Michael Barrett
Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, as Canada prepares to celebrate its 159th birthday, we have every reason to be proud of the country we call home. In Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, that story is written into our landscape. The Rideau Canal helped build a young nation. The Thousand Islands became one of Canada's great treasures.”
“Mr. Speaker, in celebration of Seniors Month, I was pleased to join with MPP Steve Clark to host our first annual Seniors Expo. This week at New Hope Church in Brockville, in partnership with Senior Support Services Lanark, Leeds & Grenville, we welcomed more than 160 seniors and dozens of exhibitors.”
“It was a wonderful way to bring our community together, share helpful resources that support seniors and their families, and recognize the incredible contributions of our seniors. I want to take this opportunity to thank the men and women who built our country and built our community. Happy Seniors Month.”
“The question is whether taxpayers got good value for money in this $200‑million deal over 10 years, and we need to be clear about that. It is not about sovereign launch capability.”
“Number three, what did taxpayers receive for the first year, given that Maritime Launch says the agreement is retroactive to April 1, 2025? It is being paid $20 million per year, and the first payment of $20 million was due before March 31, 2026.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is the question that my hon. colleague has raised. This is what we have asked the government to demonstrate, and we are opposing the $20 million for this year's use because it has failed to do that. It is not about the aspiration. It is about the execution. What is the value for money that taxpayers are getting here?”
The complete record
Every one of 258 lines we hold for Michael Barrett, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 2 of 6.
“Mr. Speaker, as we celebrate National Volunteer Week, I want to thank the remarkable people who are the heart of Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes: our volunteers. These are people like Chief Fire Prevention Officer Brent Norton, with 45 years of service, and Captain John Houston, with 30 years of service, both as firefighters with the Prescott Fire Department; North Grenville's volunteer of the year, Victor Desroches; Wendy Galloway, who received a lifetime volunteer achievement award from the Brockville Chamber of Commerce; and Tye Carswell of the Gananoque Minor Hockey Association.”
“What we have seen at the ethics committee is Liberal MPs filibustering for 17 hours to block the minister from testifying and from answering questions from Conservative members of Parliament. Will the Liberals end their 17-hour filibuster and allow the finance minister to finally testify on this potential conflict of interest?”
“Mr. Speaker, it was the Liberal finance minister who said that he may be in a conflict of interest if he cast a vote or was involved in any discussions or decisions around the $90-billion Alto project, because of his relationship. He has a partner who is a vice president at Alto. However, we have since seen that the minister has done those very things. He did vote on and participate in discussions around the $90-billion Alto project, even saying at a Senate committee that he was delivering the goods with this project. Canadians expect to have confidence in their public institutions and in their elected representatives, but they cannot when they see this risk of a conflict of interest before them.”
“Mr. Speaker, I hope the minister would take a minute to reflect on what I said and consider the role he played in bringing forward the failed legislation in Bill C-2 before this House. If it were not for Conservatives, who sharpened their pencils and actually turned the pages, we would be facing laws that infringed on the rights of Canadians, and he would be the author of that. If the minister wants to talk about substance, why is this bill devoid of substance on areas that are going to be prescribed in regulation instead of being debated in the House, examined and enshrined in law? What is it that needs to be done in the back rooms? Is it the same kind of thing, the same kind of thinking that led to the bill that was Bill C-2 , that was such a failure—”
“We are going to see, over the next couple of weeks, the government looking to undo what it agreed to for the duration of Parliament, and that is the composition of our committees. I want to take my last minute to implore all members, members in the governing party especially, to consider that we are better collectively when we are able to improve on that legislation through a truly collaborative process, and not just simply by majority rule or by diminishing or eliminating the rights of the minority. We need to protect the rights of Canadians. I look forward to the study of the bill at committee, so that we can do that, especially at this time, as we have seen, over the last 11 years, the scourge of crime in our streets.”
“Protecting Canadians also means protecting their rights. We also need to be protected from government overreach. We all have a duty to do that. I am pleased that we are examining the bill in its latest form. It sounds like it will have support to advance to committee, including from the opposition who helped to sharpen the iron. What we want to see, at all times here, is that Canadians have in Parliament a mechanism to make things better, where there is a check against it. The balance in the chamber has changed in the last week, with a majority of members now on the government side. If we had been in that situation many months ago, the bill would have passed unchanged. The government clearly believes this to be an improvement. I started by talking about how government looks to grab power with both hands.”
