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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“It is a bold plan to take the GST off all new homes in Canada of up to $1.3 million. That is going to save the average Canadian homeowner up to $65,000. Not only that, but they will save money instantly on the purchase of their house up front, and they will save because they will not have to borrow as much. They could save roughly $3,000 a year in mortgage costs, further helping homes become more affordable in every part of this country. The experts who analyzed our plan say that not only is it a good one, but it is going to go even further. It is going to boost the number of new homes built each year, sparking an extra 36,000 new homes built in Canada, and it is going to raise an extra $2.5 billion in income tax revenue from trades workers and home builders at a time when we desperately need all of that.”
“The government has known about this but has not acted. It is blocking our communities from getting our fair share. Not only do we see slow housing starts in Cornwall, but we are seeing an inability for our city and the united counties of S, D and G to apply for help from the Liberal government. It is failure after failure, but there is a solution I want to highlight. Our positive, constructive Conservative solution has gotten excellent feedback from builders that desperately want to get more shovels in the ground. The Liberals have a lot of half-baked measures. They are only taking the GST off of new homes for first-time homebuyers. As we can see by the stats in Cornwall and across the country, we need to unlock more potential. What do we need to do? What Conservatives are proposing we do is a game-changer.”
“Right in my proud part of eastern Ontario, we have a very sad circumstance where, at the end of the day, only 19 building permits for houses and duplexes have been issued since May. It is a serious problem. The Liberals keep announcing billions and billions of dollars. They keep creating new bureaucracies. Their latest one is Build Canada Homes. It is another bureaucracy that is adding administrative paperwork and red tape, not actually cutting it. (1525) Here is a fact about how proud the Liberals pretend to be about their housing programs. Their housing accelerator fund has failed badly in eastern Ontario. With red tape, municipalities like Cornwall, local townships in S, D and G and, more importantly, Cornwall and S, D and G housing services are banned from even being able to apply for funding. It has been years.”
“I want to take this opportunity to bring up, as all politics is local, the local context from Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, where it was just reported at a Cornwall city council meeting in the last month that, according to the deputy CAO, Cornwall today is “at a standstill”. That is the quote it used. In a city of 47,000 people, here is where the housing situation and housing starts stand. Only 12 building permits for houses and seven for duplexes have been issued in the city of Cornwall since May. That goes to show that buyers cannot buy, sellers cannot sell and, most importantly, builders cannot build. There are so many Canadians looking for home ownership and looking for new homes. We desperately need millions of new homes just to keep up with demand for affordability.”
“Every dollar in GST that is collected in the country goes to paying the interest on our debt. If we look at the projections, it is $55.6 billion this year, and it is projected, over the next five years, to go up to $76.1 billion. The Liberals will be adding $320 billion more to our national debt over the course of the next five years. Most Canadians can look at that and say that if we keep adding and adding to our credit card with no plan to pay it off, that is not sustainable. That is exactly what we are seeing here with the Liberal budget. A key part of the budget is homebuilding. We have a real problem in the country with getting homes built and affordable homes built.”
“Again, this has been a pattern we have seen. The Liberals claim to be a new government, but it is absolutely not. This is the same failed approach we have seen for 10 years. Just look at the numbers right in the budget documents themselves. There is the projected amount of money we will spend in this fiscal year on public debt charges. That is just the interest to service our current national debt, which is about $1.4 trillion. The number is getting so high that we are into the trillions now. It costs $55 billion a year just in interest payments to service that debt. That is all the GST collected in the country. It does not go to health care. It does not go to roads. It does not go to housing. It does not go to fixing our broken bureaucracy. It does not go to improving service at the CRA.”
“They are the best at photo ops and the word salad in all of the announcements. They make it sound like all of the things they are doing are actually making a difference in the lives of Canadians. The problem is when the reality comes back to them. What do we see? We see an increased cost of living. We see more difficulty when it comes to affording housing and affording food. Their record is absolutely atrocious. The most frustrating thing when it comes to all of this is their inability to pay for it. This is what I call a costly credit card budget, in the sense that with a massive $80-billion deficit, they are putting a massive amount of new money on Canada's credit card for future generations to pay. It is about printing more money. It is drives up inflation and drives up the cost of living when they do that.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise on behalf of our Conservative team to provide my comments and feedback on the Liberals' 10th budget. The more they do it, the more they get used to doing the same thing: adding inflationary deficits to our national debt and raising the cost of living for families in every part of this country. I have served as a member of Parliament proudly for the last six years. Before that, I served in municipal politics for 12. When I was serving as mayor, as in this role, the one thing I always said is that it is an easy job in politics to tell people what we are going to spend money on; the hard part is telling Canadians how we are going to pay for it. There is one thing the Liberal government does the best out there. I will give the Liberals credit. I will give them one compliment in my 10-minute speech today.”
