Eric Duncan
Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, that was not even close to an answer. New documents reveal that the Prime Minister has spent $1 million on inflight catering since taking office last year. That is enough money to feed a Canadian family for 55 years. Let us look at the list: luxury butter cups, crème brûlée, Scottish salmon and smoked Gouda.”
“That is showing that despite the speeches, the photo ops and the good intentions that are always mentioned by the Liberals, we are seeing that their plan is failing to resonate when it comes to economic growth and creating jobs. We have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost so far in 2026.”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Lethbridge has an insightful question, and I thank her for the opportunity to reflect. Today, I am thinking, as we look at the struggles, that the data confirms that Canada is the only G7 country going into a recession. Canada is officially in a recession under the Liberal government.”
“This infusion of $20 million saw its key investors suddenly cash out with millions of dollars, and we have a gravel pad with a concrete pad on top of it that is costing $20 million per year. The lease of that land, just for the record, was about $15,000 per year. Where is the other $19.99 million a year going?”
“Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry to add my contributions and views based on what I am hearing in my community, the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry, as well as Cornwall and Akwesasne, and bring that to the floor of the House to make sure their voices are…”
“Here we are, seeing that it can take, in cases of getting a mine built, upwards of 25 years to get a mine permitted and built in this country. At the same time, we are seeing the idea or possibility of a pipeline out to the west coast, but we do not know a proponent, a start date, a route or the details.”
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“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the backgrounder on that. It is important that when we go to the procedure and House affairs committee after second reading, as the legislation I believe will advance through the House to that process, that we look at that, because there is always this balance, as my colleague alluded to. There are several changes in the bill to protect the home addresses of returning officers, for example, in the Canada Gazette, as well as making sure there is privacy and security when it comes to safely going through, maybe it is for a fundraiser, a political process to do all of that. I will let my colleagues on the procedure and House affairs committee listen to some of the witness testimony that may come forward on that.”
“I will wrap up my comments just by saying it is important that we see this legislation advance to committee for further study and debate. I look forward to hearing those contributions from my colleagues on this legislation and others. I think it is vitally important that we get our Canada Elections Act right so Canadians can have full confidence in our electoral system.”
“I am glad to see that the Liberals have agreed with our call and have included in this proposed legislation that one person can only sign the nomination papers for one candidate in that riding. A person can only serve as official agent for one campaign. These changes would be put in to ensure that candidates on ballots are serious candidates, and are not just doing it for some form of political protest, causing a ballot to be cancelled and the name needing to be written in, or creating a ballot that is four feet long, as we saw in the last election. This not what Canadians want. They do not want a joke made of the democratic process. They want it to be respected. This specific change to ballot integrity, I believe, will go a long way.”
“We saw it in the Battle River—Crowfoot by-election. We just saw it in the by-election in Terrebonne. These were attempts by a small group pretending to protest. These were not protests. They were an abuse of the democratic tools that we have in this country. The longest ballot committee would get people to go in, the same 100 people, to sign 100 people's nomination papers, and one person would serve as a financial agent for every single one of those people. All of a sudden, we would have a ballot that was three, four or five feet long with 100 candidates on it. This was an absolute disrespect of our democratic process. It was not a protest. It was done to cause chaos and confusion and disenfranchise voters from the process. We have an amendment now.”
“On foreign interference, here is an interesting thing we talked about. To combat foreign interference, third parties were banned from using foreign contributions for regulated activities, but they were not banned from making those contributions. Leadership contests had no foreign funding restrictions. In the legislation we have before us, foreign entities would now be banned from contributing to third parties at all. Foreign funding would be banned from leadership contests, and foreign corporate activity would be more broadly captured, regardless of where it occurred. The most important piece of this proposed legislation is the attempts made to address the longest ballot committee's nefarious efforts to cause chaos and confusion in our ballots and in our democratic process. We saw this in the riding of Carleton in the last election.”
