we had a week in our ridings, and I hope the member opposite spent a lot of time visiting his constituents. No one talked about anything other than the scandal and corruption of the government at every event I attended. From veterans to those at birthday celebrations to new Canadians, they all wanted to know when the election was going to happen. The emails I receive in my office are consistently about the frustration that Canadians are feeling. They understand that the government does not seem to care, so it is time to have a carbon tax election.

    Mr. Speaker, the member referenced Remembrance Day commemorations. This is very important. I want to underscore the incredible work that went into the Remembrance Day commemorations in New Westminster—Burnaby, including at New Westminster Secondary School, the remarkable ceremony at George Derby veterans hospital, at the New Westminster City Hall, at the South Burnaby Cenotaph, at Burnaby's Korean War Memorial and at the Royal Canadian Legion branch 83 in Burnaby and branch 2 in New Westminster. All of these commemorations were extremely important.

    We know that our veterans gave their lives for democracy, and what they want to see is a functioning democracy. The NDP in this corner of the House was instrumental in getting to the bottom of the SNC-Lavalin scandal and the WE Charity scandal, as we are doing now with the SDTC scandal. We support the motion.

    The Conservatives had over $7 billion in scandals and have never apologized. Will the Conservatives apologize for their scandals, which they refused to let Parliament get to the bottom of?

    Mr. Speaker, once again, we are here to get the documents. That is the discussion and debate we are on. I do not know why other parties are deflecting questions instead of dealing with what really needs to be done.

    It is a simple process. It is unfathomable that the House made a decision and we have a government that is not going along with it. What I am hearing in my riding is that people are frustrated. Why are we here? Why do I have the ability to vote and to make a difference when the government will not accept the vote on this issue? Once again, le us get the documents so we can move on.

    Mr. Speaker, what a great way to start a week: listening to the great and insightful knowledge being shared by my neighbour and colleague from Simcoe—Grey.

    Because he is from my area and his riding borders mine, I want to touch base with him. I hear day in and day out in my riding about how hard he works in his riding and how many events he goes to. He is always out there. He has boots on the ground and does anything he can to listen to his constituents. I appreciate that from him.

    Since you have heard so much information, I want to know if you are also hearing about this terrible loss of $400 million, about how much your residents are suffering and about how the $400 million from this fiasco scandal could have helped residents in your riding.

     I am glad the member for Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte heard great things about me and my riding, but I think he was talking about the member for Simcoe—Grey.

    The hon. member for Simcoe—Grey.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for those nice comments. Just so everyone here is aware, I drove last night to make sure I was in time, and I think the hon. member flew, so I brought his clothes with me. I think he is thanking me for bringing his clothes.

    I hear all the time about wasted spending and have heard great thoughts about what we could do with that amount of money in my riding. For example, hospitals could be built. I know of two that need funding. We could lower taxes so there is more money in seniors' pockets. All the money going to scandals could, quite frankly, go to debt or to finding ways to save money. Right now people are struggling, whether it is with food, rent or mortgages, so any money the government is wasting is money that is not going to good causes.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the good people of the riding of Waterloo, especially the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 530. We had a tremendous ceremony in Waterloo, and it was really impressive to see the number of people who showed up. We need to appreciate and never take for granted the democracy we have.

    A point that was raised was about the challenges Canadians are facing and the importance of housing. That is interesting. As we know, 18 members out of the entire Conservative Party care about and support their municipalities when it comes to ensuring that each individual has a safe and affordable place to call home. It is unfortunate that partisan politics is being played, and I commend those 18 Conservative members for stepping up and supporting their municipalities.

    Was the member one of those 18 MPs? Does he know anybody in the House who is opposed to this question of privilege? I support it and support the Speaker's ruling to ensure that it goes to PROC and we get to the bottom of it.

    Mr. Speaker, once again, this discussion is about releasing the documents. That is the first thing.

    I come from a municipal background. I was a mayor for many years and was then on the two-tier county council. I can say that for a lot of programs, there are lots of announcements saying the Liberals are going to have all this funding and it is going to be fantastic, but it does not work. The rural areas do not get funding. Sometimes, not enough people can access funds from the programs; it is only great announcements. The Canada Infrastructure Bank, for example, was a flop that did not amount to anything. We just get empty promises at election time so the Liberals hope they can get some votes. Quite frankly, I think Canadians are frustrated and have had enough.

    Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for all of his hard work.

    He discussed in his speech that there was an issue with CRA and a small business, and it withheld funds for a really long time. I have the same thing happening in my riding with a small business owed $90,000. For no reason, it has been withheld. The Liberals seem to have a lot of time to give their friends money and get into all these corrupt situations, but do not have enough time to help Canadians. I wonder if the member can comment on that.

    Mr. Speaker, we could put our hands up and ask certain questions of members, not just on this side but across the whole House: Are services better today than when they were elected? Are their staff more frustrated today when dealing with these bureaucracies than when they were elected? I am sure the answer would be yes, and I think that would be true right across the board if people were to give a true answer.

    For me, there has been frustration in getting information, getting through on the lines and getting money back, and all the while, the only thing that is better is the number of employees. Way more employees have been added, yet we have a lot fewer services. The frustration from individuals coming into my office is unbelievable. They will wait all day sometimes to get something with no phone calls back. It has never been like this before, so it is frustrating.

    Is the House ready for the question?

    Some hon. members: Question.

    The Speaker: The question is on the subamendment.

     If a member participating in person wishes that the subamendment be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

     Mr. Speaker, I request a recorded division.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until later this day at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

     Mr. Speaker, what is it going to take for the Prime Minister to fire the minister from Edmonton, the Minister of Employment? It seems that every day there are new revelations surrounding this scandal-plagued minister. With each of these new revelations, it is crystal clear, to seemingly everyone but the minister and the Prime Minister, that the minister is about the last person in the House who should be sitting around the cabinet table.

    Let us look at the facts. The Minister of Employment was a partner with one Stephen Anderson in a shady PPE company called Global Health Imports. This is a company that has been sued by multiple clients and has been ordered by Alberta courts to pay back $7.8 million for ripping off clients. Not only that, the minister almost certainly violated the Conflict of Interest Act. More specifically, the Conflict of Interest Act states clearly that a minister of the Crown shall not be involved in the operations of business.

    Text messages reveal that someone named Randy from Global Health Imports was intricately involved in business during the very same time that the Minister of Employment sat in cabinet. More specifically, those text messages reveal that this Randy from Global Health Imports was involved in a half-a-million dollar shakedown of a California based client that had ordered PPE equipment. At the behest of this Randy, the client, the Ghaoui Group, transferred half-a-million dollars to Global Health Imports, the PPE was never delivered and the Ghaoui Group has commenced legal action, claiming wire fraud, among other things.

    The Minister of Employment says he is not that Randy, except for the fact that, at all material times, the Ghaoui Group believed that the Randy in the text messages was the Minister of Employment. The minister's business partner, Stephen Anderson, has admitted there is no one from Global Health Imports named Randy other than the minister. The text messages reference Randy as a partner. We know the minister had been a partner. The text messages place this Randy in Vancouver. It turns out that the Minister of Employment was in Vancouver at the same time, and no one can find this other Randy. There is no plausible explanation as to who this other Randy could be. The only reasonable inference that can be drawn is that the Randy in the text messages is the Minister of Employment.

    Therefore, the Minister of Employment broke the law and violated the Conflict of Interest Act. On that basis alone, he should be removed from cabinet.

    However, there is more. Recently, we learned that Global Health Imports, while the minister was an active partner in the company, made two bids for federal contracts in which the company held itself out as a wholly owned indigenous company. The problem with that is that it is not a wholly owned indigenous company, because neither Anderson nor the minister are indigenous. What the minister and his business partner Anderson did is clear. They tried to take advantage of the government's indigenous procurement program to obtain government contracts. In short, they tried to steal contracts that should be awarded to legitimate indigenous businesses. This is cultural appropriation that is completely disgusting, and it is something else. It is called fraud, and it raises questions of potential criminality involving the minister.

    The minister says that he had no idea, that it was all Anderson who did this behind his back. I wish to re-emphasize that the minister was a 50% shareholder and was one of two business partners. For the minister to claim that he had no idea that they were trying to rig the system to steal government contracts is not believable. It is even less believable in the face of what has come to light, which is that the minister has a long-standing track record of misrepresenting his indigenous status. In that regard, I would note that this is a minister, according to news reports, who, as far back as the 2012 Liberal convention when he was seeking a party nomination, represented himself to be Métis.

    In 2015, after he was elected, in a social media post, the Liberal Party listed the minister as one of 10 indigenous Liberal MPs elected. The minister said that he was Métis back in 2012, but then, when he was elected to this place, between 2016 and 2018 he repeatedly characterized himself as a non-status adopted Cree, referencing his adopted great-grandmother, who he claimed had Cree roots. He even touted that he had a Cree name called “strong eagle man”.

    When confronted about his status and the fact that he was falsely representing this, the minister has seen fit to now change his story to say that he is not a non-status adopted Cree. In fact, he is now alleging that his mother is Métis and his brother is Métis. The bottom line is that this is a minister who continually changes his story. He misrepresents who he is. He misrepresents who he is not. The minister is a cultural appropriator. He has tried to appropriate and represent himself as being indigenous for political gain as well as financial gain.

    Today, it is reported in the National Post, if that is not enough, that the minister's company, Global Health Imports, while the minister was a partner, was sharing a PO box with none other than an individual involved in cocaine trafficking, someone who was busted by the Edmonton police in 2013 and busted again in the Dominican Republic, caught with 200 kilograms of cocaine. This is who the minister is associated with, who the minister is doing business with or who he is at least connected to in terms of sharing a post office box. It really begs this question. Whose company are ministers in the government keeping?

     Between the $7.8 million in judgments against his company, the fact that he violated the Conflict of Interest Act, the fact that he has misrepresented himself as indigenous for political and financial gain and his ties, now, to someone connected to cocaine, it begs the question, again. What is it going to take for the Prime Minister to fire the minister from Edmonton, the Minister of Employment?

    We have before us a question of privilege to bring in Anderson, who defied a parliamentary committee when he refused to disclose who Randy was, and we know why. Because it is the Minister of Employment. When he comes before the House at the bar, we need to ensure that the process is an orderly one.

    With that, I would like to move the following amendment:

    The amendment is in order.

    Question and comments, the hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

    Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for St. Albert—Edmonton, like myself as chair of the ethics committee, has had a front-row seat to what I would call a charade, a mockery and contempt of this institution. Mr. Anderson came to the committee. He would not answer questions directly and this is why we are in this situation.

    I want to ask the member about the minister. We have seen text messages. We have seen WhatsApp messages. We know that the minister was a director in this company and that he received payments from this company. We also have seen, lately, a sworn affidavit that identifies the minister by his name.

    Who does the member think Randy is?

    Mr. Speaker, the answer to that question, as to who is Randy, is obvious. It is the minister. The member is quite right in his characterization. What has happened before the ethics committee has been a charade, not just on the part of Mr. Anderson but on the part of the minister.

    The minister first came to committee and said that he could not be the Randy in the text messages because he was in Vancouver at a cabinet meeting. Then text messages came out that showed that the Randy in the text messages was in Vancouver and the minister was in Vancouver. He came to committee and suddenly admitted, after claiming he had no association with Anderson other than he was a partner, that he had spoken to Anderson at the material time in question. Frankly, he has not been forthcoming all along and we need answers.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the member a question based on the amendment he has put forward.

    Members are duly elected to this place, and even though we recognize the parties that have more than 12 seats as officially recognized parties, there are members of the Green Party who contribute in this chamber and have been duly elected. I wonder if the member would be interested in providing space to the leader, or at least one of the members, of the Green Party to be able to ask questions. Within his amendment, he suggested people could share time. Acknowledging those individuals who have been duly elected, would he have any interest in ensuring that all people represented in this chamber are able to ask questions, as he is suggesting we should do?

    Mr. Speaker, there is something of significance in obtaining official party status. Official party status should mean something. The Green Party does not have official party status. It has two members of Parliament who are the equivalent of independent members of Parliament. If the Green Party wishes to participate in debate and committee, then what it should go about doing is to convince Canadians to vote for it and elect more Green MPs.

    With respect to the debate and the questioning that will take place about Mr. Anderson, if the Liberals want to cede their time to the Green Party, I invite them to do so.

    Mr. Speaker, I very much join with the member and share his deep concern about the need for absolute probity and respect for ethics in any cabinet, whether of the current government or any other government.

    My question for him is this. I find myself still confused. There was reference to “Randy” being involved in business decisions. The defence from the minister thus far is that it was not him, that there was a different Randy. Has another Randy been identified in any of the documents or before the committee, which might plausibly back up that contention by the minister? Is there another Randy in that company that this could be referring to or not?

    Mr. Speaker, the short answer is no, no other Randy has been identified. His business partner, Anderson, said the only Randy at the company was the Minister of Employment but then, implausibly, claimed the Randy in the text messages was not the minister because of nine autocorrects, which simply is not credible. The minister himself can identify no other Randy. When Global News embarked upon finding out who that other Randy is, the only Randy it was able to come up with is the minister.

    Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton for his great speech and the work the committee has been doing on this matter. It is very important. I appreciate the words he spoke this morning.

    One of the things that struck me repeatedly was when he said the Prime Minister has an obligation to Canadians and to the credibility of this House to deal with those who have been found in contempt, dealing in corruption or any sort of thing that would bring the government into disrepute.

    I would like to ask the member if he can identify a reason in his mind as to why the Prime Minister has been hesitant, reluctant or just negligent in dealing with the minister.

     Mr. Speaker, I would submit that perhaps the reason the Prime Minister has been reluctant to deal with the minister is that he has engaged in similar conduct as the minister. The minister violated the Conflict of Interest Act; the Prime Minister violated the Conflict of Interest Act not once, but twice. In fact, he has the dubious distinction of being the first Prime Minister to be found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. That may shed light on his reluctance to fire this corrupt minister.

    Mr. Speaker, we know from evidence that Mr. Anderson and the Minister of Employment have both denied having any communication with each other since the minister's election in 2019.

     How does the member reconcile those points with the story that broke that confirmed the minister reached out to Mr. Anderson with respect to an outstanding Purolator bill?

    Mr. Speaker, we learned about that because the minister got caught as a result of additional text messages.

    The minister represented, as the member pointed out, that he had had no communication with Mr. Anderson. Then text messages revealed that the Randy in question was in Vancouver while the minister was in Vancouver. He was asked to explain that. He tried to explain he had communicated with Mr. Anderson about a Purolator bill but not about the half-million dollar shakedown.

     Was this a coincidence? I think not. By the way, calling or making inquiries to Anderson about paying a bill pertains to the operations of a business, so it raises even more questions about this minister violating the Conflict of Interest Act.

     Mr. Speaker, just to put things into a bit of context here, ever since day one, even when the Prime Minister was leader of the third party, the Conservative Party has been focused on character assassination.

     Now let us fast-forward to what we have today. The Ethics Commissioner has cleared the minister in question not once, not twice, but on three occasions. Why should any Canadian believe the Conservative character assassination we have witnessed in the last 10-plus years over what the Ethics Commissioner is saying?

     Mr. Speaker, it is simply not accurate to say the Ethics Commissioner has cleared the minister.

     In fact, the minister has not been forthcoming with the Ethics Commissioner, just as he has not been forthcoming with the committee. He was supposed to turn over his phone devices to the Ethics Commissioner. He did not do that. He only turned over one phone, and then when he got caught, he turned over another phone. He does not appear to have advised the Ethics Commissioner that he had been in contact with Anderson at the time in question.

    There are a lot of questions that have not been answered. We need to get to the bottom of this.

     Mr. Speaker, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that the Conservative Party wants to keep playing this multi-million dollar game, and that is what it is. It is all about the self-interest of the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party of Canada, which wants to prevent the House of Commons from being able to debate issues that Canadians are genuinely concerned about and a number of pieces of legislation that are before us.

    I would repeat the question I had asked the member opposite, and I think members opposite should listen very carefully. This is the tactic of the Conservatives, even when they were in government, when Stephen Harper was the prime minister and their current leader was a member of the cabinet and the parliamentary secretary to the prime minister. The way they attempt to win an election is to label things as corrupt and to attack personalities, and no personality has been harder hit by the Conservative Party than the Prime Minister's. They do it not only inside the chamber but also outside the chamber, and they have no reservations whatsoever in terms of misleading Canadians.

    We can look at the question I asked the member opposite. Not once, not twice, but three times the independent office of the Ethics Commissioner has cleared the minister in question, yet the Conservative Party does not recognize that. It does not recognize the independence of the office, because what trumps the commissioner is the political, self-serving agenda of the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in general. That is why we have seen individual former prime ministers reflect very negatively on the Conservative Party. The late Brian Mulroney, Kim Campbell and others have been critical of the Conservative Party of Canada today because it has lost its moral compass in dealing with issues of a progressive nature as it focuses solely on misleading through social media, and virtually attempting to paralyze the House of Commons.