“Despite being asked multiple times, why will the Prime Minister not confirm that he has no investments in offshore tax havens? What is he trying to hide, and why will he not come clean to Canadians over his latest ethics scandal?”
“Madam Speaker, this week, we learned that the Prime Minister 's company, Brookfield, has been and continues to be one of Canada's largest tax-dodgers. Tax experts revealed that Brookfield avoided paying a stunning $6.5 billion in Canadian taxes over five years through the use of offshore tax havens. While he was the chair of Brookfield, the Prime Minister set up three multi-billion dollar investment accounts in the Caribbean, claiming their headquarters was above a bicycle shop in Bermuda. Nobody believes that. He is shielding profits from Canadian taxes, and those are funds that could line the Prime Minister's pockets through future bonus payments. Canadians pay nearly half of their income in taxes and are rightly angered by seeing the Prime Minister dodging his share by putting his money in offshore tax havens. The question is simple.”
“The issue is the Liberals' inability to follow up and deliver that change. When are they going to not just talk a good game but actually follow through?”
“Mr. Speaker, if the Liberals were truly intent on getting the best value for taxpayers' money, the recent CRA audit would not have a heading of “The value of the telephony service contract has reached $190 million from its minimum work guarantee of $50 million”. That is the heading because IBM was provided an original contract with a value of $50 million over 10 years, and now it is projected that the overall contract value will rise to $214 million through 2027, which is a quadrupling while service standards are dropping. As a matter of fact, the Auditor General says that when it comes to the IBM contract, “Shared Services Canada...should strengthen its contract management and conduct a full review of the...contract and its life cycle to identify lessons learned.” There are constantly lessons being learned by the Auditor General.”
“How many more Auditor General reports is it going to take for them to get what I call their “deliverology” in shape, get CRA in shape and take all these other Auditor General reports, like with respect to the F-35, and get something done properly, on time, on budget and with good customer service? Canadians are not expecting too much from the government but are getting the worst deliveries we have seen in recent years.”
“I wish I could come here tonight and instead congratulate the Liberals and say that service got 70% better. Literally, when we look at it, service actually got about 70% worse, I would say. That is closer to the actual reality. In the second report under the Liberals with respect to the CRA, the call centres and customer service to Canadian taxpayers got astronomically worse. The Liberals had learned nothing except how to make the problem worse. Only 18% of calls met CRA's own service standard. The average wait time doubled. There were invoices paid with little or no validation, which is something we have heard before in the arrive scam investigation. Over 32 million calls were received, but only 10 million people reached an agent. This means that 22 million Canadians were redirected or hung up on. My question for the Liberals is this.”
“The Auditor General came out with a scathing report at that time, talking about service standards and accuracy of information in several ways and giving recommendations as to what the Liberals needed to do to get CRA to give better customer service. It was back in 2017 that the then minister for CRA put out a statement that said: Our clients have a right to receive information that is clear and precise, when they need it. We have made strides to improve our service The statement goes on to say: However, there remains work to be done, and the Auditor General's recommendations will help us make the necessary adjustments. They had a three-point action plan, and they said: Beginning in 2018, our clients will see numerous improvements Fast-forward to today. The budget of CRA under the Liberals, since their time in office, has increased by 70%.”
“It is past the budget time frame and past the budget costs, and we are still lingering months later with an inability to move forward on that file. However, that is not the only report the Auditor General has that the Liberals keep messing up. I want to go back to reference another recent Auditor General's report, and that was on the performance standards of the Canada Revenue Agency call centres. This most recent report was not the first one that was done. The Liberals had their wrists slapped back in only 2017, a few years ago, about several aspects of their service delivery that were failing.”
“Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight to follow up on my question from earlier this year about the Liberals' inability to follow through on Auditor General reports and actually improve service delivery to Canadians. It was just back in June that I asked a question about the F-35, and we found out that the original cost of the F-35 jets was estimated to be $19 billion. However, the Auditor General, after their audit, found that the figure was based on outdated information and that by 2024 the estimated cost had increased to $28 billion, almost a 50% increase. That also did not take into account several other elements needed to achieve full operational capacity, such as essential infrastructure upgrades and advanced weapons, which would cost another $5.5 billion.”
“Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more on just how tone-deaf the Minister of Foreign Affairs was today when we were talking about the importance of the auto sector and supporting auto workers and mill workers right across this country. Her answer was not to worry, because the government was going to give them extra weeks of EI. This is absolutely out of touch. I could not have said it any better than the member did. Workers want a job. They want good pay, good benefits, a good pension, a reasonable home to live in and the ability to afford food to feed their families. It is sad that after 10 years under the Liberals, continuing with the new Prime Minister , it is the same old Liberal Party, and Canadians are struggling over and over again to get basic necessities.”
“There are many examples of waste that have come from the government; if that money were back in the pockets of Canadians, maybe they could afford food.”
“Mr. Speaker, there is a major problem with transparency on the part of this Liberal government when it comes to the country's budget and finances. [ English ] There is a major problem with transparency when it comes to the Liberal government. I can speak longer than the 30 seconds I have to elaborate on that, but I will agree that we are seeing spending on consultants going up significantly. This was after the Prime Minister said that he was going to cap spending at 2%. The first bill he tabled increased spending by 8%, with billions of dollars more on consultants. Now it is $742 million on a gun confiscation program that the Liberals' own Minister of Public Safety said will not be effective.”
“The Prime Minister did not just make any promise; he made the promise that he would get a deal with the United States, and he has broken that promise. He is leading us toward the same disastrous financial record Justin Trudeau had. It is not a new government; it is the same tired Liberal Party.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be Canadian. I am proud to stand up for Canada. What I am ashamed of and what I am criticizing is the Liberal government. That is what we are talking about here. Members will notice that the Liberals are doing everything they possibly can today to talk down their own former prime minister. They do not want us talking about Justin Trudeau anymore. The reality of the situation is that Justin Trudeau may be gone, but the new Prime Minister is making the situation even worse financially, with larger deficits and more spending. Our immigration system is in chaos, and there is no end to the housing crisis. We need to build more houses. We are actually seeing things slow down. There is example after example of these things.”
“The deficits are at least double what Justin Trudeau's deficits were going to be, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Every dollar government spends comes from the pockets of Canadians. It adds to higher taxes, higher food costs, a higher cost of living and higher costs for housing. We are not seeing a good return on investment on the tax dollars the Liberals are spending. As we have in our opposition day motion, every dollar that leaves our country and flees in investment is fewer jobs and lower wages. On this side of the aisle, we are going to stand up for Canadian workers and for Canadian investments for a brighter Canadian future.”
“The Prime Minister's own company, Brookfield, was one of those. It moved its headquarters to New York City, leading by example in completely the wrong way. We need to see some fiscal responsibility from the government after 10 years. We thought Justin Trudeau was expensive. The Prime Minister is making him look like a penny-pincher. An hon. member: Hold my beer. Eric Duncan: Mr. Speaker, hold my beer, as the expression goes, absolutely. We have seen the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer predict the deficits of the new Prime Minister , with the same old Liberal government and same old Liberal team adapting the same old failed approach of endless deficits, never-ending deficits with no plan to balance the budget.”
“Since he became Prime Minister, 86,000 jobs have been lost, including in the city of Cornwall, with Ridgewood Industries closing and 300 jobs gone in our community just in the last couple of months. This is not sustainable, but over and over again, we see the Liberal government repeating the same failed approaches. We are now seeing the Prime Minister going out and openly advocating and creating deals with the United States, with nothing in return, that are going to see $1 trillion in Canadian investment money leave our country and flow down south. The Prime Minister knows that very well, because he did that just before he became Prime Minister, when he was the chair of Brookfield. Brookfield is part of that $500 billion of Canadian money I mentioned that moved to the United States in the last five years.”
“We are going to see a factory either closed in Ontario or, if a brand-new one will be built, it will not be built in Ontario but rather in the state of Michigan or Ohio. With the red tape of regulations, it takes 25 years in many cases to get a permit for a mine in northern Ontario, B.C. or other parts of this country. As opposed to seeing that investment and jobs created in British Columbia, as an example, or northern Ontario, it will be going to West Virginia or Washington. For someone with dollars in Canada, as opposed to opening up a new business in, say, Nova Scotia, they will open up in the state of Maine instead. This will happen at a time when we can least afford it. As the official opposition, we have a responsibility to hold the government to account. The Prime Minister said that he was going to create new jobs in Canada.”