“We could have addressed this many months ago in the way that we are addressing it now, with the bill brought before the House, made better by the opposition who look to, with all parliamentarians, discuss, review, hear from experts, stakeholders and Canadians, and make further improvements and amendments to the bill when it is at committee What will the scope of those amendments be? I do not sit on the committee where it will be reviewed. If I have the opportunity to take part in those hearings, I do have some areas that I would look to examine, including questions that are not answered in the legislative text but would be resolved by regulation. We need to get certainty around what that would look like because that is outside the purview of Parliament. We want to have certainty on a number of things.”
“(1320) Allowing individuals other than peace officers, without a warrant, to open Canadians' mail was another, as well as having warrantless access to medical records and private electronic communication. Again, the government did not demonstrate necessity. It did not say that it was born out of a national security imperative or say that the tools we had did not sufficiently solve the problem for which they prescribed this solution. We are looking to get the result that, of course, is going to help with the scourge of crime in our streets. I know that speakers before me have gone through the truly alarming crime statistics. I know that some have offered anecdotes and that some have offered testimony of very real and painful situations for victims of crime.”
“In Bill C-2 , we saw, in response to what has been a growing crime problem in our country over the last decade, a solution to problems that we did not have and an effort to suspend the legal rights of Canadians for convenience, I suppose. It would be for the government to justify why it would have needed some of those powers, and it was not able to make the case publicly or in this place, so Bill C-2 did not proceed. Bill C-12 , also known as the Bill C-2 redo, made it through the House and now we have Bill C-22 . These are bills born out of that one piece of legislation. Why did we oppose it? There were provisions on things that the government, as I said, failed to make its case on. Limiting Canadians' ability to use cash in transactions was one of them.”
“The government sought the approval of the House to have the ability to spend without any accountability from this place for a period of time that was without precedence and without limit on the types of things they would spend hundreds of billions of dollars on. It was a late hour when it was proposed and there was minimal manning in the chamber. There was only a small cadre of government and opposition members from all parties present, and we had to make decisions quickly. The government had the benefit of the full apparatus, including hundreds of thousands of public servants, but the official opposition, without that advantage to give fulsome review to the proposal by the government, pushed back and was able to place limits on the power that the government was looking to grab, which it did not need. This is an example similar to that.”
“When Liberals are given the opportunity, they will try to grab as much power as they can with both hands, and they usually do it in times when Canadians need help the most and we are looking, as parliamentarians, to try and find ways to help them, to help Parliament work and to help Canadians. What we saw with the evolution of the legislative process that led us to Bill C-22 is only the most recent example of that, but it will not be the last. There have been some signals about what is to come. If we look back, even at the COVID pandemic, we saw in the House so much uncertainty and so much anxiety about what was going to happen and what the government would need to do. Perhaps there would be runs on banks.”
“Mr. Speaker, when we have the opportunity to discuss, debate and advance legislation that is going to address the real challenges facing Canadians, it is important that we do so in a fulsome way. This system that we have, our Westminster parliamentary democracy, gives us all specific roles to play. The government advances government legislation and the official opposition has a duty to test what the government puts before the House before it comes into force. This bill is an example of why it is so important that we have an official opposition in our system. It demonstrates the effectiveness of Canada's Conservatives in holding the Liberal government to account for over 11 years. We have seen a history that has not changed since the last election, or with the selection and then election of a new Liberal Prime Minister .”
“Mr. Speaker, the minister said, “We're going to...move that train as fast as we can”, and he said the quiet part out loud. The Liberal government is going to breeze right past the very real concerns of families, farmers, small businesses and people who just want to live the way that they thought they could in eastern Ontario, but instead we are seeing a project that is going to devastate the environment in areas like the Frontenac Arch Biosphere and UNESCO-recognized world heritage sites. Why are these Liberals disregarding the rights of Canadians for a vanity project? They should do the right thing and cancel the $90 billion.”
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the transport minister said that anyone who speaks out against the land expropriation, environmental devastation or sham consultation in its $90-billion Alto project should be ashamed. I will tell this House that I am proud to stand with people like Dave Brown, his wife Carole, the Brown's Marina and the people of Chaffey's Lock, Rideau Lakes and Eastern Ontario who are rightly fearful for their family homes, their farms, their businesses and their way of life. The Liberals have an opportunity to do the right thing and to cancel a project that's going to devastate communities as well as families, just like Dave and Carole.”