    There are no opposition days, no government business, legislation or private members' bills being discussed, because the Conservative Party is completely preoccupied with this multi-million dollar game. This is a continuation, just like another privilege issue we are debating. The Conservatives brought forward another privilege issue, which we have before us today. They said to stop the debate on the amendment to the amendment to a motion that they introduced, which all of us wanted to support, but it did not fit their agenda because they did not want it to come to an actual vote. They did not want the debate to go to the standing committee. Instead, they want to use the motion as a way to blackmail members of Parliament and to filibuster what should be taking place on the floor of the House of Commons.

     It is disrespectful to Canadians. It is absolutely a waste of tax dollars, and I would suggest that, ironically, it is borderline in contempt of Parliament, the manner in which the Conservatives continue to play this multi-million dollar game. The best way to describe it, in terms of the abuse, is to look at the motion we are debating today. The essence of it is that a member of the community is called to the bar and has to answer questions. Is there anyone opposing that?

    However, like the other motion of privilege, which is still going to be debated this afternoon, it stops the government from bringing anything else forward.

    An hon. member: Yay.

    Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, one member across the way said “yay”, but there are other issues, and not just government issues.

     The Conservatives have opposition day motions, and when they bring them forward, they like to say the motions are confidence motions. However, I think Canadians would love to see an opposition day motion that deals with the housing accelerator fund. We have 17 Conservative members across the way who are scared because the leader of the Conservative Party is saying the party opposes it. The party is going to kill that particular fund. Therefore, we have Conservative MPs who are having a difficult time trying to justify their very existence on such an important issue. We should have a vote on that particular issue, but we cannot do so. The Conservatives know full well that all they have to do is continue to put up speaker after speaker on matters of privilege, and then nothing else can take place on the floor for debate.

    The housing accelerator fund is providing thousands of housing units, or homes, in every region of our country, but we have the official opposition opposing it. Actually, that is not fair to say. We have the leader of the official opposition saying that the program is bad and needs to be cut. However, a dozen or more Conservative members are saying they like the program. They are writing to the Minister of Housing to say that they want this program to be applied in our communities. We have mayors in different areas of the country saying that this is a good program. However, there is this division within the Conservative Party. In order to avoid that sort of a division, why not continue to talk about privilege? It is a privilege motion for which everyone is saying yes to having the member come before the bar, but the Conservatives have no interest in voting on it. As I have indicated very clearly, it is a fairly straightforward motion that Mr. Anderson be called before the bar to answer questions. If everyone believes that, fine, we will accept that and allow it to come to a vote. However, what is the purpose of the Conservative Party not only continuing to debate the motion but now also actually moving an amendment to the motion, which means that we could see dozens speak to it?

     What happened on the previous motion? We saw over 100 Conservatives speak to it. Weeks and weeks of potential debate on other issues were left to the wayside and never dealt with, such as Bill C-71, an act to amend the Citizenship Act; Bill C-66, which would transfer issues related to sexual abuse from military courts to civil courts; Bill C-33, strengthening the port system and railway safety in Canada act, which deals with our supply lines; and Bill C-63, the proposed online harms act to protect children on the Internet. This is not to mention the fall economic statement or the many opposition days that are being lost because the Conservatives are filling the time on issues of privilege, even though the very motions they are bringing forward are ones that we are okay with actually seeing pass. The reason, as I started off by saying, is that it is a multi-million dollar game, and it is all about character assassination. This is why I posed the question to the member opposite: What is the issue?

     The issue is that we have a minister representing an Edmonton riding, and there have been concerns in regard to some text messaging and how that could have had an impact on the issue at hand. As I have pointed out, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner has looked at this issue not once, not twice, but three times and cleared the minister responsible each time.

    When I posed that particular question to the member, his response was that it is not true. It is true. Members of the Conservative Party know it is true, but they continue to push. Why is that? It is because, as I pointed out in my question, even when the Prime Minister was the leader of the Liberal Party in third party, the Conservative Party continued to attack the individual. Nothing has changed. The wonderful thing about Hansard is that everything said inside the chamber is actually recorded and there for people to read. People do not have to believe me; they can just read the Hansards. We can go back to the time when the leader of the Liberal Party was in third party. We will find personal attacks on the leader, especially in member statements.

    We have witnessed it of other ministers inside the chamber. It is the type of thing where I could enter into that same field, talk about personalities and start to look at the leader of the Conservative Party. I referred to an interesting document. By the way, the relevance of this is in regard to the issue of attacking the character of an individual. It is some sort of a report that was published. The title is “Stephen Harper, Serial Abuser of Power: The Evidence Compiled”. Actually, not all the evidence is compiled, because there are a number of things I am aware of that are not actually included in this document. However, it is about abuse of power, scandals and corruption.

    There are 70 of them listed, for anyone who is interested, but one of them that is really interesting is that Stephen Harper was actually found in contempt of Parliament. We can think about that. He is the only prime minister in the British Commonwealth, which includes Canada, to ever be found in contempt of Parliament. Can we guess who his parliamentary secretary was? It was the leader of the Conservative Party.

    That is one, but I am a little off topic there. I go through this article, and the leader of the Conservative Party's name comes up on more than one occasion. Let us go to page 9, to something called the vanity video; the article reads, “The Globe and Mail revealed that Harper’s chosen Minister for Democratic Reform [the now leader of the Conservative Party] commissioned a team of public servants for overtime work on a Sunday to film him glad-handing constituents.”

    It goes on, but he was promoting using civil servants and wearing his Conservative Party uniform, and of course, we cannot do that. If the Ethics Commissioner was to look into that, I suspect maybe they would have found some sort of fine or a penalty, or he would have been found offside.

    However, one of the ones Harper is really well known for is the “Elections bill [that] strips power from Elections Canada”. The story says, “The Fair Elections Act also makes it harder for Canadians to vote as more ID is required. Nationwide protests in which more than 400 academics took part forced [the leader of the Conservative Party] to withdraw some measures in the bill because of their alleged anti-democratic bent.”

    Anti-democratic: I think there could be some relevancy here. It goes on to say, the “Democratic Reform Minister [the leader of the Conservative Party] accused the Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand of being a power monger and wearing a team jersey.”

    Here we have the Conservative Party now calling into question the Ethics Commissioner, but when the leader of the Conservative Party was the minister responsible for democratic reform, he labelled the chief of our electoral system, Elections Canada. That is why I do not say it lightly. We have a leader of the Conservative Party who is in borderline contempt, in terms of what we are witnessing in Parliament today. He has no qualms doing that. It is demonstrated.

    Not only that, but if we take a look at the issue of security clearance, I do not know how many times I have asked the question of Conservative MP after Conservative MP: Why does the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada not get the security clearance so that he can better understand foreign interference? That is a very real issue. We have all sorts of things that are taking place in our community. An individual has been murdered; individuals are being held in many different ways for financial purposes. We have all sorts of interference in political parties, in the leader of the Conservative Party's own leadership.

    When he was elected as leader, there were issues related to foreign interference and how that influenced the leadership that he ultimately won. The Bloc, the Green, the NDP and the Prime Minister all have the security clearance. He is the only leader who does not. Why will the leader of the Conservative Party not do likewise? The arguments he uses are bogus. He knows that. We have experts clearly indicating that the leader of the Conservative Party has nothing to worry about in terms of being able to get the security clearance, from a perspective of being able to listen and talk about the issue of the day. That is not the concern. However, it does raise an issue. What is in the background of the leader of the Conservative Party regarding which, ultimately, he is scared to get that security clearance? I believe there is something there.

    There is something that the leader of the Conservative Party does not want Canadians to know. I think we should find that out. That is why, whether it is me or other members of the government, we will continue to call upon the leader of the Conservative Party to get that security clearance.

    Instead of playing this multi-million dollar game, let us start dealing with the issues that are important to Canadians. Let us talk about the fall economic statement and the legislation before the House that the Conservatives do not want to have discussions on. Let us have opposition days and private members' bills. We should allow the chamber to do the work that Canadians want us to do.

    As the Conservative Party, and the leader of the Conservative Party in particular, is so focused on them, I can assure people following the debate that the Government of Canada and the Prime Minister will always continue to be focused on Canadians first and foremost. Unfortunately, we have to participate in this game; however, at the end of the day, we will continue to push a Canadian agenda, an agenda that reflects what we believe Canadians want.

    That is something we will continue to advocate for. I would ask that, if Conservatives across the way understand the cost of the game they are playing, they stop with the character assassination they began back in 2011. Let us get down to business and do some good things for Canadians. We can do so much more if we start working together. Not only were all the other parties given a responsibility to do some good things inside the chamber, but the Conservative Party was too.

    Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader spends most of the time in his speeches casting aspersions on this side of the aisle and pointing fingers.

    However, on his side of the aisle there is the cabinet Minister of Public Safety, who was involved in a $25-million clam scam; the Minister of Export Promotion, International Trade and Economic Development, who has had two ethics breaches in giving money to her friends; the Minister of Environment and Climate Change giving money to a company that he is invested in; and, of course, the Minister of Innovation, who did not meet the contract obligations to get the money back in the green slush fund scandal.

    Is the member not concerned about the corruption in the cabinet members on the Liberal side?

    Mr. Speaker, when I was in third party status inside the House of Commons not that long ago, when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, I was more concerned about the corruption, abuse of power and so many other things within that particular government.

     I can tell the member opposite that, as she would know, the sole purpose of the Conservative Party under the current leadership is nothing more than character assassination. That continues to be the case. She tries to say that the Liberal government is corrupt; under that definition, I would hate to think how she would classify Stephen Harper and his government.

     As I have said, there is a document that, if I had the leave of the House, I would be happy to table. There are 70 things in which Stephen Harper was a serial abuser of power, and all sorts of scandal, corruption and abuse of power. I can tell members that there is even more, because there is stuff that I am aware of that is not in the booklet.

     Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy hearing my colleague.

     Of course the NDP wants to get to the bottom of the issue. We do believe in supporting the original motion and in calling the gentleman in question before the bar to answer questions. Canadians deserve to have answers.

     I am a bit perplexed, though, and I want to ask my colleague for his reaction. There has been a principle, when Parliament calls people before the bar, that there is a fair distribution among the recognized parties in the House. That is certainly how it was when Mr. Firth appeared before the bar.

     The Conservatives have just tabled a motion in which, after paying lip service in the first round to the equality in Parliament's calling the individual before the bar, they are now proposing to take two-thirds of all of the subsequent questions. That is unbelievable to me, particularly given the Conservatives' history of cover-ups during the Harper regime. There was unbelievable corruption and scandals, all of which were covered up by Conservatives.

    Does the parliamentary secretary think it is appropriate that Conservatives try to take two-thirds of the questions, when the process should involve all members of Parliament?

    Mr. Speaker, one would think that there would be a higher sense of fairness within the amendment, and one only needs to take a look at what took place the last time someone was called to the bar or at what happens in our standing committees. Am I surprised? No.

     However, I can tell the member opposite that I am anticipating that there will be an amendment to the amendment before us. The Conservatives have demonstrated that their true intentions are not necessarily to see tangible results on their motions but rather to continue to prevent the House from being able to deal with concerns that Canadians have. Conservatives are more preoccupied with the self-interest of the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative Party in general than they are with providing any sort of movement forward in getting legislation passed and debating opposition motions and private members' bills.

    We have seen that clearly demonstrated over the last five weeks or so.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to just build upon some of the comments the member shared on the question of privilege, the amendment and the subamendment that we are debating. I am sure there will be more to come.

    The member mentioned something with regard to the history of former prime minister Stephen Harper. I would ask him to correct me if I am wrong. I believe that there has been only one prime minister in the history of Canada since Confederation to be found in contempt of Parliament, and I believe it was former prime minister Stephen Harper. I would like to hear the member's comments on that.

    Additionally, the member referred to the housing accelerator fund. It is no secret that the leader of the official opposition would get rid of the program. The program helps constituents within the riding of Waterloo. The region of Waterloo has also done really well. We know that each Canadian should have a safe and affordable place to call home.

    Fewer than 15% of Conservative members, 18 of them, actually took the time to support their municipalities when it came to housing. I believe the member said the number was 17, but I think it is now 18. They are no longer allowed to speak about it. They are Conservatives but they should fight for Canadians. I am a Canadian first. I chose my political party, but I will always fight for my constituents and for my community of Waterloo.

    I would like to hear the member's comments, first of all in regard to whether a Canadian prime minister has ever been found in contempt of Parliament, and second as to what the role of members of Parliament is. Should they be supporting their communities or should they have to have blind trust in their leader?

     Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, I appreciate the two-part question. On the first part, as I have indicated, Stephen Harper was actually the only prime minister in the history of Canada, and even beyond Canada, throughout the British Commonwealth, who has actually been found in contempt of Parliament. An interesting fact is that the current leader of the Conservative Party of Canada was actually Harper's parliamentary secretary at the time.

    In regard to the housing issue, I believe that if we could stop debating the multi-million dollar game that the Conservatives are playing, maybe we could have an opposition day on the accelerator fund and see whether it would pass the floor of the House of Commons. I believe it would. Rather than talking about the members who still support the program, the real question is about the 18 members who have written to the government saying they indirectly support it. That would be an interesting vote. There is no way the leader of the Conservative Party would allow it to take place.

    Mr. Speaker, the stuff is really flying around the room today. It is an interesting debate.

     The current government has had more ethics violations and more scandals than any other government in the history of our country. It has spent more than all other governments combined and padded its pockets and Liberal friends' pockets with more taxpayer funds than all other governments combined.

    The Prime Minister has worn blackface more times than he can remember, yet the member stands up and still backs him up time and again. The scandals have gone on and on, with “elbowgate”, the Aga Khan scandal and blackface scandals, but the member for Winnipeg North stands up and defends him time and time again.

    A simple question to our hon. colleague is this: Who is the other Randy? Who is Randy? I do not think that even Randy knows who he is nowadays. Does the hon. member know who the real Randy is?

    Mr. Speaker, there should be a little bit of a warning given on TV when there is a bar going across the screen that says that a Conservative is speaking. There should be something in brackets saying that all comments being made are not necessarily true or accurate. At the end of the day, the Conservatives call the current government the most scandalous government in the history of Canada. What a bunch of crap.

     I am sorry. I withdraw that word—

    I do want the hon. member to retract that word.

    Mr. Speaker, I was thinking of the acronym of the former Conservative Party. I apologize.

     The bottom line is that the Conservative members' just saying something in the chamber does not make it true. People must understand that members of the Conservative Party, whether inside the chamber or on social media, has no qualms in terms of misrepresenting the reality of life and of factual information at times.

    Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's Liberal minister from Alberta has said a lot of things, but we know he is a fake and a fraud. He said that he was not the Randy involved in the company in question in hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraud cases that are now before the courts. He said he was not involved with the company while he was in cabinet, but of course now there is evidence that is not true. He also said that he was indigenous, in order to profit from contracts, effectively stealing from members of first nations communities. He should resign.

    Here we are today, again dealing with more revelations about the Liberal Prime Minister's minister from Edmonton. There are lots of proud Albertans who serve on this side of the House. I know it is a real challenge for them to have to hear over and over again about the member whom the Liberal Prime Minister has elevated to cabinet to represent that province, because the minister does not represent the people and the values of the great Canadian province of Alberta, nor does he represent the values of the hard-working Canadians from across our country.

    We have heard today in debate from representatives of the Prime Minister that there is some kind of Conservative fiction, but they are telling on themselves. After nine years, the facts have become really inconvenient for the NDP-Liberal coalition.

    The National Post says, “‘It's just shocking’: Liberal cabinet minister's shifting Indigenous identity scorned”. Global News says, “Ethics Committee reopens...inquiry in wake of new ‘Randy’ texts”. Here is another from the National Post: “Multiple texts about ‘other Randy’ blamed on ‘auto-correct’ by [the minister's] former business partner”.

    Le Devoir says that the minister from Edmonton's past is being questioned. I want to zero in on this for a quick second because there has been a lot of talk about the other Randy. How many other Randys are there? Let us start with fake journalist Randy because the article in Le Devoir, from June 27, lays out the the disproved claim by the Liberal minister at the heart of the scandal that Randy was a journalist, so journalist Randy is reported in Le Devoir.

    There is also across the Canadian media spectrum, including in CBC, the minister's fake claims about being indigenous, so there is that other Randy. In committee, Liberal members have said that the other Randy might not even be Randy; it might be Randeep, so there is the cover-up Randy. Today in the news, there is cocaine Randy.

    There is a cocaine connection with a Liberal cabinet minister. It is not like he owned a 1% share in a company; 50% of the business was owned by the Liberal minister. What was the business? It was a pandemic profiteering enterprise, to be clear, that is now at the centre of more than a half-dozen fraud allegations that are before the courts and that is the subject of an unresolved investigation by the Edmonton police about a suspicious fire in the warehouse of the Liberal minister from Edmonton.

    That is what we are talking about, and his 50% business partner came before committee and lied. That is why we find ourselves before the House with a prima facie case of privilege and why he needs to come before the House. Questions need to be put to him about that because he lied.