“He has already conceded on countertariffs and the digital services tax, and then he said in his comments in the Oval Office of the White House that he would pledge, as some sort of deal they are working on, $1 trillion of Canadian investment money to go to the United States in the next five years. That is double the rate we have already lost. That is absolutely ridiculous. It is an absolute betrayal of Canadians and Canadian workers. What does that mean? That is $1 trillion the Prime Minister put on the table with nothing in return, except for those dollars being used in the United States. Just imagine if those one trillion Canadian dollars were invested in Canada in the next five years instead, but no.”
“Over the course of the last five years, that number has been half a trillion dollars. Why? It is the lack of good management from the Liberals to create an economic environment through good taxes, good opportunities for jobs, and an atmosphere so that businesses want to bring direct foreign investment from around the world into Canada. We have seen half a billion dollars leave Canada for the United States because that is where they prefer to do business. (1700) As if that rate continuing for the next five years was not bad enough, this week when the Prime Minister visited Washington, there was another major concession with no deal.”
“That is the expected average, with no relief in sight. One of the things we know and have been saying for years, which continues to be shown with higher food inflation, higher housing prices and higher deficits, is that those higher deficits and money printing lead to inflation and lead to that pressure. It is not sustainable, what we have seen for the last number of years under the Liberals, and we are seeing that live in living colour through the sad reality of one food bank in Cornwall alone. A key part of any government in order to be successful, to grow the economy and to have a sustainable future is getting investment in this country. From what we have seen, the numbers speak for themselves. Since the Prime Minister came into office, we have seen $54 billion in investment leave this country for the United States.”
“Between the kitchen and the food bank, the Agapè Centre processed a million pounds of food for those in need, with a value of $3.6 million. It is affected by the increased usage and increased cost of food because that is a 10% increase from the previous year. I want to quote the executive director, Lisa Duprau, who said, “The urgency of the situation cannot be overstated. People are skipping meals, taking on unsustainable debt, and stepping further away from a life of dignity.” That is the record of the Liberal government over the course of the last 10 years. When we look at the last six months with the Prime Minister , the situation is only getting worse. Food inflation is 70% above where the target inflation rate should be, and Canadians are going to be spending an extra $800 on groceries as a family this year.”
“I am happy to do that, but unfortunately, it is not the best of news when it comes to the situation we face in my part of eastern Ontario in the city of Cornwall with the Agapè Centre. The Agapè Centre has Lisa Duprau, her staff and the many volunteers who make the place what it is. It is an incredible organization that runs a food bank, a store and a kitchen and helps thousands of local residents each year. It held its AGM last month, and I wanted to advise the House of some pretty alarming statistics when it comes to affordability and the state of our economy here in Canada, and specifically in the microcosm of Cornwall. There were 40,000 visits made to the Agapè food bank in Cornwall last year. That is a city of 47,000 people. Visits were up 193% in the last four years, and children using the food bank is up 257%.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the good people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry. I am also proud to be sharing my time today with the great new member we have in our caucus, the member for Edmonton Northwest . As the official opposition, our role is to hold the Liberals to account on what they promise and what they deliver, and we have, in many cases, with the new Prime Minister but same old Liberal government. They talk a big game. They have these photo ops and make flashy announcements, but the follow-up leaves something to be desired. The Prime Minister said, when he was sworn in with the cabinet, that he wanted to be judged by the prices Canadians pay at the grocery store.”
“Again, instead of the Liberals' “do not worry about it” approach, I think it needs a lot more scrutiny. I am glad my colleague is on OGGO in addition to the other committee work he does and the interventions he gives in the House.”
“Mr. Speaker, I would not be surprised by the lack of coordination the government would have in consulting Canada Post about this. I asked in my comments if Canada Post is even asking for this. This confirms that it did not. Again, there is a simple opportunity or resolution: If fentanyl is found in an envelope, or if there is suspicion of it, it can be set aside. They can then get a warrant to open it. Whenever the Liberals say to give them a piece of legislation unamended, as is, they come back and say, “Just trust us, and we will deal with it later.” Trust continues to be a fundamental issue. That is why Conservatives are standing up for privacy rights and for charter rights in protecting people's right to send mail back and forth. There is a simple way of resolving this.”