“All three would be prohibited as contribution methods, closing anonymous and hard-to-trace funding channels. There would be changes to personal information disclosures. One of the things I did not know, until the suggestion came up to change it, was that returning officers' full home addresses were published in the Canada Gazette. Preliminary voters lists were distributed broadly to any party that requested them. Now, the listed address for the returning officer would be limited to the municipality and province. Voters lists would be restricted to qualifying parties only, namely those with House representation, those with prior candidates running again or those that had candidates in two-thirds of ridings in the last election. This is to make sure that data and that information would be protected as much as possible.”
“For example, there are new offences that would be added to this legislation. Before, there were no specific offences in the Canada Elections Act for intentionally spreading false election information, tampering with election computer systems, or using AI and deepfakes to impersonate. Now all three of those would be criminal offences. We have also added an extraterritorial application, so offences committed outside Canada would be captured and charges could be pursued in the event of nefarious actions by players outside Canada. Anonymous contributions would be banned. Before, cryptocurrency, money orders and prepaid payment products were permissible methods to make a donation to political entities or third parties. This loophole has now been closed.”
“In the midst of a variety of changes the government was proposing in its coalition with the NDP, the Liberals were caught blatantly trying to benefit themselves by pushing the election day back a couple of weeks. For those who might lose out on having their pension vested by a couple of days, they moved it back. It was a very selfish move on their part, one that rightfully did not resonate with Canadians very well. That bill, thankfully, did not advance. It died on the Order Paper when the last election was called. It was not a serious attempt by the Liberals and, at that time, their coalition partners, the New Democrats, to meaningfully, respectfully and with integrity make the various amendments and additions to the Canada Elections Act that are needed. (1655) There are several provisions in here that we can get behind.”
“Again, I am not opposed to increasing it in the future, but it certainly warrants more conversation. I am glad to see, as we debate the legislation before us, that it is not included at this time. In this piece of legislation to amend the Canada Elections Act, there are various amendments and additions that would modernize several aspects. As mentioned, several of my Conservative colleagues here today are in support of this bill moving to the PROC committee for further study and to continue discussions on this. I will say, frankly, that Bill C-25 is a big improvement to changes to the Canada Elections Act compared with the last attempt, in Bill C-65 . Members may not remember from the last Parliament what Bill C-65 was by its number. It was the NDP-Liberal pension protection act.”
“We may feel it is great that we have added x number of days, but at the end of the day, what happens, particularly in rural communities, in my experience, is that driving to a local venue can take 10 or 15 minutes, but when one in a rural community is not available and people have to drive another 15 or 20 minutes, that starts to disenfranchise voters from casting a ballot. We can say we mean well by adding more days, but all of a sudden, certain venues are not available, and we are actually making it more difficult for people to vote because Elections Canada cannot recruit enough staff, as I mentioned, or the closest regular voting locations may be not be available because of the increased period. I apologize for the technicality on this issue, but I wanted to put that in Hansard and note my concern.”
“To have them give up four or six straight days, we would run into the ability to recruit effectively the number of staff, the tens of thousands of Canadians, who are needed to step forward to work for Elections Canada in these roles. That can be an unintended consequence. The second thing, which can be difficult as well, and why I am glad changes to advance polls have not been made at this time, is the ability to secure venues. In those longer ranges of time, there may be other bookings at those church halls, community halls, schools, wherever the locations may be.”
“One is the ability to recruit workers. If we were to go from three or four days to six days of advance polls, we would have to have that same team working up to 10 hours a day. It is not just the hours that the polls are open. They need to report half an hour to an hour before. They are often there 15 minutes to half an hour after shutting down the location, driving back home, getting up the next morning and driving back to their polling location. I talked about rural and remote ridings, and some of those are very difficult to access and find workers for. To find somebody who is willing to give up three straight days for an advance poll is one thing.”