    We know there are rules in this place about parliamentary language, so let us quickly rewind. The Liberal minister has said that he was a journalist. It is printed in the media. It was looked into, and it is not true. He has said that he is indigenous. We have seen it in media reports, and again, what he said was not true. He has said that he was not involved in the ongoing operation of his business, but then, in the media and in court filings, we see more about the fraud that his business has perpetrated. We see that his claim is not true.

    The Liberal minister claimed that it could not have been him who was communicating with Mr. Anderson, his 50% business partner, because he was at a cabinet retreat in Vancouver. There were text messages in which his business partner said that he was talking to Randy in Vancouver, but he claimed that “Randy” was an autocorrect, and that the dozens of messages including it were all autocorrects, but that is exactly where he was. When we brought him back before the committee, like in so many other examples in this Liberal scandal, he changed his story.

    The Liberals talk about the Ethics Commissioner having cleared him. Only these guys would come in here to say that he has been investigated a bunch of times, but they have not been able to nail him yet, when that is because he keeps hiding the evidence. The first time, he said, “Oh, I turned over the phone records,” but it was not all of the phone records.

     This Liberal minister from Edmonton was just asked over the last couple of days at a press conference whether the Edmonton police should investigate what has been revealed, and he did not say yes. Why would this Liberal not want the police to investigate if he has nothing to hide? He said that the Ethics Commissioner said that he is clear, but the Ethics Commissioner is not able to go to court to get a warrant and seize the bank records and the phone records that would demonstrate that this minister was doing the exact opposite of what he said he was doing. He was directly involved in the operation of his business, which, by the way, was bidding on and winning federal government contracts while he was sitting at the cabinet table. That is a fact, but he said that it did not happen. We cannot believe anything he says.

    If it is not astonishing for Canadians that this Liberal minister and his business partner are sharing resources and their business is co-located with cocaine traffickers with hundreds of kilos of cocaine being involved in their trafficking enterprise, it might be astonishing that the Prime Minister and that Liberal parliamentary secretary will stand up and go to the barricades for him because they do not think he did anything wrong. That is how rotten the Liberal government has become. The corruption we have seen includes hundreds of millions of dollars from the green slush fund going to Liberal insiders, with 186 conflicts of interest, and $60 million for arrive scam, which was two jokers in a basement getting paid $20 million to do no IT work on that IT program. While one in four Canadians in this city and across the country are lining up at food banks, which are record numbers, they are lining the pockets of Liberal insiders.

     The Prime Minister said in 2015 that there would be sunny ways. It sure is sunny for Liberal insiders and their well-connected friends, but for everybody else, it is stormy skies and a rocky ride. They do not know how they are going to feed themselves. They do not know how they are going to heat their homes this winter. Small business insolvencies are up 40% this year, to say nothing of the businesses that are just not opening because business owners cannot survive in this anti-competitive, inflationary environment with the Prime Minister raising his carbon tax on absolutely everything.

     The Liberals are punishing Canadians for just living their lives, and it is all to finance their reckless spending, but all the money they take from Canadians is not enough. They have still devalued our currency with their money printing to pay for their schemes and pad the pockets of their friends.

    The Prime Minister was twice found guilty of breaking Canada's ethics laws. His public safety minister broke the law. The Liberal Speaker, the former parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, broke the law. The trade minister broke the law. Those are all Liberals, and they all broke the law. It is a cabinet and caucus made up of serial lawbreakers, so it is no wonder that we learned today about the cocaine connection of that Liberal minister from Edmonton, a right hand of the Prime Minister, who is at the centre of more than a half-dozen fraud cases before the courts, and his business partner came before committee and lied. That minister said he had no communication with his business partner while he was serving in cabinet, but he was doing it from a cabinet retreat.

     If we want the answers, and if we want the truth from these guys, we cannot believe that we are going to get it on the first crack. That is why this is so far beyond the Ethics Commissioner. There was a pointed question from a journalist who said that this Liberal minister was too much of a chicken to agree that the police should investigate and the police should take a look. These are who these Liberals, and the Liberal Prime Minister, after nine years, have in charge: fraudsters and scammers, fakes and phonies. They are disenfranchising the very people they claimed they would be the best at protecting.

    That Liberal minister from Edmonton spent his weekend on an apology tour, now that he has been caught for claiming to be indigenous to win contracts for indigenous-run businesses, but he is only sorry that he got caught. That in and of itself should have every one of them over there standing up and calling for his resignation, but where are they on that? They are too blinded by their hope that, in the dying days, as crew members of the Titanic, they might be called up to the bridge to serve in the cabinet. They are thinking that could be them, so they better not say anything. They better not stand up for Canadians.

     That is their legacy. That is that death rattle that we hear from the Liberal government. It is the sound of complicity from self-interested Liberals who are literally trying to change the law so that the election can be a week later, knowing that they are going to lose their seats, so they can get their pensions. Their preoccupation is looking after themselves and not looking after Canadians. It is a government of apologies and photo ops. That is what it has done for nine years, and Canadians are paying the price.

     What have the Liberals not broken? They broke housing in our country. They broke our immigration system. It is unbelievable. They also broke our food banks. Food bank use has doubled. Food banks are running out of food. They have had to extend their hours. When 25% of Canadians are depending on food banks, and the unemployment rate is under 6.5%, that is an awful lot of people who are working and who have to rely on the food bank to feed themselves.

    However, it is worse than that. I am hearing from food banks about folks who have to get to the food bank between shifts at their two jobs, which are not enough to pay the bills. People have to go from their first job to the food bank, get enough food to feed themselves and their families, and then go back to work at their next job. That is the legacy of the government after nine years.

    Who is the government looking out for? It is not Canadians. It is not looking out for the Canadians who are struggling to afford a meal, heat their homes or buy their first home. The government is abandoning Canadians in their time of need. When we put forward common-sense solutions, such as taking the GST off of new home constructions under a million dollars, the government will not do it. Why is that? First of all, it would increase housing supply by about 30,000 homes a year and would save Canadians tens of thousands of dollars on the purchase of those homes. That is not what it is interested in.

    It is a government of photo ops and apology, but man, does it have a lot to be sorry for. The government should not be telling Canadians that they should be sorry, which is what it likes to do. It should stand up to apologize because what we have seen is shameful. There is a minister of the Crown serving in the Liberal government whose business is connected to cocaine traffickers, and that connection has been while he was in cabinet. We are not talking about something from 20 years ago. He is currently involved. The only reason he is not an owner of the business anymore is that he collapsed his shares on the eve of his appearance at committee to testify about his involvement with these fraudsters and hucksters. It is obscene what goes on with the Liberals and the Liberal Prime Minister after nine years.

    However, I have great news for Canadians. There is scandal, mismanagement and corruption, which we are seeing over there today, that Canadians have become used to and that has been normalized. It has them feeling as though there is no hope. Life was not like this before the Liberal Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government, and it will not be like it after them. There is no political opportunity that the Liberals would not take to help advantage themselves. It does not seem to faze them if it disenfranchises or disadvantages Canadians in the process.

    We really have to wonder why, without having to drill down into any of the waste in the government programs they have put out, which just build more bureaucracy but do nothing to help Canadians, such as their supposed solutions for housing that have driven down housing starts and driven up bureaucracy, or the tens of millions of dollars on their failed confiscation with compensation scheme, their so-called gun buyback, to give people money for things the government never owned.

    Meanwhile, we have police unions across the country, including the Toronto Police Association today, calling out the government and red circling the Liberals for the chaos and disorder on the streets. The Liberals will say that they are all Conservatives and Conservative lobby groups. The largest police association, the largest police union in the country, is calling them out, but they are so blinded by their own self-interest that they just cannot get out of their own way. How can they stand up today to defend the indefensible? The Liberal minister from Edmonton, who refuses to resign, will not stand up today to offer his resignation or an apology on the floor of the House of Commons, although Canadians deserve a lot more than that. He should have been fired. It seems like the Liberals do not have the moral clarity or the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing and make sure that the Liberal minister from Edmonton does not continue to serve in cabinet and represent their party and their Prime Minister.

    The Liberals are going to have a rude awakening when Canadians get that carbon tax election because common-sense Conservatives will demonstrate our plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, especially the crimes of the criminals on the front bench and backbenches across the way.

     Mr. Speaker, people will notice something at the very end of the member's speech, which I think speaks volumes. The member gets the gold star because he carried the four election platform issues. He knows the slogans. The Conservatives know the slogans. They have the bumper stickers. They are all ready to go. There is no doubt about that. The member gets the gold star for that and that is the premise as to why they want to speak.

    No matter what the member tries to say, he wants to go back to the economy. I would love to debate the issue of the economy. I would love to talk about the issue of housing. It would be nice to talk about the fall economic statement or legislation, not to mention the opposition days. Instead of doing that, the Conservatives want to play this multi-million dollar game. The motion is very simple. It is to call an individual before the bar. The Conservatives moved an amendment. They will talk and talk. They will put up 100 speakers. The Liberals might put up two or three.

    Why is the Conservative Party, besides wanting to get its gold stars, putting up so many speakers? Is it in order to prevent Canadians from being able to witness a House of Commons that is more functional? Are opposition members using their weight to demonstrate that they can paralyze the House of Commons?

    Mr. Speaker, why does the Liberal member keep standing up and defending the indefensible? He is defending a member of his caucus, a member of cabinet, who came before committee and said one thing when the other thing was actually true. He said he was indigenous in order to win government contracts, but it was not true. His business is sharing business resources with cocaine traffickers. That is who the Liberal MP is standing up and defending. The member says they will have three people stand up. We know he is going to get up as often as he can to defend the indefensible.

    I have to say the impact of the government's economic vandalism and mismanagement is directly related to the type of people it has put into these senior positions. When the experience is coming from cocaine trafficker-adjacent ministers, maybe the Liberals should take a good look in the mirror and have the Prime Minister fire that failure of a minister, or better yet, call a carbon tax election.

    Mr. Speaker, we just spent a week in our ridings, which is very good for us as elected officials. Our constituents are asking us what is happening in the House. My answer is simple: Nothing is happening.

    The reason nothing is happening is not that the things we are debating here are unimportant. It is that members are using a parliamentary power to drag out a debate that is paralyzing the government. The government is also accusing the opposition of paralyzing it, but it is not doing anything to get itself out of that situation. Basically, this situation is convenient for the government.

    As an elected member who truly values our role in democracy, I want to ask my colleague a question. The accusations that have been made against Randy are serious.

    We are talking about the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages. What other mechanism could we use to get to the bottom of this issue, which has already been addressed by the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics? Why is this issue being addressed as a question of privilege that is going to keep paralyzing the House for who knows how long?

     Mr. Speaker, this issue is incredibly important. This is why the ethics committee has called for that Liberal minister from Edmonton to come back before the ethics committee to see if we can get a third version of his truth, or maybe get to the facts of the matter. It is a real problem when we have a minister come before a parliamentary committee and we have to bring them back because we have learned that evidence demonstrates what they said at committee was not true.

    We have to hear from the minister at committee, and, of course, we need to have Mr. Anderson come before the House to answer questions and to answer for his contempt. This is a scandal that goes right to the Prime Minister's Office. The Prime Minister is supporting that Liberal minister from Edmonton who has an ongoing involvement in this business venture. Today, the National Post wrote an article entitled, “Cabinet minister’s firm shared mailing address with person named in cocaine busts”.

    While at the cabinet table, that same minister's business, which he owned a 50% share in, won government contracts. It won a contract with Elections Canada. What an advantage he gets. If claiming he was indigenous for indigenous-only contracts when he is not was not enough of an advantage to him, and a disadvantage to Canadians, he is also sitting at the cabinet table. I wonder if it weighs into anyone's decisions in government when they are deciding which vendor to pick, if one of the vendors sits around the cabinet table.

     Mr. Speaker, I am glad my colleague opened up such a wide area of topics, but in particular with regard to sitting at the cabinet table, I want him to tell us the official Conservative policy, now, on his leader, and Stephen Harper before him, closing veterans' offices, including the one in Windsor, Ontario.

    What is the official position on the cabinet decision that locked the doors, fired workers and threw veterans to the streets when they needed services? What can Windsor West residents expect in the future about closing veterans' offices after they recruited veterans off the streets to go to Afghanistan and all the other different wars before that? What is the official Conservative response to his current leader's responsibility in closing veterans' offices, while at the cabinet table?

    Mr. Speaker, it is a real shame that, today, Canadians who voted for NDP members see those NDP members supporting a Liberal government and a Liberal Prime Minister that has attacked workers—

    Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I asked a very simple question to this member about closing veteran offices—

     That is just falling into debate.

     Order. I will just wait. Is the hon. member for Windsor West going to be continuing the debate? Thank you.

    The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

    Mr. Speaker, Canadians are rightly disappointed, especially those who voted for the NDP, to see the NDP members supporting and voting for a Prime Minister and a Liberal Party that have attacked workers. It is really shameful and I understand why they are so upset. The NDP members must be taking marching orders from their leadership to support a Prime Minister, to support a Liberal Party that is attacking workers. They continue to give confidence to a government that has attacked workers at the two ports during labour disruptions there.

    With respect to veterans, the Prime Minister has said veterans are asking for more than they can give. However, the NDP members continue to give the Prime Minister carte blanche. Canadians are upset with them and their failure to stand up for veterans and for workers. They should be ashamed.

     Before going to our last question, I just want to make sure that when a person has the floor, the other folks keep comments to themselves. They can ask a question in the process later on.

    The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil has the floor.

    Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, we could not write a Hollywood script better than what this Parliament has been experiencing with this latest scandal that has been before the ethics committee and is now making an appearance before the House. We have had a former member of Parliament start a business with a character of suspect. They got government contracts. They defrauded companies and are facing civil actions right now. A fire happened at a warehouse, and now, with the latest bombshell, there is seemingly involvement with cocaine. We have seen Liberal members at committee filibuster this issue. We are seeing Liberal members defend this issue.

    I know the hon. member spoke about defending the indefensible. What are Liberal members thinking in defending this minister?

    Mr. Speaker, it is hard to imagine how the Liberals and their NDP counterparts can defend the Prime Minister and the Liberal minister from Edmonton, when he had to come out and apologize now that he has been caught for misrepresenting himself as being indigenous when he is not, and for being involved in a business that is facing fraud allegations and is under investigation for arson. It is just unbelievable.

     The Prime Minister should have fired him. The minister should resign. It is just unbelievable that he is getting cover from the back benches of the Liberal Party and the NDP.

    Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking my colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes for his outstanding work on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I thank him for helping Canadians learn more about this and, above all, for shining a light, day after day, on all those revelations in the newspapers about Canada's Minister of Official Languages. It takes dedication, and it is also a lot of work. Indeed, I doubt a day goes by without my colleague learning something new about the various ways in which the minister responsible for official languages has used his duties, his position, his name or his other name—I will talk about that later—for his personal gain.

    I also want to thank all the members who sit on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, especially my Conservative colleagues who have relentlessly asked questions. Thanks to those questions, we have learned a great deal about this whole affair that is currently before the House of Commons.

    This is a very important issue. We are talking about a minister in the Prime Minister's cabinet who, well, is a fraud in many respects. He has demonstrated that, and now we have tangible proof. I will come back to that a little later.

    Canadians are struggling right now. We live in a country where the cost of food is skyrocketing, where young people cannot even imagine ever owning a home because housing prices are so high, and where food banks are in crisis. Newspapers are reporting that food banks are in crisis. We live in a country where violent crime is on the rise, in big cities and in rural regions alike. Crime is up 256% since 2015. What matters most to this Prime Minister and this cabinet? Their top priority is to protect the Minister of Official Languages and make sure he keeps his job, despite all the evidence that has been presented against him, showing that he gleefully put his hands in the cookie jar.

    When he was caught with his hands in the cookie jar, he rushed to eat them all up, to get rid of the evidence and to keep his hands free so he could go right back in for more. That is what is happening right now with this situation involving the Minister of Official Languages.

    I have a little file on everything that has happened so far with the Minister of Official Languages, such as the story about the other Randy. Several people may have testified about that. It is rather startling to look at all the press coverage since June. I am only going to read the headlines, but I think it is important for Canadians to understand how the situation with the Minister of Official Languages has evolved. I will start with the francophone media, where there have been fewer articles. Those listening will see the correlation with the rest of my speech.

     The first article reporting on this situation appeared on June 27. The headline read, “Minister's past questioned”. On July 5, Radio-Canada published an article entitled “[Official languages minister] cleared by an ethics inquiry, but not by the opposition”. There were no articles between July 5 and October 2. On October 2, Le Droit published an article under the headline, “[Official languages minister]'s business dealings again the subject of debate”. On November 15, the following article appeared in Radio-Canada: “[Minister of Official Languages] apologizes for lack of clarity about his indigenous identity”.

    On the surface, for the francophones listening to us and for the people watching us who follow federal politics, this might seem like a trifle. People might wonder why the House of Commons is spending so much time talking about the Minister of Official Languages.

    Let us look at what the English-language press said had to say about it. On June 4, Global News published the following article:

     “Texts from ‘Randy’ raise questions about minister's role at company while in office, [the minister] denies.”