“Mr. Speaker, what Canadians would like is for the Liberals to get out of the way of accountability that Canadians expect to be brought to bear against a government, against a minister who said he would be in a conflict of interest because his partner is a vice-president at Alto if he voted on this project, if he debated it, if he discussed it, if he decided on it in cabinet. This is why we are asking for the minister to come to committee. It is a conflict of interest dealing with $90 billion. Why is it that these Liberals are doing everything they can to block accountability with their filibuster? When will the minister come to committee?”
“Mr. Speaker, the problem for the Liberals is that even their Liberal candidates in the area know this is so unpopular that they are speaking out against this boondoggle. Canadians want accountability from the Liberals. It is $90 billion. The minister is refusing to come to committee, and there is this Liberal filibuster that persists. My question is to the chair of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Can he tell the House why the minister has not been scheduled to appear to testify on this conflict of interest scandal?”
“Mr. Speaker, the law is clear that ministers must not use their position to further the personal interests of their family members, but the finance minister is championing the multi-billion-dollar Alto project where his partner is a vice-president. It was the finance minister who told the Prime Minister that he was concerned about a conflict of interest because of that relationship and said that he needed to recuse himself, and Canadians agree. The problem is, that is not what he did. Now the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics wants to review the matter and have the minister come to clear the air. Instead, we have a Liberal filibuster. Will the minister end the filibuster and come to committee?”
“Mr. Speaker, the government House leader is disagreeing with his finance minister here, and this is the confusion that is created for Canadians. The finance minister said that he needed to recuse himself from the discussions. He said he needed to put in place a conflict of interest screen, but then went ahead and participated in discussions and debates, and even said at a Senate committee that he was “delivering the goods” for Canadians. If he has recused himself, why is he also voting on this issue in the House? Canadians have concerns about how this $90 billion is being spent. They are concerned about this conflict of interest. Why will the finance minister not speak for himself, get on his feet and say he will come to committee and address it?”
“Mr. Speaker, at least 90 billion taxpayer dollars are at stake in the Alto high-speed rail project, and Canadians deserve to know that personal relationships are not influencing government decisions. The finance minister recognized the risk of a conflict of interest with his partner serving as a vice-president at Alto. The law says that he cannot be part of decisions, discussions, debates or votes when it comes to Alto. Canadians deserve to have confidence in their public institutions and in all elected officials, and especially when $90 billion is at stake. As such, will the minister come before committee and address this conflict of interest?”
“Mr. Speaker, I am presenting a petition from Canadians and residents of eastern Ontario who are concerned about the LaSalle Causeway's Bascule Bridge. This bridge was damaged during work in the spring of 2024, and a modular bridge was installed to allow vehicles and pedestrians to cross. There is now a schedule in place for when the bridge is added and then is removed, at a great cost to taxpayers and with great disruption to tourism in the region and to the travelling public in the community of Kingston and the surrounding areas, including my riding. Concerned Canadians are calling on the government to commit to having a final replacement bridge operational for May 2027. I think we would find agreement from members on all sides of the House.”
“Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague is from the beautiful city of Edmonton, which I am proud to have called home when I served in the Canadian Forces. I want to draw him back to the PBO's estimates on this program: that it would add 26,000 homes, 5,000 homes per year. That is certainly a long way from what the government is promising. What we need is a reduction in taxes, a reduction in regulations and working with the municipalities so they create the conditions and so we can get housing densification and more houses built, and address this problem without a new, expensive Liberal bureaucracy.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada provides all kinds of money to municipalities, to towns and cities. We can help to incentivize, in every province and territory, new home construction by increasing or bonusing municipalities when they make regulatory changes that accelerate the construction of homes. Whether it is building fourplexes or making sure that there is housing densification near transit projects, these are criteria that the government should set. It can continue or even increase the funding as long as we see measurable outcomes, which is what all federal funding should be tied to, because that is what Canadians expect. There needs to be more housing faster, and municipalities, cities and towns can be a real player in that right across the country.”
“Mr. Speaker, Habitat for Humanity is a real lifeline. It is a program that, frankly, provides dignity to folks. I think that the creation of conditions where we can allow people to continue to live with dignity or to find it for the first time is an area where we can collaborate. These not-for-profits are experts in being able to deliver these types of solutions, and partnering with them and working with them is one area where we can find common ground to stomp on. Those are good investments for us to make.”
“Let us find ways we can work together to help Canadians without the creation of another bureaucracy, which will only drive up inflation through higher taxes but will not do anything to meaningfully address the housing crisis we find ourselves in here in Canada.”