“(1650) Why am I mentioning something that is not in the bill? Frankly, I am glad that it is not. Sometimes something looks good on paper, related to improving the democratic process, but there is an old saying that it does not matter how flat one makes a pancake; there are still two sides to it. There has been a push to increase the number of advance polling days, for example, when electors can cast their ballots in advance of election day. While on paper it sounds good to add a day or two or three to give Canadians more days to do it, it would come with logistical challenges that I have raised before at committee and will continue to raise. I am not saying I am completely opposed to any increase, do not get me wrong, but we have to make sure we hear from Elections Canada staff about the ability to do two things.”
“The returning offices, the staff, the training, the distribution of ballots, all of these issues continue to come up, and we need to work on that to make sure that Elections Canada can give that feedback to the procedure and House affairs committee, give it back to us as parliamentarians, about the important work they do and what we need to do. I just want to make a note as we talk about this legislation. I want to put this on the record, and, again, this is getting a bit nerdy in my personal passion. It is about what is not in this legislation, which has been proposed in previous attempts by the government and has been discussed as we look at ways of improving the voting process for Canadians. One thing that was not put in this piece of legislation is a change to the advance poll days and the number of hours for advance polls.”
“What is difficult to do, in a country as vast as ours, is to not have the process be too cookie-cutter. We need to have regulation and we need to have structure, but we also need to make sure we understand the difference between ridings. Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry is a rural riding, but not as rural and remote as, for example, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories or Yukon. We then go all the way to, for example, Ottawa Centre or Vancouver Centre. We have some ridings that are a couple of square kilometres, and in some cases a riding is thousands of square kilometres. That is the geography of administering an election.”
“They have to recruit hundreds and hundreds of advance poll and election day workers: not only recruit them, but train them, do the HR for all those processes and make sure they are equipped with the skills needed to have a smooth voting process. They have to take the nominations in for local candidates and go through and vet the signatures for nominations that go through, and then there is the post-election vote validation process. To do all of that in 36 days, which is generally the election period, and to do it times 343 ridings across the country, is quite the job. The geography of our country makes the job even more unique in the need to get it right. I have been interested in this, in my time on the procedure and House affairs committee, when we studied reports of by-elections, general elections and the election process.”
“From those who serve at the local polling station on election day or in an advance poll, to the staff who work at the local returning office in 343 ridings across the country, they have a very difficult and intense job to do. It is intense in the fact that they have to ramp up and conduct an election. Elections can be longer, but most have typically been 36 days. Sometimes, depending on the scenario and the setup, there has been a runway or a ramp-up to let people know to expect an election, but in the business we are in, we could have a snap election called at any time over the course of a mandate, so we have poll workers, staff and returning officers in our communities who could ramp up and do a very intense job in a short period of time. They have to ramp up and get a returning office. They have to staff up that office.”
“On election night, in tens of thousands of polling locations across the country, with tens of thousands of workers, those ballot boxes are opened and advance poll votes are counted by hand on paper, the way it should be at the federal level. This ensures a smooth process, but a lot of work goes into that process, into the experience that the elector has when they walk into a voting location of having a smooth process. There is also the stuff behind the scenes, and the political financing that we have in this country. It is important to get it right and make sure that we have that. We owe a great deal of gratitude to the poll workers who step up in every one of our communities and ridings across the country.”
“There is an internal dynamic to getting this right that we are responsible for in the House, as well as providing the proper resources and legislation to Elections Canada, from its CEO right down to the frontline poll workers. (1645) As Canadians go into the voting booth, we want to make sure that we provide a process and resources that make it as smooth and as easy as possible to vote, so that when a Canadian goes in, there are poll workers there, the ballot process is fair and there is an integrity to the process so that Canadians can have confidence, and they should, at the federal level in Canada. We have a nationalized election system that has paper ballots. They are done the old-fashioned way, the way I like it.”