    It tells us about text messages concerning the “other Randy”. That is what I will call him. As a rule, ministers are not to be called by their name in the House. However, another Randy is supposedly involved in this matter, but his identity has never been determined. Suffice it to say that this raises questions about the role of the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages.

    On July 16, Global News wrote the following:

     “Liberal Cabinet Minister's...former partner in a medical supply company has ties to an Edmonton woman who was detained in a massive cocaine bust in the Dominican Republic in April 2022.”

    On July 17, the Toronto Star published an article under the following heading:

     “In ethics hearing about Liberal minister, business exec admits he lied to a reporter.”

     Fully 50% of the Global Health Imports company is owned by the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, together with Stephen Anderson, the individual who refused to hand over documents to the House of Commons. This, incidentally, is the focus of the privilege motion currently before us. His business partner therefore admitted to telling the reporter a lie.

    On July 30, Global News reported as follows:

     “Public records contradict [the minister's] business associate’s testimony to ethics committee.”

    The article revealed that, essentially, what the minister told the committee was not entirely accurate, based on the facts that have emerged.

    On August 8, Global News reported the following:

     “New ‘Randy’ texts lead to 3rd ethics probe into [minister's] business dealings.”

    I should really say the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages. It is hard to get that right when a single person holds so many portfolios, especially since I cannot name that person.

    The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner conducted a third investigation. We have not heard much about that in French.

    On August 15, Global News reported the following:

     “[The minister's] former company, business partner face civil fraud allegation.”

    Stephen Anderson, a 50% shareholder in Global Health Imports, is facing civil suits.

    On August 21, Global News reported the following:

    “[The minister's] former company awarded federal contract in potential conflict of interest.”

    The company was apparently awarded contracts, and this was in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act.

    On September 11, Global News reported the following:

    “Why the contract won by [the minister's] former company went undisclosed for months”.

    Is he hiding something? Why did he not disclose that a contract had been awarded?

    On September 20, the National Post reported the following:

     “[The Minister of Official Languages] admits he spoke to business partner in 2022 as MPs try to find the ‘other Randy’.”

    Members will recall that at first, he was not there. That article was published on September 20. On June 4, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages testified at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. My colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, our ethics critic, asked him the following question.

    It was a simple question that he was asked on June 4, a long time ago, at the very start of all this.

    The minister replied as follows:

    On September 20, the National Post wrote the following:

     “[The Minister of Official Languages] admits he spoke to business partner in 2022 as MPs try to find the ‘other Randy’.”

    Is that a contradiction or a lie? It is a fraud.

    On October 8, the National Post reported the following:

    “Liberal minister's former business associate could soon be found in contempt in ‘other Randy’ saga.”

    That is why we are here today.

    On November 9, the National Post wrote the following:

    “One more firm alleges it was defrauded by Liberal cabinet minister's partner.”

    On November 12 we read as follows:

    “Ethics committee reopens [the Minister of Official Languages] inquiry in wake of new ‘Randy’ texts.”

    More revelations and more texts were released.

    On November 13, we read the following:

     “[The Minister of Official Languages] won't say whether police should investigate claims of fraud against his former business partner.”

    Fraud is fraud. When someone is a member of cabinet, they should support justice and want to get to the bottom of things. If, as he has claimed from the start, the Minister of Official Languages has nothing to do with any of this, he should open his books and let the police open an investigation into his former business partner's actions. However, when we open a can of worms, the worms do not always stay in one place. They move around. Perhaps that is why the Minister of Official Languages is afraid to ask the police to investigate his former business partner.

     The story did not end there. On November 13, the National Post published an article under the following headline:

    “‘It's just shocking’: Liberal cabinet minister's shifting Indigenous identity scorned.”

    First, it was another Randy. Then it was not another Randy, it was him. Now we learn that this company fraudulently claimed that one of the shareholders was indigenous. The Minister of Official Languages appeared in Liberal Party advertisements stating that he was a member of the Liberal Party of Canada's indigenous caucus, and he allegedly claimed indigenous identity so he could steal money from real indigenous people who were entitled to it. Why did he do it? As I said earlier, he did it to keep both hands in the cookie jar and put money into his own pockets. That is unacceptable.

     I will continue. The story broke on November 14. The National Post reported:

    “For years, Liberals said this MP was Indigenous. He's not.”

    This is not coming from us.

    On November 15, the National Post published an article stating:

    “‘I apologize unequivocally’: [the Minister of Official Languages] says he was not ‘clear’ about his ties to Indigenous ancestry.”

    I have a lot of information to share with the public about all the Minister of Official Languages' misrepresentations. I do not understand how—

    Order. There is another conversation going on. I am hearing it quite readily as I try to listen to the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

    I need everyone to listen while the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable has the floor.

    Mr. Speaker, I do not understand—

    Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I apologize. That was me. I was just talking with some colleagues, reminding them that it was Stephen Harper and certain cabinet members who—

    I will take the apology for what it is worth.

    The hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable.

    Mr. Speaker, once again, this is so obvious, we have come to expect it. Every time the Liberal government is attacked, a member of the NDP tries to cause a distraction to defend and protect it. It is almost a reflex. If we are where we are today—and all we have to do is think about the state of our public finances, about what is happening to Canadians standing in line at the food bank, about the ever-rising crime rate, about the people who are living in tents because they do not have a home—it is because the NDP supports, has supported and will continue to support this ineffective Liberal government.

    This ineffective Liberal government has a fake in its cabinet, a fake who admits it. However, he does not have the decency or the courage to hand in his resignation. He does not have the courage or the decency to respect ministerial responsibility and resign. Why does the Prime Minister keep him on? That is what Canadians should be asking.

    In closing, that is not all. There is another fib on the Minister of Official Languages' resume that is very serious for an official languages minister. The Minister of Official Languages campaigned as a successful entrepreneur. We understand why he was successful, given his ties with the government. However, he also ran as a journalist. The Minister of Official Languages claimed to be a journalist. That is true. It is not a joke. Le Devoir questioned that and took an interest in this particular situation on June 27.

    According to Global News, the Minister of Official Languages apparently

    The Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec found this assertion questionable, since the Minister of Official Languages “never worked as a journalist for either of these venues”. “His name does not appear [in our system]”. That statement to Le Devoir was made by Radio-Canada spokesperson Guylaine O'Farrell .

    As for the newspaper Les Affaires, its editor in chief, Marine Thomas said, “I did not know he had worked for us.” That is what the editor in chief, the person who approves all the articles, said. However, the archives contain opinion pieces signed by the Minister of Official Languages between 2005 and 2007, which he himself called columns.

    In his collaborations with Les Affaires, he signed the pieces as president of Xennex Venture Catalysts and the Alberta Chambers of Commerce. He said we wanted to upend a few preconceived ideas about the province. He clearly did not want to comment on these statements either. I think it is worth quoting another statement by the president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, Éric-Pierre Champagne, who said in an interview, “It is clear to me that he was not a journalist...Anyone can send an open letter to the media...That does not make them a journalist.”

     For all of these reasons, that is, for the other Randy affair, for trying to assume an indigenous identity, for trying to pass himself off as a journalist and for misleading Canadians, the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages has no choice. If he has any dignity or honour whatsoever, he will resign. If the Prime Minister has any sense of honour, respect and honesty, he will fire the minister as soon as possible, because no one can have a fake in cabinet.

     Mr. Speaker, the motion before us is to have Mr. Anderson come before the bar, just in case anyone is following the debate. I suspect all of us ultimately want to get to that vote and see that happen.

    Since Conservative Party members are so hung up on this whole character assassination, which they have been doing since 2010, I wonder if maybe we should universally apply that and start talking about the leader of the Conservative Party and the numerous scandals he has directly been involved in. That would be an interesting subject for an opposition day type of motion.

    Specifically, let me raise an issue that is out there and real. The only leader in the House of Commons who refuses to get the security clearance on foreign international interference is, in fact, the leader of the Conservative Party. Would the member not agree that the leader of the Conservative Party really needs to reflect on his motivation for not getting it? I believe it is because there is something in his personal background he does not want to share with Canadians. Would the member not agree that the leader of the Conservative Party should come clean and tell us what it is about his personal background that is preventing him from getting the security clearance?

    Mr. Speaker, that is pretty ironic. However, we are not surprised to hear that from the member for Winnipeg North. He started his question by saying that he would like to remind the members that we are here to talk about a question of privilege concerning Stephen Anderson. Then he does not ask any questions about Stephen Anderson.

    Let us try to take this seriously. This question of privilege is extremely serious. We are here today because Stephen Anderson refused to turn over to the House of Commons documents that will surely show the involvement of the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages in the company while he was minister. These documents will confirm that he communicated with his business partner when he was not supposed to do so, in accordance with the Conflict of Interest Act.

    That is not surprising, however, because the Liberals always do whatever they can to distract us and avoid talking about real issues in the House. I do not find that surprising, coming from the member for Winnipeg North.

    Mr. Speaker, has the member for Mégantic—L'Érable ever considered, if only for a second, that our Randy might simply have a split personality?

    Let us be a little more serious. The debate on the first question of privilege lasted a month, and this morning we started to debate a second question of privilege. I feel like asking my Conservative colleague when he intends to get back to serious parliamentary business.

    Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely shameful that the Bloc Québécois supported this government for nearly $500 billion in inflationary spending, that they voted almost 200 times to keep the government in power and that they twice voted against our non-confidence motions.

    My colleague from the Bloc Québécois just told us that what we are doing now, that is, holding the fake that is this government minister to account, is not part of the work of parliamentarians. There is our answer. The Bloc Québécois does not understand what it is supposed to do in Ottawa, which is holding the Liberal government to account rather than supporting it in every vote.

    Mr. Speaker, since we are talking about some of the past practices that have taken place, this member knows that former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper talked about Atlantic Canada and Quebec being part of a cultural defeatism. Is that still the current position of the Conservative Party, a cultural defeatism for Atlantic Canada and for Quebec?

    Mr. Speaker, once again the NDP has a unique opportunity to walk the talk. In a dramatic gesture, they tore up their agreement with the Liberals at the end of August, saying that the Liberals were no longer good for them and that they were not taking the country in the right direction.

    However, every time they get a chance to defend this bad Liberal government, they do whatever they can to create distractions, change the subject or take the discussion in another direction. They do this so as to avoid taking responsibility, to avoid voting with Canadians and most of the opposition members to bring down this government so that we can finally trigger an election and put an end to the damage caused by the Liberal government. Of course, they know they are responsible because they voted with the Liberal government, so they find it hard to give themselves a rap on the knuckles.

    I think that the NDP is not in a position to be lecturing anyone. If we are here today, it is because they supported this government many, many times.

     Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for an excellent speech.

    We are in the House today discussing the fraudulent, dishonest behaviour of the Liberal employment minister pretending to be indigenous, his company claiming to be indigenous-owned, to try to get contracts that had been set aside for indigenous entrepreneurs. There is a context to this. The AFN has testified before the government operations committee that, actually, a majority of those companies benefiting from these indigenous procurement set-asides are shell companies. There is rampant abuse in this program, with elite, well-connected insiders trying to take advantage of this program, people who are not indigenous trying to take advantage of a program that was supposed to be about creating economic development for indigenous people.

     The Conservative Party is committed to real solutions that will advance economic development for indigenous Canadians, whereas the Liberals, it is clear now, have been using this program to try to advantage not only their friends but themselves. I wonder if the member can comment on just what the abuse of this program by the Minister of Employment's company says about how the government likes to talk, on the one hand, about reconciliation, but it is clear now that the Liberals are just using that as an excuse to try to enrich their friends and themselves.

    Mr. Speaker, I totally agree with my colleague that, for them, it is a question of opportunity and that they are trying to take advantage of the system as much as they can.

    I have here an article from the National Post stating that “[f]or years, Liberals said this MP was Indigenous. He is not”. What is in the article, what I cannot show, is a red Liberal Party of Canada poster showing the indigenous Liberal caucus. Whose picture is on it? This article was published on November 14, 2024. It may be a picture of the other Randy, but I do not think so. It is a picture of the Minister of Official Languages. This minister is a fake and a fraud. He tried to defraud Canadians. He does not deserve to keep his place in the cabinet of any government. It is time for the Prime Minister to fire him.

    Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North said that he agreed with this question of privilege. I think members want to know what is happening. This motion of privilege asks Mr. Anderson to appear here. We can make that happen with the support of all members.

    I am therefore asking the member opposite whether there is a member, a party or anyone who disagrees. I agree. The member for Winnipeg North agrees, and I think that the Liberals agree. I think that the Conservatives agree. I heard members of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP say that they agree. Is there a member or a party that does not agree? I think that we can vote on the motion. We can find a solution to get the information that I think the House and all members want. That is my question.

    Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's question. There is a solution. It is very simple. It is readily available. It is within reach. This situation can be resolved very quickly. What is the solution? The Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages needs to step down because he is no longer worthy of his current office. We do not need to hear Mr. Anderson's testimony if the minister steps down. If the minister does not want to step down, if he does not have the decency to do that, then an even simpler solution would be for the Prime Minister to fire him.

    Mr. Speaker, I am please to rise on this subamendment that we are not supporting, which I will come back to in a moment, and the motion that we are supporting, on this issue of the question of privilege.

    I would like to say that unlike the Conservatives, who are acting incredibly childishly and disingenuously in the House of Commons, we believe in transparency and getting to the bottom of things. That is why we have raised broad concerns about both the questions of privilege: the SDTC, which my colleague from Windsor West has raised repeatedly, and now this issue of calling before the bar Mr. Anderson, which the member for Hamilton Centre has raised in committee and in the House of Commons.

    We have raised concerns because we want Canadians to get to the bottom of this Liberal scandal. I will submit as well that when it came to the SNC-Lavalin scandal, it was the NDP MPs who played the pivotal role in getting to the bottom and getting answers for Canadians. When it came to WE Charity, it was the member for Timmins—James Bay and I who got to the bottom of that issue, and when it comes to SDTC and the questions swirling around GHI, these are issues the NDP believes Canadians have the right to transparency on.

    That is absolutely a fundamental principle in this democracy. It was abused horribly during the Harper regime. Conservative corruption, scandals and cover-ups were unbelievable. I will come back to that in just a moment. Every single Conservative MP should hang their head in shame when they speak to issues of transparency and accountability, when we had the worst government in Canadian history, without a doubt, over a number of years with a majority government, shutting down every single parliamentary inquiry and every single attempt at transparency.

    We did not have people called to the bar during the Harper regime, because Conservatives refused it and shut it down. They refused any information going to Canadians. Conservative MPs stand up and postulate and do the play-acting they do so well, when they had the worst, most corrupt regime that engaged in the broadest cover-ups in Canadian history and have never apologized for it. They have never come forward and said they were sorry. They obviously have not learned the lessons. In fact, we know the four slogans the Conservatives would love to bring forward in the next election, and they are all to “bring back”: bring back Conservative cover-ups; bring back Conservative cuts, as we saw during the Conservative regime; bring back Conservative corporate tax havens; and bring back Conservative corruption.

    The reality is that Canadians deserve better. They deserve better than the Liberal scandals we are seeing now, and they deserve better than the unbelievably horrible years of the Harper regime and the cover-ups, scandals and misspending of billions of dollars that no Conservative MP has ever apologized for. No Conservative MP has ever stood up and said, “We really screwed up. We should not have covered up. We should not have had all of this corruption.” They have never done it, so Canadians cannot trust Conservatives to clean up Ottawa, and they obviously cannot trust Liberals either. That is why the NDP has stood up and said repeatedly that we need transparency. Regardless what the source of the scandal is, it is important to get to the bottom of things.

    The National Post article today, published just a few minutes ago, is profoundly disturbing. I will read an excerpt into the record:

    He is the object of the motion that is before us today, which we support, to call him before the bar.

     These are serious concerns and allegations. That is why we support the motion to bring Mr. Anderson before the bar to answer these important questions. I know the member for Hamilton Centre, who is our ethics critic, was forthright in pushing for answers that Canadians deserved to get to ensure that Canadians would understand what transpired. Because Mr. Anderson was not forthcoming at committee hearings when repeatedly asked questions to which Canadians demand answers, it is important that he be called before the bar and forced to answer those questions.

    I have two points to make before I come back to the issues of how Parliament and the government should be run. From the NDP's standpoint, and from the member for Burnaby South's standpoint, it is time that we close off the decades of Conservative corruption and Liberal scandals and that we move to a Parliament and a government of which Canadians can be proud.

    My first point is that these are serious allegations of connections, as Conservatives have pointed out in their statements as well, concerning the issue of illegal activity linked potentially to a post office box that was registered in the name of a company, which was at least 50% owned by a member of cabinet, and they need to be fully explored.

    I want to remind the Canadian public of how bad things were under the Harper regime. We do not want a repetition of that. I will read into the record an article dated May 8, 2008, from the Toronto Star, which talks about concerns about a top cabinet minister in the Conservative government and a former girlfriend with past ties to the Hells Angels. The article states that Prime Minister Stephen Harper “dismiss[ed] security concerns over the relationship between a top cabinet minister and a former girlfriend with past ties to the Hells Angels.” Stephen Harper also brushed off the matter and instead accused the opposition of being “gossipy old busybodies”.