“What are we doing to encourage people to enter our building trades? We have had this housing shortage for years, and we have seen the supply challenge for years. However, we have also seen the creation of new housing bureaucracies over that same period of time, and the problem has not been solved. We agree there is a problem, but where we disagree is on the expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars for the creation of a new bureaucracy. We can agree on investment in the areas where it matters most. Cutting taxes and removing the GST for first-time homebuyers will get the job done.”
“I had the privilege to serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, and I was a tradesman. I was a telecommunications lineman, so I got to work with all kinds of construction trades. It was a tremendous opportunity for me. I got to work with the greatest Canadians I have ever encountered. My experience in meeting with the building trades in my community is that the hard-working men and women who build stuff, who fix stuff, are the folks who make it is easy to see the investment bring a great return. If we want to find ways for all levels of government to work together, we need to be partnering with them, investing in our skilled trades, recognizing their credentials uniformly across the country and giving them fair tax treatment, as fair or fairer than CEOs who are able to write off their travel.”
“No, no government program is, but when we are comparing investment where it is needed, $850,000 is going to help dozens of the most vulnerable people every year in one community. Let us take that in terms of the value for investment against, and I keep looking down to make sure I get the number right from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, $219 million in operating costs alone for this latest bureaucracy. We agree on what the problem is. We agree on some of the ways to solve it, but where we disagree is the expenditure on another bureaucracy. This is one of those things. How quickly we can build homes in this country can also be addressed by expanding skilled trades participation and continuing to unlock private investment so builders can deliver homes faster and at greater scale.”
“(1020) The Pathways supportive housing project in Brockville, which is being administered at that site by the John Howard Society, is a great example of funding that can come from government. It is $850,000 to operate that program, and it is going to change the lives of dozens of people every year by getting them off the street, getting them off drugs and helping them to get jobs, to get into market housing and to reunite with their families. This is incredible. This is the way. The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness administered these funds. This comes from a government program. It comes from the homelessness reduction innovation fund. Are the parameters of this program perfect?”
“A good example of that is in my community, where I advocated for supportive housing. There was a municipal building that was a former administration building for the water pollution control plant. Along with my provincial counterpart, MPP Steve Clark, we encouraged the local government to free that up for supportive housing, which it did in partnership with the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville. They pursued a service provider and project funding that would house the homeless and help to treat those suffering from addiction, giving them the tools to get well, to get off drugs if they were suffering from addiction, giving them skills for employment and helping them find market housing and a job. Once they graduated through, a new space would be opened up for someone else.”
“Private developers are not going to be the ones to solely fill this need, but supportive housing, indigenous housing and housing for people experiencing homelessness need to be addressed, and need to be addressed urgently. However, this federal bureaucracy, and that number again is $219 million in operating costs that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said it would cost, would take money away from the approaches that work and that we advocate for. We come at this from a point of agreeing with the government that there is a housing crisis, a homelessness crisis and an addictions crisis, but there is not a crisis in the creation of too few bureaucracies by the government. What happens when government provides funding to the people who need it without creating a new bureaucracy?”
“The government promised 500,000 homes per year, but it is not fixing the real barriers, which is why we are going to continue to see a decline or insufficient growth in housing starts. There are a few different ways we would propose, as Conservatives, to address this. For market housing, we obviously have a supply-side challenge, and we need to unlock that. The private sector is going to be the biggest driver in building homes. We need to recognize that and do what government should be doing, which is getting out of the way and reducing the burdens. Removing taxes, such as the GST on new homes, and tying federal infrastructure funding to municipalities to permit more housing are part of an approach that would absolutely lead to faster project approvals and easing prices for homebuyers. We also need non-market housing.”
“Mr. Speaker, Canada is in a housing crisis. This does not come as a surprise to anyone in this place, and it certainly does not come as a surprise to Canadians who are looking for a home or a place to live, be it a first-time home purchase or simply shelter. We can agree that there is a crisis, but how do we solve it? The government has made some proposals and has some ideas on how best to address it. The Build Canada Homes act would, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, cost about $219 million in operating costs. That would be the administrative price of this bureaucracy. This is not the Liberal government's first iteration of a housing bureaucracy, but it is its latest one. Housing starts are projected to fall sharply.”