“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from the Bloc raising that because our part of eastern Ontario has the Cornwall port of entry. We have one of the most complex borders and complex logistics to go with that. We have the community of Akwesasne in Ontario and Quebec, and in both Canada and the United States. The member is absolutely correct to highlight the challenge and the frustration with part 11 and that ban on transactions over $10,000. There will be many people who reside and do business in Akwesasne, either in Ontario or Quebec, or on the Canada or U.S. side, who would be jeopardized. This issue and the complexities of it have been raised locally as well. There are not only farmers in my riding, and the member is correct to say that many people in the first nation community of Akwesasne would be severely impacted by this.”
“Mr. Speaker, when we go through the whole of part 4, which I was alluding to, under no clause does it make reference to a warrant. That is part of the issue we have with this piece of legislation. This is where we are going again. There have been so many times in my nearly six years here in the House when the Liberals have said, “ Just trust us.” This is what we mean. I do not trust them and Canadians do not either. It is simple that it should be put in there. The fact that it is not leaves more questions than it does answers.”
“The Liberals are not addressing the desperate and urgent need for bail reform now. Our criminal justice system is a revolving door of catch and release. We need to address that. The Liberals have failed to do so. When it comes to sentencing fentanyl kingpins, we need to clamp down and get more serious. Violent crime is up 50%, homicide is up 28%, sexual assaults are up 75%, extortion is up 357% and auto theft is up 46%. The list goes on and on. The bill does not go far enough to tackle the urgent need we have for public safety in this country. I look forward to the questions and comments from my colleagues and how we will work to strengthen parts of it to actually get Canadians some relief from criminals ravaging our streets.”
“In our part of Eastern Ontario, there are a lot of people who still deal in cash. It would not be anything to buy a small piece of farm equipment for $10,000 or $15,000, or to buy a used farm truck or a used vehicle. This would be jeopardized by what is being proposed: Every person or entity that is engaged in a business, a profession or the solicitation of charitable financial donations from the public would commit an offence if the person or entity accepts a cash payment, donation or deposit of $10,000 or more in a single transaction or in a prescribed series of related transactions that total $10,000 or more. There are a lot of those interactions that happen across the border between Eastern Ontario and northern New York. It continues to be a problem. An additional challenge is what is not in the legislation.”
“Why would Canada Post want the authority to open mail? This creates a lot more questions than answers. We are going to continue to ask for those answers, because opening an envelope and looking for fentanyl also means opening a piece of mail and being allowed to read it. Who is going to have access to correspondence? What is the process going to be? There are certainly many questions when it comes to part 4. The second part I want to raise in the debate here tonight is part 11 of the bill, which would ban cash transactions over $10,000. It would not put in a reporting requirement at all. It would not restrict it. It would not add bureaucracy or red tape, which the government is very good at doing, but would actually be a clear ban. When reading directly from the bill, we see that it would do all that. I represent a rural community.”
“Also, part 4 specifically deals with changes to the Canada Post Corporation Act, and because “warrant” does not appear there once, it leads to many questions about why the government is choosing to do this. Canada Post, to my knowledge, did not ask for this power specifically. At the end of the day, I think Canadians would be very concerned to know that if they had mail going through an international crossing, leaving Canada or coming in, that their letter mail could be opened without a warrant. I believe, and the Conservatives believe, that is a complete invasion of privacy. There is a process that law enforcement can follow if there is suspicion of parcels or, frankly, even of letters. We are left asking why the constraint on power is being changed, and we are wondering what is going on.”
“On modernization, the government is not going to get an argument from us on this side of the House. However, there are many concerning parts. The government has put an omnibus piece of legislation forward with many different parts. I believe there are 16 different parts to the legislation, several of which are concerning when it comes to civil liberties and the protection of Canadians' privacy. I want to raise part 4, which deals with mail and some of the challenges that go along with that. What do we mean by that? Part 4 would give Canada Post unilateral power not just to open parcels but also to open letters without a warrant. The Liberals have tried to refute that, but when we go through the legislation, we see that it does not specify that a warrant would be needed. We have combed through the legislation.”
“There are some good parts to the bill, as there would be in most pieces of legislation, that members will not find us having too much of an issue with. When I go through it and see the details of the legislation, there are some things that have been changed with respect to the sex offender registry and modernizing that. Members will find agreement from Conservatives on this side of the House. I think, frankly, all members of the House would support modernizing it, tightening it up and making those conditions more strict, as there are several loopholes that have been identified. (1750) There are some modernizations as well that would allow CBSA to better have locations and facilities and to co-locate them when it comes to the import and export of products and goods in this country.”