    That was the reaction of Stephen Harper to a similar situation. This is why I say that New Democrats, as the adults in the House, are not going to take any lessons from the childish Conservatives. Their reaction to a similar set of circumstances being tied to a minister in the Conservative cabinet was to say that there was nothing to see. That is the Conservative record. That is the record of the member for Carleton. That is the record of every single Conservative MP, except for the member for Richmond—Arthabaska who resigned because he could not stand the hypocrisy of the difference between what Conservatives say and what they actually do.

    This is something that Conservatives wear, and they will wear it forever until they stand and apologize to all Canadians for their misbehaviour, for their corruption, for their cover-ups and for their cuts that hurt so many people.

     The member for Windsor West spoke earlier about the cuts to veteran services across the country. How mean do people have to be to finance these massive overseas tax havens with $30 billion a year given to the corporate elite and the billionaires, but to finance it, they will cut health care, cut supports for seniors and cut veteran services? How irresponsible do they have to be?

    It is an unbelievably mixed-up sense of priorities to say billionaires first and veterans get thrown out on the street. The member for Windsor West spoke very eloquently to that earlier. That is the Conservative record. It is cutting veteran services, forcing them out on the street and forcing them to be homeless. It is unbelievable.

    Not a single Conservative MP has ever stood up and apologized for the years of corruption and cuts, and all the hurt caused to so many Canadians. I think Canadians would be forgiving if one Conservative were willing to stand up and say that the Conservatives are sorry for all the damage they did to our country; that they are sorry for the $300 billion that we gave to the rich, the well-connected and Conservative insiders, that they apologize for that; that they are sorry for slashing our health care system, the implications of which we still see today; that they are sorry for throwing veterans out on the street; and that they are sorry for cutting CBSA and RCMP officers, cutting the crime prevention centres, seeing crime go up. Crime is always higher under the Conservatives. We have seen this time and again.

     In the United States, the Republican states have the highest crime rates. In Canada, Conservative provinces have the highest crime rates. Why? Because Conservatives cut all the infrastructure and the institutions that actually enhance public safety, including the cruel cutting of crime prevention centres. We know that a dollar invested in crime prevention saves $6 in court costs, policing costs and prison costs. To cut the crime prevention centres is unbelievable hypocrisy. The Conservatives pretend that they have some credibility on public safety. They certainly do not; they were terrible.

     The Liberals can be criticized, as we do in the NDP corner of the House, for not fixing what the Conservatives broke. They have not re-established the crime prevention centres. They have not sourced up CBSA and the RCMP to the extent that is needed. They have not corrected all the Conservatives' gaffes and irresponsible actions, and that is on them.

    If the NDP wins in the next election, we will ensure that those investments take place. We have the Conservatives—

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

    Order. I am having a hard time hearing the member speaking.

    The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

    Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives laugh at their health care cuts that caused so many problems. They laugh at cutting all the public safety infrastructure. They laugh at the $30 billion, according to the PBO, that they gave Mr. Harper and the entire Harper regime. Every single Conservative MP voted for the $30 billion that went to offshore tax havens. Canadians are not laughing. Under the Conservative government, we saw a doubling of food bank lineups and housing costs. The Conservatives will say that the Liberals did the same thing.

     That is why we have to stop this cycle of two inept parties, neither of which are able and capable of governing the way Canadians deserve to see. They want to see a government that does things like putting in place dental care and pharmacare, which was as a result of the NDP, anti-scab legislation and affordable housing. Finally, after decades of having affordable housing simply ignored under the Conservatives and the Liberals, the NDP forced investments in it.

     These are all the things the NDP did with 25 members. Imagine what we would be able to do with 225 members. We would ensure that Canadians are taken care of and that seniors actually would receive the supports they need. We would not be throwing veterans out on the streets. The Conservatives laugh when we say they threw veterans out on the streets. Veterans with disabilities are being thrown out on the street and they laugh at that. They find that funny, yet they go to Remembrance Day ceremonies and pretend. They put their hand over their heart and they say that they stand for veterans. No, they do not. We saw what they did to veterans and we will not let them do it to them ever again. What they did was reprehensible.

     The Conservative MPs should hang their head in shame for what they did to veterans, for what they did to seniors, forcing them to work longer and cutting their pensions. The Harper regime's primary goal was to ensure that the billionaires, the big banks and the wealthy CEOs had massive amounts of money. The Conservatives gave away $30 billion a year to overseas tax havens for the rich and the privileged. They gave $118 billion to the banks. They took that money from CMHC housing, which should have been a priority under the Harper regime. It was already in crisis, yet the Conservatives took that money from CMHC and gave it to the banks so they could get executive bonuses and dividends. They had an unbelievable track record. It was the worst government in Canadian history.

    The Conservatives have offered up an amendment to their own motion. We are supporting the motion. We want to call Mr. Anderson before the bar. We want to do that because we were not able to do it during the Harper years. The Conservatives refused any sort of transparency. This is the second time that we will call a someone before the bar. We did the same thing for Mr. Firth. This is important for transparency. It is a tool that members of Parliament can use to ensure we get to the bottom of issues.

     When we have unco-operative witnesses, then we can get the answers for which Canadians are asking. We supported the call to the bar for Kristian Firth. Because it is a parliamentary demand, the practice is, as the Speaker is well aware, to ensure that every recognized party, and in this case there was an allocation given to the Green Party, which is not a recognized party, as well, that all members of Parliament have an equitable distribution of questions. Therefore, we would think the Conservatives, if they were mature and not children, would approach this call to the bar in the same—

    Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Certainly, parliamentary language is something about which the NDP pretends to care. The member has gone on a bit of a tirade with unparliamentary language. I wish he would get back to the subject at hand and proceed with parliamentary language, as he should.

    I thank the hon. member for the reminder. I will remind everyone to stick to what we are debating today.

    Rising on the same point of order, the hon. member for Waterloo.

    Mr. Speaker, we have heard many speeches today from the Conservatives as well. One of the Conservative members was referring to a cabinet minister in a very derogatory manner. Therefore, I would suggest that the member talk to his—

     Again, I would remind hon. members to try to be as parliamentary as we possibly can, even though, sometimes, the debate that we are having is maybe difficult.

    The hon. member for Brantford—Brant is rising on a point of order.

     Mr. Speaker, for the last eight or nine minutes, I thought I was transported back to 2011—

     We are falling into debate. I appreciate the relevance.

    The hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby.

    Mr. Speaker, obviously, the truth hurts for Conservatives, and they cannot ignore their record. They cannot hide from their record and they cannot cover up their record like they did the myriad scandals that took place during the Conservative reign.

    We have talked about Liberal scandals. The Conservative corruption needs to be read into the record to be believed. The ETS scandal was $400 million, stolen from seniors, veterans and people across the country who were just trying to make ends meet. The G8 scandal was $1 billion. We will remember the gazebos and we will remember how the Harper regime shut down any inquiry into that. They did not care about taxpayers' money then. The Phoenix pay scandal was $2.2 billion. The Liberals, ill-judged, continued on with the Phoenix pay scandal, and we see the results even today. That was $2.2 billion and Conservatives wear that. We will remember the anti-terrorism funding. The paper trail of $3.1 billion just disappeared.

    If we put all those numbers together, that is $7 billion misspent. No Conservative has ever apologized for it. No Conservatives have ever said that they were wrong to misspend billions and billions of dollars, that they were wrong to shut down Parliament so that we could not get to the bottom of it, and that this was something that they apologize for. I just want to hear one Conservative MP stand up and apologize for depriving veterans of basic services, forcing seniors to work years longer, slashing health care and slashing public safety funding so that, of course, criminals could prosper because there were no more crime prevention centres. The RCMP was cut back. CBSA was cut back. Conservatives have never apologized for that. Their record is absolutely deplorable and yet no Conservative MP is willing to stand up and say that they were wrong to do all that. Of course, how can we trust them today?

    As for the subamendment, where they very clearly want to take two-thirds of the questions, basically to deprive the rest of Parliament, we are not going to be supporting it. My final point is this. We do not want to go back to Conservative cover-ups, Conservative cuts, Conservative corruption and Conservative corporate tax cuts.

     Mr. Speaker, I almost feel like seeking unanimous consent to give the member more time to speak, because I think that there are a lot more Conservative scandals that we need to hear about.

    I apologize. I got distracted. There is a lot of back-and-forth chatter in the chamber. First of all, I want to give the hon. member appreciation for reminding us what the previous government—

    Order. I will interrupt just for a second, because I see some secondary conversations going on again. I just want to make sure that we put those aside and that we can allow the hon. member for Waterloo to ask the question.

    The hon. member for Waterloo.

     Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to give appreciation for reminding Canadians of what took place under 10 years of former prime minister Stephen Harper. The hon. member referred to a precedent that was set not too long ago where parliamentarians were able to ask Mr. Firth to come to the bar, and the way that breakdown of questions happened. I recognize that, in the chamber, parties are recognized because they have 12 seats or more. The Green Party was given an opportunity to ask Mr. Firth questions. I would like to hear the member's comments on whether, having been duly elected, Green Party members should also have the opportunity to ask questions.

     Mr. Speaker, this is a Liberal scandal. We have to get to the bottom of it. Parliament is making the decision to call Mr. Anderson before the bar, but this wacky Conservative amendment basically says that the Conservatives will take two-thirds of all the questions. We know that their track record is absolutely dismal, that they, under their years in government, were the most corrupt and most dishonest government in Canadian history. They are now saying that they want to have two-thirds of the questions, that they do not want the questions to go to the opposition parties, like the Bloc or the NDP or the Green Party, that they do not want the government to have questions. It is a bit rich. It just shows how immature they are and how they can never form government. God help us if they do.

    Mr. Speaker, today is like a nightmare. For a month, we were unable to debate issues, to fix the problems Canada is facing, including the housing crisis, the climate crisis and the language crisis. For a month, we did not talk about those things. Then, after spending a week in my riding, I drove back here thinking that now we would fix the problems in this country, that now we would get to debate. I must say that I am disappointed. One privilege motion has just ended, but another has been introduced. I agree that it is an important motion, but I sense that once again, we are going to waste hours and hours on it.

    I would like to talk to my colleague about a very serious problem confronting us right now, namely encampments and homelessness. This is extremely important in Quebec. Before the last budget, the federal government announced a $250‑million fund to end encampments across the country. The Government of Quebec already has a plan to address homelessness in Quebec. Therefore, the federal government should give these funds to Quebec so that it can use them to end this major problem. However, the negotiations are getting bogged down. The federal government wants accountability. It wants to set conditions, and the negotiations are dragging on. Winter is around the corner. I would like to ask my colleague if he can put pressure on his friends in the Liberal government to bring the negotiations to a close and pay the money to Quebec so we can end the encampments before winter arrives.

    Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague. As he knows, the reality is that all the funding for affordable housing and ending homelessness comes from the NDP. We pushed for this for years, and the result was that the spring budget offered tens of billions of dollars for this issue. The NDP has been working on this problem for years, and we were able to improve things. The member for Burnaby South fought to have funding go to Quebec, just as it does elsewhere in Canada, to ensure that there is affordable housing. We went through years of no investment under Liberal and Conservative governments, but the NDP finally managed to force the government to invest.

    I would like to say one more thing. My colleague raised important questions. In Quebec, 600,000 Quebeckers are already registered for the NDP's dental care plan. It is incredible. It is the highest registration rate in the country. Of course, nearly 100% of the dentists, denturists and dental hygienists in Quebec are participating in the NDP's dental care program. I hope my Bloc Québécois colleague will stop opposing this dental care plan, because it is making a huge difference in Quebeckers' daily lives.

    Mr. Speaker, I am really grateful to my colleague for his speech, but also for talking about the importance of supporting veterans. Here we are, all of us MPs, coming back from our ridings where we went and paid respect to those who served in the military and RCMP, put their lives on the line to protect us and served our country. I am glad he talked about the amnesia down the bench on the Conservative side: when theLeader of the Official Opposition was in cabinet, they cut a third of the employees at Veterans Affairs. It led to a backlog of tens of thousands of veterans with disabilities seeking disability benefits and waiting for the support they needed. The Conservatives also closed nine veterans' offices and fought veterans in court.

    I will correct my colleague, because the Phoenix pay system was not $2.2 billion; it has now cost Canadian taxpayers over $3 billion. The Conservatives promised that it would save us $78 million a year. That is how the privatization scheme went for the Conservatives and how it has impacted Canadians.

    Does my colleague agree that theLeader of the Official Opposition, who was in the Stephen Harper cabinet that caused so much harm to the Canadian military and RCMP veterans, should apologize for the harm and damage he created? The Liberals have failed to fix it, but the institutional damage runs so deep that it still causes harm to veterans today.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to praise the member for Courtenay—Alberni. I have been in his riding, right across the length and breadth of Courtenay—Alberni. He stands for his constituents and he stands up for veterans. He is one of the loudest, strongest and most passionate voices for veterans in our country. At a time when we are just coming out of Remembrance Day commemorative ceremonies, it is so important to have his voice as he has been so eloquent for so long with respect to supporting our nation's veterans.

     We send people overseas to fight. Often they are wounded for life and then they have disabilities and they seek supports from Veterans Affairs, which they deserve from a grateful country. There is no Canadian who would stand up and say, “no, we are going to deprive veterans of those essential services and supports”, and yet, the member for Carleton and all the Conservatives who were present in that despicable Harper regime slashed those services and forced people with disabilities to travel sometimes hundreds of kilometres to try to get the basic services that they deserved. People put their lives on the line for the country and Conservatives gave them the back of the hand. Every single Conservative MP should hang their head in shame.

    Mr. Speaker, I listened, in good part, to the member's speech and he was quick to throw darts at the Liberal Party, who were the government of the day; he was quick to throw darts at the former Conservative government, but he did not throw any darts at the NDP and we would not know but that it was squeaky clean. The New Democrats had the scandal of office rentals, which went to court and they all were ordered to pay back the money. Have the member and all the NDP members paid back the funds from that scandal?

     Mr. Speaker, the Liberals, unfortunately, are going to find themselves in another part of this House after the next election because they refuse to stand up. It will be an NDP government fixing things. I commit that one of the things that we would never do is use or misuse the Board of Internal Economy for partisan purposes. The member knows full well what was involved in that scandalous time under the Harper government where we saw basic parliamentary institutions slashed. The Auditor General's department was slashed, the PBO was slashed and the Board of Internal Economy was used for partisan purposes. It simply was a low time in our democracy. Fortunately, an NDP government would enhance our institutions not diminish them.

    Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good people of Brantford—Brant, but here we are, another day and yet another Liberal scandal. This time it is the member for Edmonton Centre, a cabinet minister, who finds himself embroiled in yet another scandal that seems to be growing legs. What a legacy the Prime Minister and members of the government will take with them when they are defeated in the next general election, a legacy of being the most corrupt, most unethical government Canada has ever seen.

    This is not what the Prime Minister promised Canadians. In 2015, he talked quite a bit about sunny ways. In fact he followed that up with an open letter to Canadians dated November 4, 2015. I want to highlight certain passages of the letter:

    The Prime Minister finished the letter by saying:

    What an absolute joke that is, let alone a disgrace, to the Canadians who voted him into power in 2015, because we have seen nothing of an open, honest and ethical government.

    To name a few of the scandals that we have discussed over the last nine years, we all remember “gropegate”. We remember “elbowgate” and we remember blackface, with the Prime Minister not even remembering how many times he wore blackface. We all remember the disgraceful comment to an Indigenous Proud woman at a fundraiser: “Thank you for your donation.” We remember the “experienced it differently” scandal—

    The hon. member for for Timmins—James Bay is rising on a point of order.

    Mr. Speaker, I think the member just misrepresented. The disgraceful comment was by the leader of the Conservatives, who said that indigenous people needed to learn how to work hard—

    We are falling into debate again. I appreciate the help, but let us stick to points of order for the House.

    The hon. member for Brantford—Brant has the floor.

    Mr. Speaker, when I was interrupted with not a point of order but one of debate, I was talking about our Prime Minister's experiencing things differently.

    We of course know the SNC-Lavalin scandal, the WE Charity scandal and the ArriveCAN scandal, which continues to be debated in committee and in the House. There is the green slush fund scandal that is approaching a billion dollars of wasted taxpayer dollars. We remember foreign interference, which is still a problem with our democracy. We remember the Billionaires' Row condo scandal, and now there is the scandal of the other Randy.

    For the past nine years, the Prime Minister has led the most ethically compromised government in Canadian history. It took him more than a year of foot-dragging to appoint an ethics commissioner, probably because without one, he, his government and his backbench would not be investigated for bad, unethical behaviour. From his frequent taxpayer-funded vacations to his protection of SNC-Lavalin, or granting a government contract to a company that gave money to his family members and handing out billions of dollars to well-connected Liberal insiders and consultants, the Prime Minister has a long track record of using government to benefit himself and his friends, and Liberal MPs are learning from the best.

