Tako Van Popta
Langley Township—Fraser Heights, British Columbia · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, the reality is that the appeal process in British Columbia is going to take years. In the meantime, homeowners in Richmond, British Columbia, and throughout the province are feeling insecure. Here is the reality in the subject territory in Richmond.”
“Mr. Speaker, in Cowichan Tribes v. the Attorney General of Canada, the B.C. Supreme Court declared aboriginal title over private lands, and the private landowners, 150 of them, are worried.”
“Madam Speaker, earlier in debate tonight, we heard from the Liberal side of the House suggesting that anybody who was opposed to Bill C‑22 was fearmongering and spreading misinformation. However, the very rational debate coming from the member for Vancouver East would suggest otherwise.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for her speech on this self-government agreement, which she says could inform future agreements. There is the Musqueam recognition rights agreement in Vancouver, which has become very controversial.”
“Mr. Speaker, while the high-flying Prime Minister is racking up a $1-million debt for luxury inflight catering, many Canadians are struggling just to put food on the table.”
“Mr. Speaker, earlier in the debate today, we heard the minister say that this agreement is a model to inform future treaties, yet the most recent treaty, the K'ómoks Treaty, which my colleague also mentioned, introduces the concept of UNDRIP, a foreign document. This is not made in Canada.”
The complete record
Every one of 218 lines we hold for Tako Van Popta, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 4 of 5.
“They recognize that it is a problem, because the budget says, for example, “Productivity remains weak, limiting wage gains for workers.” I think this is the fifth or sixth Liberal budget I have listened to, and every time, the Liberals acknowledge that productivity is a problem, but they never do anything about it. Why should Canadians believe them this time?”
“Mr. Speaker, I have noticed that when we are talking about the economy, Liberals are very selective in the facts and the statistics they like to highlight. They say, “Oh, our debt-to-GDP ratio is not as bad as in other countries”, but they they consistently do not mention sub-sovereign debt. To compare apples to apples, they need to include that. Another thing the Liberals do not like to talk about very much is our lagging productivity metric as compared to that of our trading nations. This is the ability of a country to service its debt and be productive and wealthy.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am very happy my fellow British Columbia MP talked about softwood lumber, because that is crucial to British Columbia's economy. Everybody knows that. The solution is not more handouts; it is an open and free market with the United States. However, after 10 years, the Liberal government has failed to bring home a softwood lumber treaty. Why should Canadians have confidence that it is finally going to do it this time around?”
“Madam Speaker, indeed, Bill C-14 retains the principle of restraint, which has been at the centre of the problems in the administration of criminal justice in the last decade. It is at the heart of the public's loss of confidence in the administration of justice. I think that is a very important principle. I am sure our amendments at committee are going to focus on the secondary and tertiary grounds, public safety and public confidence in the administration of justice.”
“Madam Speaker, I share the concern with members of the Bloc Québécois that the Liberals are going to try to prevent any reasonable amendments to this legislation. However, I am an optimistic person. I will go back to the sex offender registry case that was found to be unconstitutional. All the parties worked together to pass that legislation through. We really did. If the Liberals are taking this bail reform and sentencing reform initiative as seriously as they say they are, I am pretty confident they will be co-operative at committee and work with us on reasonable amendments.”
“Madam Speaker, I agree that the House should give its best efforts, but that requires the Liberals giving their best efforts, as well, to passing this legislation. We are going to committee. We are going to request reasonable amendments to this legislation to make it better. I am very happy to have this high-level conversation in Parliament. There seems to be substantial agreement that bail reform is needed. We are happy the Liberals are finally coming to the table, and we hope there is continued co-operation at committee.”
“Like Bill C-48 , Bill C-14 does not go far enough. At committee, Conservatives will introduce amendments to get Canada back on track, putting public safety first and putting public confidence in the administration of justice first, because that is what Canadians deserve. That is what Canadians right across the country have been demanding for a long time. It is time to get it fixed. We will do our best to make sure that Bill C-14 comes out of Parliament as strong as possible, to protect Canadians.”