“Serving as a campaign manager gave me a great opportunity to work with the local returning office and the official agent, or chief financial officer, call it what we will, for the campaign process. Being involved in our electoral district association helped me understand the local aspect of politics and working with volunteers to bring a campaign together. It is absolutely essential we get the legislation right. It is a bill about the Canada Elections Act, a piece of legislation that is now nearly 26 years old. It does need some modernization to keep up with the times. As we talk about ballot integrity, the threat of foreign interference and the roles of new technologies and the challenges those bring in terms of security for our democratic process, it is absolutely vital that we get it right.”
“I have also had the honour of being a candidate on a ballot three times at the federal level, in 2019, 2021 and 2025. With respect to the legislation before us, being a candidate is important. I valued being nominated as a Conservative candidate in Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry. Actually, one of the best experiences I had for understanding our Elections Act and the workings of Elections Canada was serving as a campaign manager, which I had the honour of doing six times. I was campaign manager three times provincially for my good friend and former provincial colleague, Jim McDonnell, who is now happily retired in Williamstown, and I had the honour of serving as campaign manager three times for my predecessor, Guy Lauzon, in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, as it was known at the time.”
“I say I was broken in gently into politics. I ran in three municipal elections, so I am very familiar with that process, having been a candidate in 2006, 2010 and 2014, and also with the important work it takes from the clerks of the municipality. In my case, it was in the Township of North Dundas, which was under the service at the time of the now retired clerk, Jo-Anne McCaslin. I have a real appreciation and respect for the people at the local level. Actually, at the municipal level, believe it or not, there is phone and Internet voting. There are no paper ballots available in the municipality of North Dundas. It has done it through online or telephone voting, which increased participation in municipal elections and was effective in doing that.”
“PROC also deals with the relationship with the Conflict of Interest Act for members to educate themselves on and abide by, the Ethics Commissioner, the lobbying commissioner, of course the administration of this wonderful place that we call the House of Commons, working with the Speaker and with the Board of Internal Economy to make sure that this place functions on a day-to-day basis so we can do what is most important in our jobs: represent our constituents from 343 ridings all across the country. Election legislation and getting it right is also a bit of a personal passion of mine. By way of background, again, I have participated in this myself. I will be 39 years old this year, but I have been in elected office for 20 years, which is kind of hard to believe. I started off at the ripe young age of 18 in my first election.”
“It was a real opportunity to learn a lot about the democratic process. If Bill C-25 is successful at second reading, which I believe it will be, it will be referred to that committee for further study. It is where witnesses would come forward and where certain amendments could be made to further improve the legislation. The PROC committee deals with the Canada Elections Act. I was involved in riding redistribution, which is an important part of our democratic process every 10 years. PROC deals as well with issues of foreign interference, which I will be talking about in my 20 minutes here on the floor today.”
“Mr. Speaker, as always, it is a privilege to rise on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry in eastern Ontario. I am proud each time I have the opportunity to take the floor to share some perspectives on the issues before us here in the House of Commons. Today we are dealing with an important piece of legislation, Bill C-25 . I want to start with a bit of a backgrounder when it comes to amendments to the Canada Elections Act, my personal passion for it and why it is so important to get this right. I have had the pleasure of serving in the House for just a little over six years and have been on one parliamentary committee. I am not on a committee right now, but I served on the PROC committee in a few different iterations in time. It has a longer title: the procedure and House affairs committee.”
“Mr. Speaker, this is an opportunity to remind Canadians that our Conservative plan would provide gas tax relief on all federal gas taxes: the excise tax, the clean fuel standard and the GST, a total of 25¢ a litre of the price of gas for the entire remainder of 2026, not just until Labour Day as the Liberals are offering on just the one part at 10¢ a litre. That would provide a family of four with $1,200 in savings. The line I heard very often when I was growing up and becoming interested in politics, and what makes me a Conservative, is one I loved hearing years ago: Money is better spent by someone who earns it than by somebody who collects it. The money belongs in the pockets of Canadians to help them with real, meaningful relief from prices at the pumps.”