“When do we think most of the notorious activity happens? It is not at two o'clock in the afternoon along the St. Lawrence River, but at dark, throughout the night, in an attempt to achieve as quiet a circumstance as possible, and the unit is not being funded 24-7. The government made an announcement recently, after years and years of knowing this, and I am following it anxiously to make sure the commitment actually turns into a reality, that in our part of the St. Lawrence River and eastern Ontario we will truly, finally, get a 24-7 stronger border by having the necessary resources and officials on the front line, not only the people but also the tools and equipment that are needed as well.”
“The RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, the OPP, the Cornwall Police Service and the Akwesasne Mohawk Police Service work through the border integrity unit to address it. I just want to give members an idea of where we have not had strong borders and why we need some improvements, something for which I have been advocating for years. The border integrity unit team, which specializes in combatting trafficking and criminal activities, up until recently was not even funded for a 24-7 service. Usually, every night at midnight is when the shifts would end for the people in the border integrity unit. Very often they would not be back until the next morning. I was astounded when I learned this in some of the briefings and ride-along tours I had with local law enforcement. There was frustration or exasperation that this was even a fact.”
“To be honest and frank as well, our community, sadly for too many years, has been a haven for drug, gun, human and sex trafficking. It has been a very disturbing trend we have seen over the course of the last couple of years, frankly decades. It is a reputation, one we are not proud to have. However, we are very proud of the men and women on the front lines who are working to combat the problem each and every day. Therefore when we see a piece of legislation entitled “strong borders”, I certainly have some contributions to add to the debate. I will again give my gratitude to the frontline law enforcement officers who are doing the best they can with the resources and legislation they are given.”
“His legacy and reputation for hard work and delivering for the people of Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry is something I want to acknowledge. My thoughts are with Jeff, Lonna-Lea and the entire Lauzon family as they continue to mourn a wonderful man and a wonderful Canadian. I rise tonight to speak to the government's Bill C-2 , the strong borders act. It is a very important piece of legislation for our part of eastern Ontario. Stormont—Dundas—Glengarry, the united counties, the city of Cornwall and our community of Akwesasne in the riding of SD and G all share a border with the United States. We also have a port of entry that crosses from Cornwall onto Cornwall Island and over to Messina, New York. It is an important throughway for commercial and regular traffic to go through.”
“He really cared about SD and G, Cornwall, and the entire country, frankly. We could not have found a more proud Canadian than Guy. In the House, he served as the national Conservative caucus chair. At one point he was the parliamentary secretary to the then minister of agriculture and agri-food. He loved being in here, and he loved the honour of commuting back and forth and representing our part of eastern Ontario. Guy was not just a boss to me; he was also a friend and a mentor. I am going to miss the regular calls I had with him, where he gave me advice. It is very unique serving in this job as a member of Parliament. Not too many people are fortunate to be in this job. I am going to miss him dearly for many reasons. He attended events with me even after he retired, and he was out and about in the community.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to be back in the House of Commons. Just like with our back to school week, we call it “getting back into routine”. I want to take this opportunity, this being my first chance to be on my feet here on the floor, to speak on more of a sad note, which is to report and acknowledge in the House the passing of my predecessor, who served as the member of Parliament for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry for 15 years, Mr. Guy Lauzon. Guy passed away on June 22, at the age of 81. I was very lucky to not only have had Guy as my member of Parliament before I came into the role, but also to have had the honour of working for him for a number of years here on Parliament Hill and in our Cornwall constituency office. Guy was hard-working. He was full of integrity. His loyalty was second to none.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member has been here for several years. I have to chuckle because he is saying the Prime Minister said we need sustainable immigration levels. That is acknowledging the Liberals have not had sustainable immigration levels for many years. That is the record they are going on. This is not a new government; it is a continuation of the same government. We have seen the Liberals break caps they promised to pile on. We are seeing a system just as backlogged. We are seeing just as much frustration in an archaic system when it comes to immigration. It is broken, and they cannot be trusted to fix the system that they themselves broke.”
“Sadly, the consensus is going against the Liberal record of what has happened the last number of years. We need to bring back some restrictions, as the member said. We need to have caps that are enforced and, most importantly, a compassionate system that guarantees that when a new Canadian arrives here, they have a great opportunity at a good house, job and quality of life.”