“Our judges on bail hearings know what the common law says about the right to bail. They know what the charter says about reasonable bail. They know what the Supreme Court and other courts have said to guide this age-old principle. Bill C-48 , from the 44th Parliament, took a small step in the right direction, a timid step. It did not go nearly far enough. That is why we are here today. I am more hopeful today with the current Attorney General and Minister of Justice signalling that perhaps Bill C-75 went too far. Perhaps Bill C-5 , another enactment, which I did not talk about too much in my speech so far but which relaxed some sentencing rules, had gone too far. Perhaps the two bills have had a negative impact on the public's confidence in the administration of justice. It is time to fix it.”
“This was of their own volition. This was the Liberals appealing to their base, trying to distinguish themselves from law and order Conservatives. They are now seeing the effects of that legislation. There is public outcry about what members of the public are calling catch-and-release provisions. They are blaming the Liberals for that. There are widespread calls for bail reform from premiers, police services across the country, police unions and public safety advocacy groups. What do they do? They introduce Bill C-14 , which is before us today. They are bringing in workarounds around their own defective legislation. We ask why they do not just get rid of section 493.1 altogether. It was not mandated. It is not necessary. It is not helpful. It has been harmful to the administration of justice in this country. It is time to get rid of it.”
“According to that decision, certain subsections of section 490 of the Criminal Code, the ones mandating automatic registration of anyone convicted of a sexual offence, were unconstitutional and contrary to section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which protects life, liberty and the security of the person. The court, in that case, gave Parliament 12 months or 18 months to correct the impugned legislation. I forget exactly how long it was. That was exactly what we did in the last Parliament. All the parties worked together co-operatively to make that happen. I want to be clear: Antic was not that kind of case. The Supreme Court just wanted to clarify things. It was the Liberal government, under Justin Trudeau, with David Lametti at the time, that introduced Bill C-75 and introduced section 493.1 to the Criminal Code.”
“Antic was a case that simply clarified some confusion around the rights of the accused when it comes to bail: the right to be presumed innocent; the right to a fair trial, with the burden of proof on the Crown's lawyer; and the right, of course, to reasonable bail as set out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Antic was not a case in which the court had struck down any legislation under section 52 of the Constitution Act 1982, the so-called supremacy clause. That does happen from time to time, as happened a few years ago in a case called R v. Ndhlovu, which was decided in 2022.”
“We hear the Liberals say they had no choice, the court told them they had to do that in a case called R v. Antic. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Canada, with Chief Justice Wagner writing, did say that “release is favoured at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous grounds.” It is true that the court said that. (1040) We have always argued, as Conservatives, that the Supreme Court of Canada never directed Parliament to throw open the gates to unfettered bail. It did not direct Parliament to introduce new legislation. It did not direct Parliament to do anything.”
“This is set out in section 493.1 of the Criminal Code, which states, “consideration [should be given] to the release of the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions that are appropriate in the circumstances”. This is what happened to Mr. McKenzie, the murderer of Constable Pierzchala. He was out on bail under his mother's supervision, with an ankle bracelet. He was not to leave home, and he had a weapons prohibition. This was all for a man who had been charged and was awaiting trial on charges of a violent crime against his girlfriend with a weapon. How is that even right? How can that happen in this country? It is easy to point the finger at the judge, as some people did, but the judge was responding to the principle of restraint introduced by the Liberal government in Bill C-75 .”
“We call that a reverse onus. It is a slight improvement, from a law and order perspective. We, the Conservatives, supported the bill because it was a step in the right direction. Provincial politicians and law enforcement agencies across the country supported it too although many expressed disappointment that it simply did not go as far as they had hoped. Why did the Liberals not go further when public sentiment was clearly on the side of going for the bail reform? The underlying challenge for them was a previous bill from the 42nd Parliament, Bill C-75 . It was one of the last enactments of the 42nd Parliament before it rose for the summer. The bill introduced the principle of restraint in bail hearings, the principle that directs a judge to release the accused at the earliest possible time and with the least onerous conditions.”