“That is number one. Number two is that when those technologies are not thoroughly thought through, it costs Canadian taxpayers even more.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am always open to new technologies and new ways of doing things. That is how the world evolves and how things have evolved for generations. Here is the problem with the approach of the Bloc Québécois and the Liberals, for which I will give an example. My colleague the member for Regina—Wascana asked a question in question period earlier this week about the electrification of the bus fleet in Regina. The federal government subsidized hundreds of millions of dollars for electric buses in Canada that do not work in the winter. They work for only three hours before they need a charge again. That was an absolute waste of taxpayers' money at a time when the technology is not there. I am all in favour of embracing technology and giving municipalities and businesses the option for them to choose what is best for them.”
“Now they know, and they claim that the consumer carbon tax did do that. It is about time they did the same thing for their fuel standard. It is putting farmers out of pocket big time.”
“Mr. Speaker, we fought for years on the side of Canadian farmers to axe the carbon tax, which the Liberals refused to do for years. It was only after relentless Conservative pressure and the Prime Minister 's realizing his political situation that he decided to do so, only because Conservatives had advocated for that. Here is the thing with Liberals. They say that they have a clean fuel standard of seven cents a litre. It is going up to 17¢ a litre. That includes on the price of diesel, which is used a lot on Canadian farms. They say they all benefit from paying 17¢ a litre more in the coming years, with zero rebates and zero direct benefit to them. We have seen this game before: “Do not worry. Pay this extra tax, but there is no extra cost to the cost of farming or of doing business.” It is just miraculous.”
“That could help families and businesses at a time when they truly need it. We will keep standing up for affordability in this country and will let Canadians know that we are on their side.”
“The cost of government is going up. The cost of Liberal deficits is going up. Inflation is going up. Our food inflation is the highest in the G7. We have the second-slowest growth in the G7. There was actually a drop in GDP in the fourth quarter of last year, and projections are not strong. What Canadians are going to see is a continued effort by the Conservative team to fight for real and meaningful relief. Our opposition day motion is clear that the Liberal plan announced does not go far enough to provide meaningful relief to Canadians. The Liberals could take off the fuel excise tax of 10¢ a litre, which they have done, but they could go further. They could take the GST of eight cents off. They could take the clean fuel standards of seven cents off. They could provide 25¢ a litre in relief. On diesel prices, that total is 21¢ a litre.”
“The Liberals want to provide a third of the relief for a third of the year, compared to what our Conservative position is on this. At the end of the day, it is important for Canadians to know that Conservatives are on their side, fighting for them and fighting for lower costs and lower gas bills in every part of this country. It is important to know that at the end of the day it is constant increases, the Liberal taxes on everything, that are making life more expensive in every part of this country. The Liberals stubbornly refuse to go the full way and provide full, meaningful relief. They are offering only a 10¢ reduction on the price of gasoline, when there was an opportunity to have a 25¢ reduction, taking all the federal taxes off. It is very frustrating to see that costs are going up over and over again.”
“Not only are they keeping that in place over the course of the next few months and going into the future, but it is also going to be increased from the current seven cents a litre to 17¢ a litre by the year 2030. That is something Canadians cannot afford, whether they are seniors, young people or parents driving their kids to hockey or soccer, just going out to get groceries or going back and forth to work. Heaven forbid that Canadians would want to take a family vacation. That seven cents a litre belongs in the pockets of Canadians rather than in the Liberal coffers this year. We have talked about half-baked measures. Meaningful relief is what we are not seeing from the government, which is not taking a serious approach to providing relief. The contrast could not be more clear.”
“The industrial carbon tax is in place, which just went up on April 1, and it is going to drive up the cost of doing business and drive up inflation in this country. Nobody believes that adding in taxes anywhere in the economy does not get passed on in the form of higher costs to consumers who purchase goods and services here at home. It was a half-baked measure to get rid of the consumer carbon tax and keep the industrial carbon tax. Furthermore, it was a half-baked “rob and duplicate” effort, because the Liberals brought in the so-called clean fuel standard. Right now, on the price of gas, it is seven cents a litre. The Liberals are refusing to eliminate it, and it is only going to get worse.”