“Mr. Speaker, members will have to excuse me if I do not take the Liberals' word for it. They call themselves a new government, but they are the same Liberals who 10 times have been found to have broken Canada's ethics laws. They always deny it, and they always defend the indefensible. What we are talking about here is hundreds of millions of dollars going to a sweetheart deal for well-connected Liberal insiders. The solution is very simple. Instead of just saying, “Trust us”, the Liberals can do the right thing and release to Canadians all the information about the decision that led them to give this sweetheart deal to well-connected Liberal insiders.”
“Mr. Speaker, Canadians have recently learned that the Liberal government provided a $206-million loan below market rate and nearly $150 million in subsidies to a wind farm in Nova Scotia linked closely to former Liberal MPs. Meanwhile, a similar project secured $240 million in private sector funding at no cost to the taxpayer. The difference between the two, of course, is the closeness to the Liberal government. Why did the Liberals provide this sweetheart deal to their well-connected friends at the expense of Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives have consistently demonstrated a willingness to work with the government to get results for Canadians in the face of these unjustified tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump. Look at the constructive amendments to the budget bill that were adopted and our support for efforts to relieve taxes on Canadians in this challenging time. Our proposal for an all-party CUSMA working group to get a tariff-free auto pact and to create a strategic critical mineral reserve would help us to negotiate from a position of strength, so will the government accept our offer to work together to get the best results in the interests of all Canadians?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Canadian economy is suffering the effects of unjustified tariffs from the Trump administration in the U.S. The Conservatives propose creating a strategic critical mineral reserve as well as an all-party CUSMA working group to address these challenges and to create a tariff-free auto pact. This would restore our leverage and support Canadian manufacturing. Will the government work with us to ensure that Canada can negotiate trade deals that benefit our workers and our economy?”
“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the hon. member for Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga because I know that her community is rightly concerned as well. The hon. member has also expressed her concerns about and opposition to this project because of the effects that it is going to have on private properties, farms, small businesses, homes, heritage sites and the environment, with no benefit to those in the community, and at great cost. I appreciate that we have that opportunity, but it is such an important role we play in His Majesty's loyal opposition to be able to offer the alternative view, and to be able to stand up for our constituents and for Canadians. I applaud her for her work in doing that.”
“Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of concerns about this bill. [ English ] The expropriations that we are talking about are going to affect many people. This is something that I specifically asked in this case: Would they guarantee that people would continue to be able to travel in the same way? Being able to get a car over top of an overpass is one thing, but what about combines, large farming equipment, tractor-trailers and 18-wheelers? The consultation process is not being done in earnest. I cannot believe that at a time when we need to protect our food sovereignty, this kind of disrespect would be shown to agricultural producers and farmers in this country. We cannot abide it.”
“Mr. Speaker, the corridor that is being proposed to be serviced has a well-established highway, the 401. We also, in that same corridor, have Via Rail service. We are not talking about enhancing the service that exists and taking cars off the road that way. Via Rail continues to reduce service offerings. Instead, what is being proposed is not, as the member offers, a service to folks in my community. It is quite the opposite. It is a disservice to them at their own expense. I cannot abide it. This is not about not in my backyard. I do not think it should be in anyone's backyard.”
“I think about people who work tirelessly just to afford the dream of home ownership or to be able to have a roof over their head, to farm the land, to feed our country. I am opposed to Alto HSR, and I am going to vote against it. It is for my community. It is for this generation. It is for the next. It is for Canada.”
“We have areas that are looking for very specific transit projects that would help people in dense urban areas. They are looking for projects like this in corridors that exist. That is not what we are seeing here. What we are seeing is a proposal that would violate the rights of many thousands of Canadians, and they are not even being asked what they think about it. When a Crown corporation is prepared to expropriate properties in a community but is not prepared to go to the community first to meet people where they live, that is not something that is being done with the best interest of Canadians in mind. I do not have a property that is in the corridor, but I represent a community that has many who do. When I think about my kids, I think about their kids.”
“I think about what that would mean for me, if I look at my children Luke, Ama, Michaela, James and Nathan. Amanda and I are so proud of them. Watching them grow up is our dream. For someone to be told that their property is going to be taken away from them, and that they are going to be told what it is worth, so they can take it or leave it, but not to worry because it is for a really important project for infrastructure that they will never use and cannot afford to pay for, that is not the kind of thing that brings Canadians together. We have so much work to do in Canada. We have so much work to do to build projects that would unite us. We are a country rich in natural resources, but we do not have the infrastructure to get them to tidewater.”