“I raise this one because it really woke up the public to weaknesses in our criminal justice system. When the public gets concerned over a public policy issue, politicians scramble to get ahead on the story. In a rare show of cross-country, cross-party co-operation, all the premiers of the 10 provinces and of the three territories wrote a letter to the then attorney general and to the former prime minister demanding bail reform. The response to that was that AG Lametti introduced a very weak bail reform bill, Bill C-48 , which made it just slightly more difficult for people like Pierzchala's murderer to get out on bail while awaiting trial. The accused now had to convince the judge that he could be trusted to be out on the streets instead of the government lawyer having to convince the judge the accused should stay behind bars.”
“That murderer was out on bail at that time, awaiting trial on charges of a violent, weapons-related crime against his girlfriend. We call that intimate partner violence. He was in breach of his bail conditions, of course, having a weapon in his possession, having removed his ankle bracelet and having left his home. That is where he was supposed to be. There had been a warrant for his arrest for about six months, but the police had failed to apprehend him. There were too many people out on bail and not enough police resources. This man was getting away with murder. There were too many people out on bail. That was the problem at the heart of this. This man should have been behind bars in pretrial incarceration. There were other high-profile cases at that time.”
“Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to rise today to speak to an important legislation, which is Bill C-14 , bail reform and sentencing reform. However, before I do that, I want to advise that I will be sharing my time with the very effective member of Parliament for Souris—Moose Mountain . Here we go again with bail reform 2.0. In the 44th Parliament, we had Bill C-48 , brought to us by the Liberal government under Justin Trudeau. The bill was in response to several high-profile violent crimes committed by people who were, at the time of the crime, out on bail on charges for other violent crimes. Let us take, for example, Randall McKenzie, who murdered an OPP officer, Constable Greg Pierzchala on December 27, 2022.”
“Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with the member for Rivière-du-Nord on the justice committee in the last Parliament. He is talking about who is going to be tougher on crime, the Liberals or the Conservatives. He was on the committee when we received a letter from 13 premiers asking for bail reform. Bill C-48 was the response, and he was involved in that debate. It did not go far enough, and now we have Bill C-14 . Clearly there is a public perception that the administration of justice is being brought into disrepute by overly lax bail laws. Does the member agree that something needs to be toughened up in that area?”
“Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for his tireless advocacy for first responders' safety and for introducing a private member's bill in the last Parliament and now again this time. Where would his private member's bill from the last Parliament be today if former prime minister Trudeau had not selfishly prorogued Parliament for purely partisan reasons?”
“Madam Speaker, we are hearing a lot today that the Liberal government coming up with workarounds for the old Bill C-75 , which introduced section 493 to the Criminal Code, which is the principle of restraint in the administration of bail in bail court. Instead of doing these workarounds, could we get rid of section 493 altogether? The Liberals are blaming it on the Supreme Court of Canada, but we were never instructed to change the law.”
“I want to thank the dedicated volunteers and donors who make the Langley Food Bank a great success story in a difficult environment made worse by the government's mismanagement of our economy. I thank the donors. I thank the volunteers.”
“Mr. Speaker, we have a new normal in Canada. Food banks are the lifeline for many Canadian families. The Liberals like to boast that they are helping families, but here is the reality: Food Banks Canada reports 2.2 million monthly visits this year, twice what it was six years ago. This is what their report says: “Behind every food bank visit is a story. A parent skipping meals so their kids can eat. A senior choosing between medication and groceries. A worker juggling multiple jobs and still coming up short.... These are not outliers.” According to the report, “This is Canada’s new normal.” This bears out in my community as well, with 25 new families per month at the Langley Food Bank, 500 families served per month and over 1,400 individuals this year.”
“Madam Speaker, my colleague made mention of a poorly thought-out social media post by the former prime minister, who said Canada is open, come on over, and a flood of refugees followed. I cannot help but make the comparison to another world leader who also makes poorly thought-out social media posts, shaping government policy on the fly. I would like my colleague to comment on the negative impact that can have on our nation.”
“Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, which highlighted some macroeconomic issues in Canada's economy. All day today we have been hearing from the Liberals saying our debt-to-GDP ratio is pretty good, but there are two factors they ignore. The first is subnational debt, so that we are really comparing apples to apples with other nations. The second is the economy's ability to service debt. The best measure of that is productivity, which also is lagging substantially behind our trading partners. I wonder if my colleague could comment on those.”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was very inspiring. He talked about the importance of private investment dollars. I agree with him. I wonder if he could comment on how free enterprise private investment dollars have a unique ability to find the most productive place in the economy compared to politicians' poor track record of distinguishing between winners and losers.”
“Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North often asks questions of that nature, saying, “Why not just hurry things through?” I think there is a big advantage, to members of Parliament and the people we represent, to debating important legislation like this in the chamber. If it had been hurried off to committee, I would not have had the opportunity to research it, learn more about it and speak to it, hopefully in a half-intelligent fashion.”
“Mr. Speaker, that is a very thoughtful question. Our focus always has to be on victims of crime, to make sure they get proper support and that they have a sense that justice is being done. The court system should not just be a legal system; it should be a justice system. It should do justice. It is an interesting hypothetical the member put to us. One of the reasons that crimes abroad need to be investigated abroad is that our civil authorities would have a hard time with investigations. I can understand why that distinction is being made, but it certainly would create complexities.”
“Mr. Speaker, it is indeed odd, and that is exactly what this bill is trying to do: take the decision-making, investigation and prosecution out of the military justice system and put it into the civilian justice system, where it belongs. I recognize that there are problems with the civilian justice system, as a lot of my colleagues have pointed out, so this is not a silver bullet, but I think it would be a step in the right direction.”
“Mr. Speaker, the Conservative Party members are signalling that we are in support of the bill. It has many problems. I do not think it goes far enough to solve the institutional problems in the Canadian Armed Forces, but it is a step in the right direction. I think it is going to be a very intensive study at committee. There are a lot of questions to ask. We will need to have a lot of witnesses appear before the committee and answer what I think they will find to be very challenging questions.”
“This is what General Jennie Carignan, current chief of the defence staff, has to say: “These reforms will enable our operational effectiveness and support a respectful culture that will ensure our institution continues to earn the trust of [Canadian Armed Forces] members and the Canadians we serve.” If she is optimistic, I am hopeful that the bill would steer us in the right direction. There are deep-seated problems. I would point out that there have been attempts before. I am thinking of Operation Honour. We had been optimistic that it was going to get to the root of the problem. In the end, that program was abandoned because it was not taken seriously by the leadership or by the rank and file. We support the bill's going to committee. I would hope that the chief of the defence staff will come there and give evidence.”
“This requires the [Canadian Armed Forces] to address not only more serious incidents of sexual harassment and assault, but also low-level sexual harassment, such as the use of sexualized and demeaning language, which contributes to [a hostile] environment.... I would conclude from this that sending serious cases of sexual harassment to civilian courts is only the tip of the spear. There is a more fundamental problem that needs to be resolved. Maybe a few high-profile cases will make a difference, as happened with General Vance, in terms of highlighting the problems. Maybe it will help, but this will not happen without full support from the leadership. It is important to hear from leaders in the Canadian Armed Forces.”
“The thinking is that taking the whole business of investigating and prosecuting crimes of a sexual nature out of the Canadian military justice system and putting it into the civilian justice system will encourage victims to report without fear of impeding their career advancement and without fear of being isolated by their peers or being labelled as troublemakers. Will it work? It may. I hope so. It is hard to change the culture of an organization, which is the fundamental foundation of this problem. This is what Judge Deschamps said about the Canadian Armed Forces' culture when it comes to sexual misbehaviour, noting the failure of earlier attempts to solve the problem. This is what she said: ...cultural change is key. Without broad-scale cultural reform, policy change is unlikely to be effective.”
“I was quite struck to hear that many serving members of the CAF, including high-ranking officers, would not encourage their daughter(s) to enrol today. Indeed, the exposure of sexual misconduct in the CAF has caused as much damage as defeat in combat would have to demoralize the troops and shock Canadians. We have a serious problem of misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. It is long-standing. It is deeply entrenched in the culture. It is not easily resolved, because it is hard to change the culture of an organization. That is exactly what Bill C-11 is attempting to do. We support it.”