“We have actually seen the Liberal government do that, but to half-baked measures in extent. We have seen it with the consumer carbon tax, which the Liberals eliminated only after years and years of relentless Conservative pressure to axe the tax. The Liberals knew they were in such a perilous political position that they had to scrap it. This was after years of defending the rebates, years of claiming that the taxes they put on did not amount to any extra cost to people, and saying that they could just add these taxes on at the pumps and that the cost of things would not go up, inflation would not go up, the cost of fuel would not go up and the cost of business would not go up. Instead, what we are seeing now is a half-baked measure.”
“As opposed to taking four cents a litre off, as the Liberals propose, and we take 21¢ a litre off, that would drop the fuel surcharge, drop the cost of trucking and drop the cost of transporting food and goods across this country immediately. It is a meaningful way to lower inflation. When we have serious food inflation, it is a meaningful way to do that. I am proud to take my experience from the trucking industry and say that our Conservative plan would do more to lower costs for Canadians, for food and for getting things moved around our country. (1550) What we see from the Liberals all the time are half-baked measures. I will say this a different way and repeat the old line that I say in politics and in the work that I have done: Sometimes one needs to do a little R and D, rob and duplicate.”
“I want to acknowledge our background in trucking and our history in that industry, something I grew up with around me. When we talk about being able to lower prices for Canadians on the cost of food and moving things around this country, our plan of taking 21¢ a litre, all the federal gas tax, off the price of diesel would make a tangible, more meaningful difference than what the Liberals are offering. The Liberals are offering to take four cents a litre off the price of diesel. That is going to be pennies to the billions that they will collect in extra revenues over the course of the next few months with higher oil prices. In the trucking industry, very often the way rates are determined is on a base rate provided by a trucking company or an owner-operator plus a fuel surcharge, which is the actual price of fuel on those given days.”
“If we completely cut the federal taxes on gasoline and diesel, it could be paid for simply by the extra revenues that are already going to be collected and Canadians paying higher prices as it is. Give Canadians real, meaningful relief at the pumps. Many may know my family history. My father and mother owned a trucking business for many years. My dad just retired from that business a couple of years ago, JED Express, which we have been proud to operate in South Mountain, Ontario, for many years, a few decades. I am very proud that my dad worked his way up and built a business from scratch, all the way into one of Canada's best-managed companies for several years running. My dad is happily retired now, playing pickleball and golf.”
“What Conservatives are calling for, when it comes to gasoline and diesel, is to give the full relief of 25¢ a litre off the price of gasoline and 21¢ a litre off the price of diesel for the remainder of the year, 2026. That can provide a family of four about $1,200 more that they can keep in their pocket this year. Every time they fill up, they would save $20 at the pump. That is real, meaningful relief. There is a key part about this I want to raise. We can afford this because with the higher oil prices out there, the Liberals will be getting a windfall that is expected to be about $10 billion in extra revenue that was not anticipated because of these higher oil prices.”
“What the Liberals announced today is only one portion of relief from now until Labour Day. Our Conservative proposal, in contrast, is to provide real, meaningful relief at the pumps for Canadians, not only removing the federal fuel excise tax of 10¢ a litre. They have done that measure, but what they have not done is take off their latest, what I call, hidden carbon tax. They call it a clean fuel standard, but it is basically their new carbon tax of seven cents a litre in federal tax. They are keeping that in and, of course, the GST portion of that as well, which amounts to about eight cents a litre. We are getting a half-baked measure when it comes to this.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister 's announcement earlier today in providing gas tax relief to Canadians is a half-baked measure. The Liberals, in contrast to our Conservative plan, are offering a third of the relief for a third of the year. This is at a time when we have seen gas and diesel prices spike significantly around the country and around the world. There is a saying that we can only control what we can control. It is very true that in the situation in Iran, with the war that is going on there, there is not much that Canada can contribute to that directly or cause for that, but what we can control is the amount of taxes that Canadians are charged at the pumps. Right now, that is 25¢ a litre on gasoline and 21¢ a litre on diesel in federal taxes.”