“They will find out about the consultation after the consultation period is closed. I have sent postcards to every business and residence in my riding, asking people to participate, soliciting their feedback, so I can provide it to the minister and Alto. They can fill out that survey at michaelbarrettmp.ca, my parliamentary website. It is important that folks are able to provide their feedback about something that is going to affect them very deeply. This is about properties, businesses and homes that have been in a family for generations. I think about the folks who have reached out to me about their grandchildren, about the next generation they hope will take on their farm with intergenerational farm transfers. They are hoping to have their business go to their children or have their grandkids play in the yard.”
“We are talking about a $90-billion project, and in my community, that means thousands of dollars in cost per household for a train service with fares that many would never be able to afford, and they have not even been estimated yet. They cannot afford the prices on Via Rail currently. It is expected, and all but assured, that the prices on Alto will be higher. With all of that, one would expect that there would have been a consultation in our community. They told us to drive to another county, to drive to another district, and that they would be happy to provide us with the pitch there. That is what they have been told. That is not a dialogue. The people who have reached out to me own seasonal properties, some of whom will not have returned to their seasonal properties yet this year.”
“I have heard from hundreds of people within the proposed corridor who have said they are not going to sell. That means that there are going to be expropriations. We heard from the minister at committee this week that those properties will be acquired this year. With a project of this scale, which is supposed to bring Canadians together, and with all of the impacts that I have mentioned very quickly, knowing there are many more, we would expect there to be consultations in the communities it would be passing through. Did I mention that there will be no stop in my community? This is going to pass through. There is going to be no service to the region, and it is going to cost $90 billion. (1725) That is the estimate from Alto and the government, but there are many experts who are saying it will cost many orders of magnitude more than that.”
“I have not only heard feedback from my community but also spoken with the proponent, Alto, this Crown corporation, and asked if there will be overpasses at every road it intersects with. The answer was no, so this is a problem. This is going to orphan all kinds of properties and roads and create tremendous challenges with emergency response times, which are already challenging in rural areas. It is also going to pass through the Frontenac Arch Biosphere. This is a UNESCO-recognized biosphere. The people who live in the community know the many different types of rare flora and fauna that exist in the region and in the Frontenac Arch Biosphere. Heritage sites, buildings and monuments older than our country itself, including the Rideau Canal, would be disturbed, upset and destroyed by this project. Let us think about individual properties.”
“It would pass through my region, and it is proposed to pass through my community. The overwhelming feedback that I have received is that it is going to have a detrimental effect for many people in homes, on farms and on recreational properties; for small businesses; for the environment; and for historic sites. I want to get into a couple of those things. This high-speed rail project will have a train that is going to be travelling at a few hundred kilometres per hour. There will be no at-grade or level crossings, which means that, wherever a road intersects with the path of this train, it will require a vehicle overpass. This corridor, which would be up to 200 feet wide, is going to cut through the communities it is proposed to pass through, with large fences on either side, severing roads.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to the budget implementation act with the fresh feedback and concerns of my constituents in mind. The riding I represent is made up of many different communities, but they are united by a lot of things, as are many Canadians. We did not get feedback just on election day. Members are in their communities, connecting with their neighbours and residents, getting feedback all the time. There is one item, in particular, that is contained in the budget implementation act, the BIA, that has caused me to receive more feedback than any other single issue in my seven years as a parliamentarian, and that is the Alto high-speed rail project. Alto is a Crown corporation that proposes to run a high-speed train from Toronto to Quebec City, with stops in Peterborough, Ottawa and Montreal.”
“The House has since passed Bill C-12 at third reading, in another example of the wonderful collaboration that is found in this place, and it is working its way through the procedures of the other place. Because the two bills are substantively similar, the same question rule precludes the House from voting on the same matter twice, and therefore, Bill C-2 must be placed in abeyance while Bill C-12 remains before Parliament. If Bill C-12 receives royal assent, Bill C-2 then must be discharged and dropped from the Order Paper. I note that all of the records were from nearly the last 100 years, again a departure from my usual practice in raising the precedents that guide the decisions of the Chair.”
“Thus I have come to the conclusion that this bill must stand, as well as the other bill in the same terms, or at least in terms for exactly the same purpose, until the bill which was first moved has been disposed of either by being withdrawn, which would open the door for one of these other bills to proceed, or by way of being approved, which would automatically dispose of these bills because the House would not vote twice on the same subject matter any more than it would debate the same subject matter twice. To sum up one of my most brief points of order ever, 69% of the content of Bill C-2 is replicated in Bill C-12 , making the two bills substantively similar.”