“I did not read the whole of the reports, but I read big sections. I highlighted a couple of paragraphs to quote. This is from Mr. Justice Fish's report: My review has confirmed the factual findings of the Honourable Marie Deschamps, who in 2015 completed her independent review on sexual misconduct in the [Canadian Armed Forces]: the nature, extent and human cost of sexual misconduct in the CAF remain as debilitating, as rampant and as destructive in 2021 as they were in 2015. (1810) Through all those years, there was not much improvement. Louise Arbour writes, and this is a quote that really hit home for me: The [Canadian Armed Forces] has a long history of recruiting among military families.”
“I want to give a big shout-out to the current president, Reese Yearwood, and the past president, Wout Brouwer, both of whom have been working diligently on it. I will now go back to Bill C-11 . It is an enactment in response to two reports. I talked about the Deschamps report. There is also the Fish report of Mr. Justice Fish, from April 2021, which offers a sweeping critique of and reform road map for Canada's military justice system. The second report is by Louise Arbour from a year later, 2022. It delivers a scathing assessment of how the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces handle sexual misconduct and institutional accountability. I will read a couple of quotes from each of the reports, because I think they are important. They are both very extensive reports.”
“All of this has happened despite the fact that the Liberal government for the last 10 years has underfunded the Canadian Armed Forces and not met our NATO commitments. Our NATO partners are counting on us. I want to take a moment to highlight some of the work that is being done in my local Conservative association, the group of volunteers at home that keeps me grounded and connected to my community. It also includes my advisers; they are currently working on a policy statement that they are hoping will advance all the way to the Conservative Party convention scheduled in Calgary for early next year. It is about funding the Canadian Armed Forces to meet our NATO requirements. I want to thank my team back home for working on this very important issue.”
“We can be proud of our men and women in uniform. I want to share some examples of their great success stories. In Operation Reassurance, Canada was serving as the framework nation for NATO's multinational battle group in Latvia, a key part of NATO's enhanced forward presence to deter aggression in eastern Europe. That is more important now than ever. Operation Unifier was Canada's military training mission supporting the armed forces in Ukraine. That is also very important at the moment. Of course, we also have Canada's participation in NORAD, the binational military partnership between Canada and the United States, still our best friend. In all these missions, the Canadian Armed Forces has distinguished itself with high professional standards and effective performance and has gained the respect of our NATO partners.”
“She found “a disjunction...between the high professional standards established by the CAF’s policies on inappropriate sexual conduct...and the reality [on the other hand] experienced by many members day-to-day.” In other words, everything looked good on paper, but in reality not so much; it was quite a different story. The judge heard from many witnesses and summarized some of the evidence in her report. That was 10 years ago. Here we are in 2025, finally acting on it. The Conservative Party has always supported all the recommendations of the Deschamps report, and it is a shame they have just not yet all been implemented. Bill C-11 is before us now. Before I get into the details of the bill, the good, the bad and where improvements are required, I want to shed a positive light on our proud Canadian Armed Forces.”
“Mr. Speaker, today we are talking about Bill C-11 , the military justice system modernization act. The effect of the bill would be to remove the military court's jurisdiction to try offences of a sexual nature and move them to civilian courts, which would have exclusive jurisdiction. Our proud Canadian Armed Forces has a deep-seated problem that the bill aims to tackle. This is not new information; it is something we have known about for a long time. Let me read what Justice Marie Deschamps said in her report 10 years ago, which was commissioned by the Conservative government at the time. It is a report on sexual misconduct and sexual harassment in the Canadian Armed Forces.”
“Mr. Speaker, the reports that are before us, those by Arbour, Fish and also Deschamps, all say that the problem with the Canadian Armed Forces around sexual misconduct will not be solved until the culture there is solved, a culture that has found sexual misconduct acceptable or at least tolerated in the context of the military setting. Why is the member optimistic that Bill C-11 is finally the solution to that problem?”