“Mr. Speaker, I continue to receive many phone calls, visits to my office and emails from residents in Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry concerned about Bill C-9 and the Liberals' and Bloc's attempts to attack religious freedom and attacks on freedom of expression. Despite the censorship efforts of the government in the course of this past week, in team with the Bloc Québécois, to ram this legislation through, the irony is that they are censoring their own censorship bill by ramming it through. I wish to add the names of dozens of petitioners in my community who are speaking out against this. Whether they be Christian, Muslim or of other faiths, they remain concerned about the ability to read their own sacred texts and to be able to practise those teachings in a public or private setting. I stand behind them and firmly oppose Bill C-9 .”
“I thank the leadership and members of the Cornwall Police Service for being transparent about their concerns and for continuing to prioritize the safety of the people they serve. Canadians deserve policies that actually target criminals and strengthen public policy and public safety, not ones that burden local police and responsible firearms owners.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge the decision made by the Cornwall Police Service this week to not participate in the Liberals' firearm confiscation program. Police services are already stretched thin, responding to real threats in our community, such as violent crime and illegal guns that have been smuggled across the border. Cornwall Police Service joined the OPP and the dozens of other services that have rejected this Liberal policy, saying that diverting officers and resources towards taking firearms away from vetted, law-abiding Canadians is not the best use of their time. Our police officers should be focused on stopping criminals and keeping dangerous weapons off our street, not administering a costly $752-million federal program that does little to address the root causes of gun violence.”
“Mr. Speaker, if the past is any indication, we are in for higher costs when it comes to housing and rent, and more red tape and bureaucracy when it comes to the system of trying to improve housing in this country. Actually, my colleague and I both served in municipal politics at quite a young age, and this is one of the things the Liberals have broken their promise on. They could have done it in the budget, but they did not. They could have done it in this piece of legislation, and they have not. It is to address the cost of development charges by municipalities in this country. The Liberals promised during the election, as did the Conservatives, that they would cut in half the cost of development charges. The Liberals are breaking their promise, which is adding tens of thousands of dollars to the cost of housing in many cities.”
“Forgive me if we do not want to give credit to the Liberals, because every time they reintroduce new legislation, their record is one of failure. On this side of the House, we are talking about doing things not legislatively, to add more bureaucracy, but by getting rid of it by taking the GST off all new home builds under $1.3 million. That is a concrete way we could lower housing prices immediately.”
“Mr. Speaker, what I look at is the record of the Liberals over the course of the last 10 or 10 and a half years. They brought in many pieces of major legislation and many strategies to try to make housing more affordable in this country. They had the national housing strategy and the housing accelerator fund, and now they have Bill C-20 , which would add a fourth bureaucracy with Build Canada Homes. What has happened over the course of their record every time they have added a new piece of legislation or come up with a new strategy? The cost of housing in this country has doubled. The cost of rent has doubled. At a time when we need to get more shovels in the ground and build more homes, we are actually seeing that pace slow down.”
“Putting through this amendment, with all the effort that the Liberal and Bloc members are putting into it, is something I am not hearing. We need to protect religious freedom, and I am glad to add my voice and these petitioners' voices to that effort.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise and table a petition on behalf of my constituents. I have had the honour of doing so on behalf of hundreds of constituents already, and today I am adding hundreds more names. The petition is on protecting the religious freedom in Bill C-9 , which is very topical here today as the Liberals and the Bloc attempt to ram through that legislation. Canadians are concerned that the Bloc-Liberal amendments to Bill C-9 could be used to criminalize passages from the Bible, the Quran, the Torah and other sacred texts. The petitioners mention the state has no place in the religious texts or teachings of any faith community. I hear from residents over and over again about all the challenges we face in this country.”