    The Trudeau government has been slapped with five ethics violations—

     The hon. member cannot use the name of the Prime Minister.

    Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been slapped with five ethics violations, the most in Canadian history. Time after time, the Prime Minister has shown total contempt for our ethics laws. He himself has been the subject of three ethics investigations and was found guilty of breaking ethics laws twice. The Liberal government allows the culture of law-breaking to persist, as six Liberals have been found guilty of breaking ethics laws.

    Several ministers in the Prime Minister's government, as well as the Prime Minister himself, have been found guilty of violating numerous laws. In fact the Prime Minister, as I have indicated, has been found guilty on two occasions. The first was in 2016 for accepting a vacation on the Aga Khan's private island while the Aga Khan was lobbying the government. The second was for improperly pressuring the Attorney General during the SNC-Lavalin scandal to interfere in a prosecution.

    Similarly, the former finance minister breached ethics laws by failing to disclose ownership of a French villa held in a corporation and for overseeing federal dealings with WE Charity despite his family's financial ties to the organization. The former fisheries minister also violated conflict of interest rules by awarding a lucrative Arctic surf clam contract to a company linked to his wife's cousin. Additionally, the former minister of small business was found guilty of violating ethics laws for awarding a contract to a firm co-owned by her friend Amanda Alvaro.

    These cases underscore persistent issues of ethical lapses within the government.

     After nine years, it is now the member for Edmonton Centre, the employment minister, who is caught in yet another ethics scandal. I will give some background. While serving as minister, he co-owned Global Health Imports, GHI, a company that secured questionable government contracts. Despite his claiming to step away from the business, evidence leads to his continued involvement, ultimately violating ethics rules. His former business partner Stephen Anderson is now facing fraud charges, raising further questions about the misuse of taxpayer dollars.

    The minister has also faced criticism for false claims about his indigenous heritage, which the government and he had to retract. This, combined with his ties to a lobbyist who secured $110 million in federal contracts and his company's receipt of $8 million in contracts, shows a pattern of misconduct. Canadians deserve accountability, but the Liberal government continues to protect its own instead of delivering solid, ethical leadership that Canadians expect.

    Before I get into the crux of the speech, I want to share for those listening that the conflict of interest rules require cabinet ministers to divest their controlled interests either by selling them or by placing them in a blind trust within 100 days of their appointment. They also forbid them from having any management or control over the trust assets. A minister would then be found to be breaking the law if they were found to have either managed or controlled the trust assets or the day-to-day business of the company itself. I will get into that later on in my speech and on how it bodes very poorly for the Minister of Employment.

    How did it all start? The mysterious Randy texts are at the heart of the probe in the employment minister's shady business dealings. A year after he joined the federal cabinet, revelations came about, questioning his involvement with GHI. When appearing at the ethics committee, the minister repeatedly denied that he was the Randy in question, and he stated that he never had any operational role in the company that he co-founded since his re-election in 2021, even though he still owns half the shares in a numbered company, which he in fact disclosed to the commissioner.

    The first set of text messages obtained by Global News showed that Stephen Anderson, the co-founder of GHI, transferred an urgent message from a certain Randy to Malvina Ghaoui, principal of a PPE company in California, to send a wire transfer of half a million dollars to secure a large shipment of nitrile gloves. The text reads, “it literally takes 10 seconds to complete a transfer. I am telling you we are not allocating like this, please reach out and see what the reason is now, you assured me this morning this was done first thing; and allowed you to hold the stock today; it's midday and nothing is completed”.

    The message ends by telling Anderson to be ready in 15 minutes for a partner call. Anderson followed up with Ghaoui 30 minutes later, telling her that he spoke with Randy and other GHI employees, who agreed to wait a little longer for the wire transfer. The exchanges were dated September 8, 2022, which is almost a year after the minister was first sworn in to cabinet as associate minister of finance.

     Mr. Speaker, doxing is the unauthorized and malicious release of private information to harm or intimidate. It infringes on Canadians' rights to privacy and free expression, leaving victims vulnerable to threats, harassment and harm. Canadians targeted by doxing may face unjust penalties from employers, professional associations or regulatory bodies based on reputational harm rather than verified misconduct.

    The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees freedom of expression, yet these rights are compromised when individuals face threats from doxing and intimidation. Protective legislation is necessary to penalize doxing perpetrators and deter these abuses, ensuring Canadians' rights and security in the digital age.

    I call on Canada to criminalize doxing and prevent individuals from facing penalties solely because of reputational harm caused by doxing.

    Mr. Speaker, it is with bittersweet thankfulness that I stand and recognize the life and legacy of Dr. Jake Letkeman. A pillar of our communities, he was a once-in-a-lifetime, larger-than-life man who knew that his faith had called him to live a life in service to others. He did that joyfully and with abundant love.

    Dr. Jake recognized the health care struggles in Saskatchewan's rural north. He delivered thousands of babies and spent decades travelling to provide ultrasounds and other maternal care to expectant mothers. Holidays for Jake, his wife Myrna and his family would often mean being overseas, helping in clinics in smaller communities or helping rebuild homes after a hurricane.

    One of the most lasting legacies Jake left in the community of Meadow Lake was as a founder of Door of Hope, a food bank and life skills organization that serves the most vulnerable and marginalized people in our community.

    He was a man who was known by some as father, papa or doctor, but known by all as friend. Today, I ask all to celebrate the life of Dr. Jake Letkeman with me.

     Mr. Speaker, at a time when we talk so much about division, I am going to share a wonderful story of what happens when we bring people together.

    Last week, we literally moved the mouth of the Don River and reconnected it to Lake Ontario. I got to join with members from provincial, federal and municipal government, including the Mississaugas of the Credit as indigenous partners and hereditary owners of that land, to make a big splash about a big moment in urban renewal.

    When we look at it, it is one of the largest infrastructure projects in all North America. It protects homes in my community of south Leslieville from floods and unlocks land for housing. In fact, when the project is done, it will be home to over 100,000 people, but in the first phase, there will be housing for 14,000 people, including affordable rental homes.

    We are going to open a new park, and everyone can check it out next summer. It is a big moment. I thank Waterfront Toronto for all of its work to bring us together.

    Mr. Speaker, on October 24, the band Lendemain de Veille won “group of the year” at the Gala Country, which celebrates French-language country music.

    This is a big deal. These musicians are as talented as they are high-spirited, and that is saying a lot. Lendemain de Veille won this honour for the third year in a row, but their fans will not be surprised to hear that they have won again. Anyone who has seen them perform live knows that their talent is unforgettable. With a mix of original songs and covers of the best classics in the Quebec canon, no one ever wants their show to end. I remember their very first appearance at the legendary Fête nationale party in Saint‑Étienne‑de‑Beauharnois. The band members were so young and already so passionate.

    They have not stopped ever since. Life has not slowed them down or tamed their spirit, and thank goodness for that. I thank Lendemain de Veille for spreading joy throughout Quebec. I am so proud to say that these boys are from my neck of the woods.

    Mr. Speaker, I recently learned that the folk music group Le Diable à cinq has been selected to represent Canada at World Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan. This group is well known in Quebec and is originally from Ripon, which is in my riding.

    This is one of the most prestigious events in the world, and it will be held in May 2025. What an honour. The group will be part of the National Arts Centre delegation alongside Pierre Lapointe, Lisa LeBlanc, Dominique Fils-Aimé and Elisapie, to name but a few. These artists will perform at the Canada Pavilion several times during the Expo.

    Since it was formed, Le Diable à cinq has played nearly 150 concerts across Canada, the U.S. and Europe. I am proud of them. They are worthy ambassadors of our country and of the beautiful Petite Nation region in particular. I commend them for sharing their love of traditional music, and I hope they have a great time at Expo 2025.

     Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a great parliamentarian. Sadly, John Glass Williams passed away in July. A 15-year veteran of the House of Commons, John served the people of St. Albert with class and distinction. Born in Scotland, John immigrated to Canada as a young man to continue a career in finance, working for the Royal Bank before starting his own accounting business. In 1993, he answered the call to serve his country and was elected as a Reform Party member of Parliament.

    John served as the chair of the public accounts committee for many years, exposing corruption in the sponsorship scandal and publishing his widely read “Waste Report”. After retiring, he continued in public service, leading the Global Organization of Parliamentarians Against Corruption. John was a mentor to me from when I was very young, and I will always remember our get-togethers at his farm outside Morinville.

    He will be dearly missed by all who knew him, particularly his wife Christine and his children, Allan, Munro and Vienna. John was also a man of deeply held Christian convictions, and his courageous stand for the truth, both secular and spiritual, will not be forgotten. He has served his country and his God well. May he rest in peace.

    Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Michel Breau, a man with a big heart, a proud Acadian, and an exceptional community builder in Ottawa—Vanier, who passed away on October 29 after a battle with cancer.

    He was an entrepreneur at heart who owned his own car rental and maintenance franchise. A long-time volunteer with the Gloucester Cougars, Michel was dedicated to giving young people every opportunity to play hockey. As president of the Gloucester Centre Minor Hockey Association, he focused his efforts on making hockey accessible and inclusive for all. He even played an essential role in helping children from war zones in Syria discover hockey. To this day, many of them still play in the league. Michel was a true champion. He always gave generously to others and continued to work with great passion throughout his illness.

    To his parents, the Hon. Herb Breau and Anne Breau, his son Matthew, his sister Hélène, his wife Ruthanne and his children, Sarah and Jackson, I offer my sincere condolences. Michel will be sorely missed. I thank him for inspiring us every day.

     Mr. Speaker, media freedom advocate and newspaper publisher Jimmy Lai prepares to turn 77, yet he remains unjustly imprisoned in Hong Kong. By the end of this year, he will have endured four years in solitary confinement; by UN standards, this is a condition deemed torture when prolonged beyond 15 days. Mr. Lai has been an outspoken critic of human rights violations by the Chinese government, giving voice to those seeking a brighter future for Hong Kong. He now faces a life sentence, deprived of precious time with his family and enduring deteriorating health. In December 2023, the House unanimously called for Mr. Lai's release and an end to his prosecution. I continue to stand in solidarity with Mr. Lai and reaffirm this call.

    Mr. Speaker, ever since the first Canadian travelled to space in 1984, our Canadian astronauts have held a special place in our hearts. Names such as Chris Hadfield and Roberta Bondar are synonymous with the values of courage, curiosity and hard work. Just 14 Canadian men and women have travelled to space, but that number will soon be 15 thanks to Henry Wolfond. On Friday, he will venture beyond the limits of this Earth as part of Blue Origin's New Shepard mission.

    A successful businessman, lawyer, fierce community advocate and family man, Henry will soon be able to add astronaut to his already impressive CV. This is not the apex of his incredible story; it is just the beginning. I would tell him that the sky is the limit, but for someone as extraordinary as he is, even that is not enough. As Henry embarks on this mission, he will see the Earth from above, without any dividing lines or the conflicts that separate us, on his journey of his own campaign to end the pervasive anti-Semitism on this planet. We stand with him, looking up. I say to Hank, good luck, Godspeed and may all parts of the mission be a resounding success.

    Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I was honoured to join senior leaders from the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in celebrating the 10th year that this iconic building has been open to the public. The CMHR has played a profound role in helping us understand who we are, where we have been and where the road to progress lies for the future. Through beautifully crafted exhibits and world-class educational programming, visitors are introduced to powerful stories and narratives that shed light on our shared humanity.

    In particular, the museum's advancement in helping us understand the history of Indian residential schools has played a major role in supporting the journey towards truth and reconciliation. The witness blanket, made from hundreds of items reclaimed from residential schools, churches and other cultural displays across Canada, is but one of the many moving displays that ground visitors in the importance of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. Our history is not void of failures that have caused immense harm to generations, both past and present. The CMHR plays a critical role in helping us move forward with hope and conviction in pursuit of a better world for all. I congratulate the CMHR on 10 years of service to our beautiful country.

    Mr. Speaker, the anti-Semitic violence threatening the lives of Jewish Canadians has now come to Parliament Hill. A homemade bomb had been built by ISIS terrorists, and the RCMP foiled a plot to detonate it during last December's rally for Israel. After nine years under the Prime Minister, hate crimes have increased by 251%, with 66% being directed towards Jews. Synagogues and Jewish schools are being firebombed.

    Canada's Jewish community has implored the government to act against this rising tide of hate. The Conservative members of the public safety committee have asked for an emergency meeting to root out this evil. Every Jew has the right to live in safety and freedom from harm; shamefully, however, Liberal members are blocking the meeting. Frankly, it is disgusting.

    Will the Liberal members of the public safety committee do their job and keep Canada's Jews safe before a bomb actually goes off?

    Mr. Speaker, nine years with this Liberal government in power is nine years of housing failure.

    The “Liberal Bloc” has doubled rents, mortgage payments and down payments. A recent Habitat for Humanity survey revealed that 88% of Canadian renters believe that home ownership is out of reach, and 75% of them are sacrificing basic needs like food and education to pay the rent. All this is happening in Canada.

    We are in the middle of a housing crisis, and Quebeckers are no longer getting by. Last week, the Journal de Montréal reported on one Montreal man who is on the brink of homelessness after a 30-year career with a bank. His savings were swallowed up by exorbitant rents. A few days later, the newspaper shared the story of a young doctor. The headline read: “For this 29-year-old chiropractor, moving back in with his parents was a ‘smart move’”.

    The Liberals have dropped the ball when it comes to housing. The Conservatives will fix the problem.

    Mr. Speaker, Christmas is still more than a month away; however, with great enthusiasm and hope, Conservative MPs have already written to the big guy. Their hope is for a stocking filled with the housing accelerator money that their communities will need to build new homes. Alas, these Conservative MPs, their mayors and their communities have been grinched by the leader of the official opposition. Slinking down the chimney, the Grinch has removed all their hope. Not even Cindy Lou Who can change the Grinch's mind these days. “Only six affordable homes for Canada,” says the Grinch. However, the big guy is leading the chorus and delivering the homes that Canada needs, such as in Sault Ste. Marie, where we are building and refurbishing over 1,000 homes. With 175 agreements in place, Liberals are fast-tracking the construction of 750,000 more homes across Canada.

    Mr. Speaker, Canada is home to some of the planet's most vital resources. Chief among them is our abundance of fresh water. Our Great Lakes, aquifers and rivers are a critical part of our ecosystem and economy. Managing our water sources sustainably is vital, particularly in the face of potentially unsustainable industrial usage.

    According to a Statistics Canada study, industrial water use accounts for 91.2% of our country's total water use, and it continues to rise.

    While the federal government recently launched the Canada Water Agency, the agency's mandate must remain focused on keeping a close eye on the impact of climate change and industrial policy on our freshwater resources, particularly after the American president-elect commented on diverting Canadian water to the U.S. In Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, this work will have an impact on Lake Huron, Lake Superior and hundreds of lakes, rivers and aquifers. We must treat this issue with urgency in order to protect and manage this vital resource for generations.

    Mr. Speaker, this morning, The Globe and Mail reported that Irwin Cotler, the former attorney general of Canada, was the target of an assassination plot by the Iranian regime.

    For over a month, Mr. Cotler has been living under police protection because an authoritarian regime wants him dead. Mr. Cotler, a human rights activist and staunch opponent of racism and anti-Semitism, had provoked the wrath of the Iranian regime by calling for the IRGC to be listed as a terrorist entity in Canada and around the world. The IRGC assisted with preparations for the October 7 attack and is responsible for the deaths of young women in Iran, among others.

    We will never stand by while people of whatever political stripe are threatened with death because of their opinions. We unreservedly condemn the death threats against Mr. Cotler, and we condemn the increasing willingness of foreign powers to commit political assassinations on Canadian and Quebec soil.

    I want Mr. Cotler to know that he is not alone.

     Mr. Speaker, during his taxpayer-funded stay in South America, the Prime Minister attacked Canadians for not liking his costly carbon tax and even accused them of spreading misinformation. Meanwhile, his radical environment minister not only plans to quadruple the carbon tax, but also plans to introduce a brand new one, a global shipping tax. That is carbon tax number three. All the while, Canadians are lining up at food banks and struggling just to get by.

    Enough is enough. Canadians are fed up with the government's high-tax, high-spend and high-hypocrisy agenda. It is time to elect a common-sense Conservative government. It is time to restore the promise of Canada. It is time for a carbon tax election.

    Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about a bad idea. Members will know that the leader of the Conservative Party had another idea and this one is a real winner.

     Let us talk about the housing accelerator fund. What is the leader of the Conservative Party is going to say? That he is going to kill it. He is going to get rid of that particular program. He needs to start listening to what the Conservatives are actually saying. Let me tell him what they are saying. One said, “If by any chance I attended a municipal housing announcement funded by a Liberal initiative, I would be in a lot of trouble”. Another one said, “It's extremely frustrating”. One Conservative source told Radio-Canada, “MPs are being stopped from helping their cities for partisan reasons.”

     The leader of the Conservative Party needs to free up his Conservatives, the Progressive Conservatives, to get behind the housing accelerator fund, or better yet do a flip-flop and support the program.

    Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the Prime Minister is still acting like a pyromaniac firefighter, this time on immigration. He blames “bad actors”, to use his own words, for decisions he made that destroyed our once great immigration system. He decided to open the door to 725% more asylum claims in nine years. He decided to approve a 211% increase in international students. He even allowed foreign workers to enter communities with high unemployment.

    If he wants to find out who the bad actor is, could he just look in a mirror?

    Mr. Speaker, I think Canadians expect a responsible government to take decisive action.

    We saw the plan for immigration levels that I tabled two weeks ago. It proposes a 20% reduction in the number of permanent residents. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the plan would reduce housing needs by 50%. It is a responsible plan.

    The member opposite wants to call an election. He has no plan, except maybe to do some math. He said he was going to build six housing units. As far as I know, that is as high as he can count.

    Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is again a pyromaniac masquerading as a firefighter, this time on immigration. He blames bad actors for his decisions that destroyed our immigration system. He decided to open the door to 726% more asylum claims. He decided to approve 211% more international students. He decided to lift the ban on temporary foreign workers in communities with already high unemployment. If the Prime Minister is hunting for the “bad actors” who ruined the system, will he have a look in the mirror?

    Mr. Speaker, I do not think we will take any lessons from someone who has spent the last 20 years lighting fires in the House of Commons. We put forward a plan two weeks ago to reduce immigration levels by 20%. Canadians expect us to be responsible and to react to their needs. That is what we are doing with this plan. The parliamentary budget officer himself has said that this new plan will reduce housing needs by 50%. That is what Canadians want. It is responsible.

    Mr. Speaker, the employment minister first denied that he and his company were profiting off government business, and then text messages showed the contrary. They referred to a Randy. He claimed that it was another Randy. We now know there is no other Randy. We know he falsely claimed he was indigenous so that his company could steal resources that were meant for real indigenous people, and now, his company address matches the address of a place that was the location of two cocaine busts.

    Any one of these things would be a resigning offence. Why would he not resign now?

     Mr. Speaker, I do not know the person referred to in today's article. I have never met that person. I have had no dealings with her whatsoever. Those are the facts.

     Mr. Speaker, apparently the person he does not know is himself. He says that he is not the Randy in the text messages, but his own business associates say there is no other Randy. He says that he said that he was indigenous in order to get grants and contracts that were meant just for indigenous people. Now he admits he is not indigenous at all. Now, while his company has the same address as a place that has had two cocaine busts, he says he does not know the person involved in that address either. Does this minister even know who he is?

     Mr. Speaker, the article states—

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    Order.

    The hon. Minister for Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages can take it from the top.

     Mr. Speaker, I do not know person referred to in the article today. I have never met her. I have had no dealings with her whatsoever. The article states that fact, and that is the fact.

    Mr. Speaker, after the Prime Minister took his private jet, burned 105 tonnes of jet fuel and emitted 300 tonnes of greenhouse gases to go down to Brazil, he claimed that Canadians who are opposed to his carbon tax are just confused by disinformation. No, Canadians are not stupid. They know that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has calculated that 100% of middle-class Canadians pay more in the tax than they get back. The Prime Minister already also said, though, that this will be the subject of the next election.

    I could not agree more, so why do we not have a carbon tax election now?

     Mr. Speaker, once again, it would be nice if the Leader of the Opposition was not spouting disinformation and misinformation in the House. At the end of the day, eight out of 10 Canadian families, the vast majority of Canadians, get more money back. It is those who actually live on the most modest incomes who are the best off as a result of the price on pollution. I would also say that it is a price on pollution. It is about addressing climate change, something that the organization across the way simply has no idea how to do and does not care.

    Mr. Speaker, the coming hours will be critical for our agriculture sector. Senators Peter Boehm and Peter Harder have literally sabotaged Bill C‑282. They amended it to prevent supply management from being protected in existing trade agreements.

    Just think. Donald Trump wants to reopen the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, and these two guys want to serve him up supply management on a silver platter.

    The Senate could vote on this amendment as early as tomorrow, so every party leader must speak out, starting with the Prime Minister. Will he ask the two senators to reject the amendment and save supply management?

    Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we are asking senators to support Bill C‑282 in its original form because we believe in supply management and our Canadian dairy farmers, poultry farmers and other farmers, to ensure their economic well-being.

    We agree with the Bloc Québécois and we are asking the Senate to pass this bill in its original form.

    Mr. Speaker, their excuse is that senators are independent, but the Prime Minister is the one who appointed them, including the two who are sabotaging Bill C-282. One of the two even used to advise the Prime Minister. What is more, the two even argue over which of them will get to sponsor government bills. I would hardly call that independent.

    Let us be serious. The Prime Minister can and must demand that the Senate pass Bill C‑282 as it was passed here in the House. We are talking about the future of supply management. That is serious. Will all the party leaders in the House demand that senators vote against this amendment?

    Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the entire House, Canadians and farmers are well aware that a Liberal government will vote in favour of the unaltered version of this bill.

    My colleague's question is a good one. Will the leader of the Conservative Party ask the Conservative senators to vote in favour of the unaltered version of this bill?

    Mr. Speaker, people are struggling while CEOs are lining their pockets. Rents have doubled, and grocery prices are really out of control. It is clear that the Liberals have let Canadians down. The Conservatives want to cut everything, including the Canada child benefit and dental care. Who is going to pay the price? Quebeckers will.

    We in the NDP will take the tax off basic necessities, like food, and electricity, Internet and cellphone bills.

    Will the Liberals take the GST off the basic necessities?

    Mr. Speaker, our colleague is absolutely right that it is important to support the middle class and all those working hard to join it. That is why it is so sad to see the Conservatives vote against the Canadian dental care plan, which the NDP also worked very hard to bring in.

    One million Quebeckers now have their Canadian dental care plan card. We are looking forward to moving forward in 2025 to register more Canadians and Quebeckers between the ages of 18 and 64.

     Mr. Speaker, working and now middle-class families are cutting back on their groceries. They are getting less and getting gouged at the till by greedy CEOs. Liberals let this happen and are letting families down.

     Conservatives will cut and cost families even more. They will take away important services like dental care, costing families thousands of dollars a year.

     The NDP's tax-free essentials plan removes the GST from grocery items to bring families relief. Will the Liberals take the tax off grocery items so Canadians can get a break?

     Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the member that what we are going to see from the Conservatives is cuts. They are going to cut dental care. They are going to cut the Canada child benefit.

    Canadians at home know that on this side of the House, we will always stand for the middle class. We will always stand for those who are working hard to join the middle class. We will fight for Canadians as we have done on groceries. We will build more homes. We will create economic opportunities. We will fight for workers. We will create jobs. We will create opportunities and possibilities for this country so the middle class can thrive.

    On a couple of occasions, I have caught the voice of the hon. member for New Westminster—Burnaby. I am going to ask him to please not speak when he is not recognized by the House.

    Mr. Speaker, it seems like every time the employment minister finds rock bottom, it keeps getting worse.

     First, he said he was not the Randy involved in his company, but we know there was only one Randy at his company. He said he was not involved with his company while in cabinet, and text messages reveal that he is. He said he was indigenous to profit from government contracts, stealing from first nations communities.

    Now there is new news of coordinating business activities with drug smugglers and convicts. This is the behaviour of a low-life fraud, not a federal cabinet minister. Simple question: How does that guy still have his job?

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

     Order.

    The hon. Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages.

     Mr. Speaker, despite the innuendo, here are the facts. I do not know the person in question. I never met that person in question. Those are simply the facts. The article even says that I have never met the person in question.

     Mr. Speaker, here are the facts. He flaunts the ethics rules. He claims a false identity. He gets caught in a web of lies. That is what the Prime Minister rewards after nine years.

     With each passing day, we find out more about the employment minister's scams and schemes. We learn that he is just a phony and a fraud. Canadians want to know, indigenous communities he stole from want to know, and Liberal backbenchers want to know when the Prime Minister is going to fire that cabinet minister.

     Mr. Speaker, I do not know the person in the article from today. I have never met the person in the article from today. Those are the facts. The Conservatives may not like it, but it is actually in the article that I do not know the person in question. I never met them.

     Mr. Speaker, the Liberal minister from Alberta is a fake and a fraud.

     He said he was not the Randy involved in his company, but we know that there is only one Randy. He said he was not involved in his company at the cabinet table—

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

     Colleagues, today we have been skating close to the line in terms of—

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    The Speaker: Excuse me, colleagues. I will start my comment again, if members would give me the privilege of listening.

    On several occasions today we have been skating close to the line in terms of what is acceptable language. I think the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville has skated over that line, directly accusing a member. I ask the hon. member to withdraw that comment and start his question from the top, please.

    Mr. Speaker, I will restart. The Liberal minister from Alberta has been implicated in fraud in media reports.

     Today, we have seen that. It is very clear—

     I was having trouble hearing the member. I do not think I heard the withdrawal. If the member could withdraw and start again, I would appreciate it.

    If members would not take the floor while another member is being recognized, the Speaker could hear the member.

    The hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

    Withdrawing the previous words, Mr. Speaker, we will talk about the Liberal minister from Alberta who has been implicated, in media reports, in fraud. Some of them he has even apologized for. He misrepresented his identity, claiming to be indigenous, trying to steal contracts from people who are in fact indigenous. The same minister said that he was not the Randy at his own company. We know that there was only one Randy at that company. It is pandemic profiteering. We know that there are allegations of fraud.

    Why will the Prime Minister not just fire the minister?

    Mr. Speaker, what the member opposite just said is simply not true.

    Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable that with the cocaine connections to the Liberal minister from Alberta, the Liberals and the Prime Minister want to allow him to continue to be in cabinet.

    The minister said he was indigenous to try to steal contracts from individuals who are indigenous. That is okay as long as someone is a Liberal. The company is involved in more than half a dozen lawsuits because of fraud, and that is okay as long as someone is a Liberal. They came before committee and said things that we now know were not true, like, “It must have been some other Randy.”

    If the minister will not resign, why will the Prime Minister not fire that fraudster?

     Again, the member, at the last possible moment, used a word that would not be considered acceptable.

    Can I just ask the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes to please withdraw that last word?

    Mr. Speaker, I will withdraw the last word. He should be fired.

     Mr. Speaker, what the member opposite said, once again, is not true.

     Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's official languages minister is a fraud. He said he was not the Randy involved in his company, but we all know there is only one Randy at his company. He said he was not involved with his business while working as a minister, but text messages reveal that he is. He claimed to be indigenous in order to take advantage of government contracts and receive money intended for first nations communities. He claimed to be a journalist when in fact he was a lobbyist.

    When will the Prime Minister fire this professional fraudster?

    Mr. Speaker, despite the insinuations, I have never met the person referred to in today's article. I have had no dealings with her. I have never met her. These are the facts.

    Mr. Speaker, there are so many Randys that he did not even understand the question I asked him.

    The Minister for Official Languages campaigned twice under the guise of a successful entrepreneur and journalist. He falsely claimed to have worked for Radio-Canada and a newspaper called Les Affaires. Even the president of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec has stated, “It seems obvious to me that he wasn't a journalist.” This fraud of a minister has been flushed out and unmasked, despite all the Prime Minister's efforts to protect him.

    When will the Prime Minister put an end to this charade and fire this fraudster?

    Mr. Speaker, this member's comments are untrue.

    Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is incapable of acknowledging that he is to blame for the crises surrounding the all-too-rapid hike in immigration numbers. Even in yesterday's mea culpa, he was still looking for someone else to blame, be it the pandemic, businesses or schools. He, however, is the one who issued every permit. He is the one who accepted McKinsey's immigration targets despite our warnings. He is the one who raised immigration targets to 500,000 people a year despite warnings from his own officials.

    Will he finally admit, today, that he is the one responsible?

    Mr. Speaker, I think the member may have spent too much time in Ottawa if he thinks that the federal government has total control over immigration. He knows full well that in Quebec, in particular, the provincial government controls over 50% of the volume.

    We all share responsibility.

    Mr. Speaker, it is not as though no one told him to be careful with the immigration targets.

    His own officials warned him in 2022 that these immigration targets would aggravate the housing crisis and access to public services. The Bloc Québécois had been warning him for years that adopting the Century Initiative targets was totally irresponsible. Quebec has been warning him for two years that our integration capacity has been exceeded.

    Does the Prime Minister now realize that we would not be dealing with these crises if he had listened and thought things through instead of insulting everyone?

    Mr. Speaker, let us talk about integration. If we had listened to the Bloc Québécois and the provincial governments, there might have been a significant increase because the last time the CAQ begged me to have more people, it was about welcoming people temporarily.

    Quebec has its own challenges with international students right now. It is a shared problem.

    That is confusing, Mr. Speaker.

    The Prime Minister not only could have acted faster on immigration, he should have acted faster. First of all, he should have thought about integration capacity before drastically increasing the population as he did. Second, he should have listened to everyone warning him that it was not working, but he was too blinded by his multiculturalist fantasy to base his immigration policies on facts and reality.

    Does he realize that yesterday's mea culpa is far too little, far too late, and far too easy after acting so irresponsibly?

    Mr. Speaker, let us review the facts.

    Since 2009, the Quebec government has tripled immigration to the temporary areas under its control. That is a fact. We will work together to bring that down.

    The plan I presented last week proposes a 20% reduction. It is important and it is responsible. That is what Canadians and Quebeckers are asking us to do.

    Mr. Speaker, the minister from Edmonton is a fake and a phony. He said that he was not the Randy—

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    A couple of times I have asked the hon. members. I am going to ask the hon. members again to remember that when they speak directly to members they have to, of course, extend to them all the respect that each member, as members, is deserving of. Therefore, I am going to ask the hon. member to please rephrase his question and start from the top.

    Mr. Speaker, this minister deserves to be criticized in the people's House, the House of Commons. He said he was not the Randy involved in this company, but we know there is only one Randy at the company. He said he was not involved in the operations of the company, but text messages reveal that he is. He said he was indigenous to profit from government contracts, trying to steal from first nations communities.

    When will the Prime Minister fire this phony for making false claims to steal from first nations?

     I want to invite all members to be very judicious in terms of their use of language in this place.

     The hon. Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

    Mr. Speaker, my colleague has addressed this issue and stated that those claims are false. We addressed the fact that the business was never listed as an indigenous business on the procurement site and it in fact received no funding from the Government of Canada.

    Mr. Speaker, the company did actually receive funding from the Government of Canada.

    The Minister of Employment's business partner claimed that their company was fully indigenous-owned. How would he have gotten that impression? Maybe it was because the Liberal Party repeatedly said that the minister was indigenous. Now, it is possible to get kicked out of the Liberals' indigenous caucus, not for corruption, but for refusing to participate in corruption, as Jody Wilson-Raybould found out.

    After nine years, the Liberals have gone from firing the first indigenous attorney general to keeping the first fake-indigenous Minister of Employment. When will the Prime Minister fire this phony minister?

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

     I am going to encourage all members to be more judicious in their use of words when referring to other members.

    The hon. Minister of Public Services and Procurement.

    Mr. Speaker, our colleague is well aware that, in the House, members have to choose the right words to express things properly. If he would like to learn more about indigenous procurement, which is very important to the Canadian government, then he should ask respectfully and I will be more than happy to meet with him to explain how it works.

     Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

    I would ask the hon. member for Louis-Saint-Laurent not to speak until he is recognized by the Chair.

     The hon. member for Edmonton West.

     Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's only minister from Alberta is accused of being a fake and a fraud. The member for Edmonton Centre said that he was not the Randy involved in his company, yet we know he is the only Randy involved in that company. He said that he was not involved with his company while in cabinet, yet text messages clearly show that he was. He pretended to be indigenous to profit from government contracts, effectively stealing from first nations businesses.

    Enough is enough. When will the Prime Minister do his job and fire that minister?

     Mr. Speaker, as I said, my colleague has addressed those issues that my colleague raises and he has clarified that they are false. We have stated that business was not listed as an indigenous business and it did not receive funding through that program.

    Mr. Speaker, families are getting gouged on essentials by greedy CEOs. The Liberals have let families down, and all the Conservatives are planning to do is cut programs like the national school food program, making kids go hungry. However, there is good news. The NDP's plan to remove the GST on life essentials like kids' clothing and diapers will bring relief to so many families.

    Will the Liberals follow the NDP's lead and cut the GST so that families can get ahead?

    Mr. Speaker, as the member has rightly pointed out, on this side of the House, we are moving forward with a national school food program, which we have heard, again and again, the leader of the Conservative Party call bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is not what is happening. We are seeing thousands of children already this school year receive food at school because of this investment in our children.

    We will continue to work with the provinces to see this roll out across the country.

    Mr. Speaker, Canadian families are getting gouged on essentials, while the biggest corporations are posting massive profits. The Liberals could have prevented this, but, instead, they have let Canadians down. Conservative cuts would make matters far worse. In fact, cutting child care alone would cost Canadian families up to $13,000 per child.

    The NDP has a plan to take the GST off essentials like home heat, phone and Internet bills, kids' clothing. Will the Liberals do it?

     Mr. Speaker, it is great to hear the member speak about the importance of the investments that we have made in child care. We have been able to help almost a million families, real people we have been able to support, to get them into affordable, high-quality child care, saving them thousands of dollars each and every year.

    The Conservatives have made it clear that they do not support affordable child care. They will do everything they can to take this away from the families that need it.

     Mr. Speaker, we found out that the Conservative leader is silencing his own caucus, barring them from promoting federal housing funds in their own constituencies. One Conservative MP told CBC that MPs were being stopped from helping their cities “for partisan reasons”.

     Conservative MPs, like the member for Kelowna—Lake Country, whose community is receiving over $31 million in federal funding through the housing accelerator fund, have had a pretty rough time back in their riding.

    Could the Minister of Housing, Infrastructure and Communities tell us about the impact the Conservative leader's cuts would have on Kelowna?

     You may have seen the news, Mr. Speaker, but last week the Conservatives had a very bad week. First their leader went out in public to announce that he was cutting billions of dollars in funding directly to communities to build more homes, but later it was revealed that his MPs were advocating for that fund and were since banned from advocating on behalf of their communities.

    I do not know about you, Mr. Speaker, but my constituents want to make sure that they are the boss, not the leader of our party up here. It seems that is not true. However, when we look at the example in Kelowna, let us take a look at what the mayor said. To replace this funding, he would need to look at other options like “borrowing, reserves or tax increases.” Tax increases on the Conservative side; money for communities.

     It is very clear to the Speaker that everybody got a lot of rest during this last week. I am going to ask members once again to please to not take the floor unless they are being addressed.

    The hon. member for Sturgeon River—Parkland.

    Mr. Speaker, after nine years, it is clear that the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost or the corruption. Now we have a Minister of Employment who says he sees nothing, he hears nothing and he knows nothing, but there is too much here to pass up.

     First he claimed he was not the other Randy implicated in his business partner's text messages. We now know that he was. Then he claimed that he had no active role in his company's operations while he served in cabinet. We now know that he did. We also now know that he claimed indigenous heritage and status and it was a complete fabrication. These attempts to steal funds earmarked for indigenous companies is fraudulent.

    When will enough be enough for the Prime Minister? When will he fire the minister?

    Mr. Speaker, I have two things to say. The first is that what the member just said is false. The second is that the minister has explained himself several times. What we have not heard today is the reason why, after several hundred days, the Conservative leader is still refusing to get his security clearance, not only to protect himself but also to protect his members.

    His only priority is to trigger an election. How can he expect to hold an election when he cannot protect the safety of his MPs and candidates?

     Mr. Speaker, the minister keeps explaining himself, but the answers are not coming. The minister is facing multiple scandals. We know that his company has been charged with fraud. We know that he was illegally involved while he served in cabinet. We know that the minister for years claimed he had indigenous heritage, and we now know that is a complete fabrication. Today, we learned that the minister's company shared a post office box with a known international cocaine dealer. At best, the minister has shown abhorrent judgment and at worst, he is completely corrupt.

    The fact that the Prime Minister continues to have confidence in him demonstrates exactly why he is not fit to lead the country. When will the Prime Minister fire the minister?

     Mr. Speaker, my colleague has stated that those are all false and he did not know this person in question. However, if he wants to talk about fit for leadership, he should be asking his own leader why he has not yet gotten a security clearance. If that is someone who wants to lead the country, they should probably know what risks are facing Canadians.

     Canadians are wondering why the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada has not gotten a security clearance.

    Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost. The Prime Minister is jetting around the globe promoting his failed carbon tax, while Canadians line up at the food banks.

     According to the Prime Minister, the carbon tax is the best tool out there and anyone who disagrees is using “propaganda”. However, Canada's environment commissioner disagrees. He revealed that the Liberals would not meet their own emission targets despite quadrupling the carbon tax.

    It is all pain and no gain, so will the Prime Minister call a carbon tax election?

     Mr. Speaker, it is disingenuous for the Conservatives to continually link the food bank situation in Canada with carbon pricing. A 108-page report produced by Food Banks Canada made four recommendations around Canada's social safety net. Not once in that 108-page report did it mention the carbon tax or carbon pricing, because it knows that Canada's carbon rebate, which comes out four times a year, supports Canadians, particularly lower and middle-income Canadians.

    The Conservatives should cut out the misinformation and stop being so disingenuous, particularly on the backs of lower-income Canadians.

    Mr. Speaker, here are the facts. After nine years of this sanctimonious Liberal government, Canada has the worst environmental record in the G7. That is according to the commissioner of the environment, who concluded in a recently tabled report that the drop in emissions was not due to climate actions taken by the government, but was instead because of revisions to the data or methods used.

    The first carbon tax is not working, and the second one is not working either. What is the government's newest idea? Create a third carbon tax. What is it called? It will be a global export tax.

    If the Liberals love it so much and are so sure of themselves, why do they not just call an election?

    Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his very important question. The climate change performance of Canada and Canadian industries is important.

    It is also really important to recognize that the oil and gas sector is the one that is continually increasing its emissions, and we are challenging the oil and gas industry with a pollution cap. We are asking it to invest some of its astonishing $66 billion in profit in making its products more efficient and lowering the carbon intensity of its oil. That is a good challenge.

    Mr. Speaker, the media recently reported that scammers are taking full advantage of the Canada Revenue Agency's complacency to get their hands on bogus tax refunds. Radio-Canada, however, reports that the CRA has no idea how badly it needs to clean up its act.

    Instead of tackling fraud and bad practices, the CRA is going on a witch hunt to find out who is talking to reporters. Managers are going so far as to spy on the contents of their employees' computers. Instead of addressing the problem, they are shooting the messengers.

    Will the minister ask the CRA to go hunt down the scammers, not the whistle-blowers?

    Mr. Speaker, some things need to be called out. In fact, that is why we are supporting a Bloc Québécois bill.

    If I were to publicly share information subject to the Income Tax Act, I would be liable to seven years in prison. It is serious. Considering that CRA employees also have a professional obligation to protect the integrity of the tax system, it is important to remind them of their obligations.

    Mr. Speaker, scammers made off with millions of dollars in bogus refunds because the Canada Revenue Agency did not bother to check before paying out the money. The CRA then communicated with its employees not to ask them to tighten up their auditing processes, but to ask them to stay quiet.

    CRA leadership thinks that their main problem is not fraud, but the media. What we need is accountability, and accountability begins with protecting whistle-blowers, not scammers.

    Will the minister address the total lack of ethics at the Canada Revenue Agency?

    Mr. Speaker, my colleague is confusing things. There are two very different issues here. I can, however, assure the member that at the CRA, we take this mistake very seriously. We have very professional teams who are working on this. We have different strategies. We are working with the RCMP, with the financial institutions, with our international partners. There are several safety nets to catch them.

    The CRA is a target of choice, obviously, with the information we have, the benefits we pay out and the credits we process, but I can assure the House that we are still doing good work.

    Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost. The Prime Minister got on his taxpayer-funded, carbon-emitting jet, flew to Brazil and bragged about how great his punitive carbon tax was. His carbon tax has done nothing for the environment, while literally making life's basic necessities unaffordable. The Prime Minister called it the best tool out there, but the only tool that Canadians want is a ballot box.

     Will the Prime Minister call a carbon tax election?

    Mr. Speaker, Canada's emissions are lower now than they have been for all of Connor McDavid's life. The last time they were this low was in 1997. Our emissions are down because of industrial carbon pricing, the pricing on consumer fuels and the over 100 measures the government has undertaken to lower our emissions and protect the environment. What have the Conservatives done over that same time? They have voted against every single measure.

    It is not just us who think carbon pricing is effective. It is also William Nordhaus, who has a Nobel Prize to prove it. If even one Conservative economist, if they could find one, said that they have a solution for fighting climate change, we would love to hear it.

    Mr. Speaker, under the Prime Minister's carbon tax regime, grocery prices have skyrocketed to the point that scurvy is now a serious health concern in Canada, with 27 cases of scurvy having been identified in northern Saskatchewan.

    The Prime Minister wants to blame “propaganda, misinformation...and flat-out lies” for opposition to his carbon tax. Unlike him, Canadians do not get to turn a blind eye to the affordability challenges they face.

    Will the Prime Minister show some compassion and call a carbon tax election?

    Mr. Speaker, Canada is second in the G7 on health span, second only to Japan. We have one year longer than both France and Italy in the number of years we live in good health. Ours is two years longer than that of the United Kingdom and six years longer than that of the United States.

    When we are talking about things that have been gone for a long time, let us talk about what is happening with measles. Let us talk about what is happening with misinformation generally. The approach to attacking public health that the Conservatives are taking and the attack on information put lives at risk and fundamentally endanger our health system.

    Mr. Speaker, the fact is that the Liberal Prime Minister is out of touch. First, he got on a gas-guzzling jet. Then, he glorified the punishing carbon tax that Canadians pay. To everyone who disagrees, he says they are using “propaganda, misinformation...and flat-out lies.” Meanwhile, more than one in 10 people in Toronto are using food banks, and 87% of them are living in unaffordable housing. Enough is enough.

    Why will the Prime Minister not treat Canadians like adults, let them decide, and call a carbon tax election now?

     Mr. Speaker, it is a fact that 300 economists in this country have all said that a price on pollution is an effective way to reduce emissions, and the majority of Canadians actually get more money back in rebates. It is a fact that the Parliamentary Budget Officer said exactly the same thing.

    On this side of the House, we have a plan that is about addressing affordability issues. It is about growing a clean economy for the future, and it is about fighting climate change. My goodness, it is time that some of those folks across the way at least accept the reality of climate change and have something positive to say.

    Mr. Speaker, we know that the Conservative leader has had a difficult week due to the scandal around his plans to end the housing agreement with Quebec.

    Today, the government announced a significant new investment under this agreement that adds thousands of social and affordable housing units.

    Can the Minister of Public Services and Procurement inform the House of the positive impact of today's announcement and the potential consequences the Conservative leader's cuts would have on Quebeckers?

    Mr. Speaker, the good news is, this morning, we announced an additional $92 million for the historic agreement with the Government of Quebec, which is now building 3,000 new affordable housing units.

    This is a big problem for the Conservative leader, who says those homes do not exist.

    Where is the Conservative leader going to hide his members for Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, Mégantic—L'Érable and Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, as over 300 of those affordable housing units are now being built in their ridings?

    Where will he hide them and for how long?

     Mr. Speaker, after nine years, the NDP-Liberals are not worth the cost of housing. The failing Liberal housing plan is not building more homes. Housing starts are down last month compared to 2023. They are down 11% in Canada, 30% in B.C. and 87% in Kelowna. I have talked to home builders and residents in my community, who all support the common-sense Conservative plan to axe the GST on new homes sold for under a million dollars.

    Will the NDP-Liberals agree with home builders and families and axe the GST on new homes sold?

     Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to correct the record that my Conservative colleague has put on the floor of the House of Commons. Housing starts are actually up 8% compared to last month, and year over year, are trending in a positive direction, near the all-time record homebuilding pace that Canada has ever seen.

    It is interesting that this question would come from this particular member, who represents the city of Kelowna, which received $31.5 million to build thousands and thousands more homes. Not only is she opposed to that investment, but also her leader has barred her and every one of her colleagues from advocating on behalf of their communities. I came here to represent my community in Ottawa, not to take my leader's words back home.

     Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. Police associations nationwide are demanding urgent bail legislation to keep our communities safe, yet just this morning, a stolen BMW crashed into a Toronto bus, injuring nine people, two critically. Two of the four accused were, surprise, surprise, out on bail, including one for a violent robbery.

    If the safety and security of Canadians are no longer priorities for the Prime Minister, will he call an immediate election so that Conservatives can bring jail, not bail, for repeat violent offenders?

     Mr. Speaker, the incident this morning in Toronto is a concern for all of us in the House, all of us who believe in prioritizing public safety and community safety. What is concerning, and what people need to understand, is that calls for bail reform echoed in this chamber 18 months ago. We responded, tabled legislation, and, with the co-operation of all parties, we got it passed. The ball now goes to the province's court.

    What we need to ensure, regarding this very person who should have been detained, is whether the Crown contested that bail. Did the Crown decide to appeal the bail if the bail decision was made in error? Was there enough space in detention facilities run by the province to hold that person in detention? These are important questions. We need answers.

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

     I would invite the hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo to please not take the floor unless recognized by the Speaker.

    The hon. member for Portneuf—Jacques-Cartier.

    Mr. Speaker, crime is rampant across Canada, and the Liberal government is willfully turning a blind eye. Even the leader of the Bloc Québécois has said that crime does not exist in the regions. We read something this morning about a mother who will have to pay $7,000 a year in car insurance because she has been the victim of multiple car thefts. Canadians and Quebeckers are always the ones who pay the price for this Liberal government's inaction.

    When will this Liberal Bloc government get tough on crime, even in rural Canada?

    Mr. Speaker, our colleague is falsely using the word “inaction”. He knows perfectly well that our government has been investing in law enforcement agencies like the RCMP, border services and our provincial and municipal partners for several years now to combat auto theft. We recognize that this situation is completely unacceptable for Canadians.

    The good news is that the number of cars being stolen is going down, but it is not enough. We will continue to do whatever it takes to support law enforcement and put an end to this situation.

    Mr. Speaker, from the rising cost of living to climate change, we know that young people today face unique challenges. Their mental health needs are complex. Our government is making sure that young Canadians get the care they need, when and where they need it. It is a promise we put forward in 2021 to build a stronger, more resilient Canada. Today, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions announced the launch of the youth mental health fund.

    Could the minister share details about this historic investment with the House?

     Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Scarborough—Agincourt for being such a tremendous, unwavering advocate for mental health in this country. Community organizations are the lifeline when it comes to mental health that is local and trusted. This fund, a $500-million investment, is a once-in-a-generation investment to make a difference for our youth to make sure that they have access to the services that they trust the most, adding capacity, filling gaps and making sure that we meet them where they are at.

    When we talk about the youth of today, we want to make sure that they have the tools they need to thrive, because when they thrive, Canada succeeds.

    Mr. Speaker, a UN report has found that Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide. The Liberal government is legally obligated by the genocide convention to prevent and stop Netanyahu's attack on Palestinians. Turning a blind eye to mass casualties is not an option. Entire families have been decimated. Children are starving to death.

    When will the Liberals live up to their obligations, sanction Netanyahu and his extreme cabinet, and finally put in place an actual arms embargo?

    Before the hon. parliamentary secretary takes the floor, I would encourage and remind all members to be careful with what they wear in the House to ensure that it would not be considered a prop.

     Mr. Speaker, I think everyone in the House realizes that the situation in Gaza is dire and that the situation faced by men, women and children in Gaza is horrendous. We will continue to seek every possible way to find peace with justice in this situation.

    However, rhetoric does not help. Symbols do not help. Hard work, diplomacy and engagement will be what Canada needs to do on this every day. We will continue to do our part to bring peace in the world.

    Mr. Speaker, the renewal applications of many closed work permit holders are being denied because they are missing an impact assessment, either because they did not know they needed one or because they applied in a hurry. These workers are only being given the necessary information on the date of the review process deadline and so their renewal applications are being denied.

    Why does the department not take the simple step of informing workers by email that they are missing documents? That would help prevent interruptions of work, negative impacts on families and businesses and unnecessary fees and delays for businesses, immigrants and the government in order to restore the status of these workers.

    Mr. Speaker, it is very important for us to be able to grant work permits to workers who need them when they need them. I will commit to personally working with the member to resolve this issue.

    Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, at the conclusion of asking his question, as he was sitting down, called the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages “cocaine Randy”, which is extremely unparliamentary.

    I would ask you, Mr. Speaker, to ask him to withdraw that remark.

    Mr. Speaker, I am sure that I was referring to the other Randy as cocaine Randy.

     I will come back to the House on this after further reflection.

     Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am deeply concerned as you raised the issue of my wearing a pin in the House of Commons.

    I stand here proudly wearing a pin that shows that I stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people, and members within this place are wearing pins for various reasons. One of my colleagues is proudly wearing the moose hide pin to show his support for causes that are important. People wear poppies within the House. I have many times worn a flag for Ukraine-Canadian—

    Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

     Order.

    Honourable members, it is important that the Chair be able to hear the point being raised by the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona. I could not hear much after the reference to the poppy. I am going to give the hon. member the opportunity to wrap up so that the Chair can hear her point of order to make a proper determination.

    The hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona.

    Mr. Speaker, I would like to point out that when I cannot as a member of the House of Commons bring up a point of order without being heckled and shouted down by the Conservatives, that imposes on my privilege.

     I have proudly worn many pins in the House. For example, tomorrow, to mark 1,000 days since Putin invaded Ukraine, I will wear the Ukrainian pin. I need to know whether the Conservatives will call this out as a prop.

     I thank the hon. member for Edmonton Strathcona. The Chair will take that into consideration and will come back to the House if necessary.

    The hon. President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Transport is rising on a point of order.

     Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to submit a message from Her Excellency the Governor General of Canada signed by her own hand—

    We will get to that point, which is important, but that is not a point of order.

    Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:

    All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

    It is agreed.

     The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

    Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order to make a correction to an answer I gave earlier during oral question period.