“Mr. Speaker, my question relates to the culture of the Canadian Armed Forces tolerating sexual misconduct. The reports that are before us, by Arbour, Fish and Deschamps, all say that without changing the culture, the problem will not be solved. Is the hon. colleague optimistic that Bill C-11 would push the Canadian Armed Forces to reform its conduct, which is the root of the problem?”
“Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is signalling that the Bloc Québécois is going to support the bill. An important part of the bill is that trials for sexual assault and sexual harassment would be taken out of the military courts and brought into the civilian courts, but given the delays in our civilian courts, is the member confident that victims of sexual assault and of sexual harassment will see justice in a speedier and more fair way in civilian courts?”
“Mr. Speaker, over the summer months, I had the opportunity to visit the downtown Vancouver core and some businesses there and organizations that support businesses. We heard about the explosive growth of crime on the streets: shoplifting, smashed windows, open drug use. Merchants do not even bother calling the cops anymore because the police say that with the Liberal bail laws of release at the earliest opportunity and with the least restrictive conditions, the criminals are out on the street again before the sun sets that evening, wreaking havoc on the streets. Will the member agree with me that this is untenable and that something needs to be done for our downtown cores? I am sure it is in his riding as well.”
“Mr. Speaker, all day today, we have been listening to Liberals talk about food affordability in response to our opposition day motion, but to me it is déjà vu all over again. I have been here for six years and have been hearing Liberals go on and on about how a program is finally going to solve the inflation problem and deal with, for example, housing, infrastructure, supply chain resilience and our lagging economic productivity measures. Today, we are hearing that the Liberals finally have a program to solve food affordability, yet food inflation is up twice the rate of the consumer price index, and demand at food banks is soaring. Why should Canadians have any confidence at all that the Liberals are going to solve the food inflation problem?”
“Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister says to judge him by the cost of groceries. Well, the data is in, and it is not looking so good for him. The parliamentary budget office says the Prime Minister's spending is going to outpace even Trudeau's reckless inflationary spending, driving up the cost of groceries for seniors. Myra from Langley says, “I worked and planned for my retirement my entire life and now it's taking everything I have to live.” Myra and many seniors want to know if the Prime Minister is going to stop eating their lunch with this never-ending cycle of inflationary spending and deficits.”
“Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Edmonton West for a very enlightened speech on an ill-conceived Liberal idea that is going to ruin our oil and gas sector, the emissions production cap. I have a question about another ill-conceived Liberal idea, and that is the north coast tanker ban. This is what the CEO of the National Coalition of Chiefs says, talking about the tanker ban: “No proponent is going to look at investing in a pipeline to the north coast with that kind of legislation in place”. I wonder if my colleague could comment on what a productive oil and gas sector could do for indigenous reconciliation in British Columbia and throughout Canada.”
“Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Terra Nova—The Peninsulas gave an inspiring speech. The member mentioned the importance of ferries. His riding and mine are at opposite ends of the country, but they have this in common: We are coastal provinces, where ferries for passengers and traffic are very important. However, in British Columbia, we are not even building our own ferries. I wonder if the member could comment on the importance of one strong Canadian economy to be able to at least build our own ships.”
“Mr. Speaker, after 10 years of the tired, old Liberals, the cost of housing has doubled, putting the dream of ever owning a home out of reach for so many Canadians. It has also aggravated the homelessness crisis, which, incidentally, the current housing minister , when he was the mayor of Vancouver, said he would eliminate. Today, with 28,000 British Columbians without secure housing, many of them living on the streets, will the minister acknowledge that 10 years of big spending announcements and photo ops has failed to deliver real results for Canadians?”
“Madam Speaker, that is a very good summary from my colleague from St. Albert—Sturgeon River as to what the problem is with Canada's economy after 10 years of Liberal governance. It is spend, spend, spend. We were somewhat optimistic that the new Prime Minister , with a degree in economics, might understand the economy better than the previous—”
“Madam Speaker, this is the way Canadian democracy works. We get voted into this House of Commons. Canadians have once again said they want a minority government, but the Liberals are acting as though they have a majority. The reality is that the Liberals need to work with us. They need to work with the opposition in order to get things done. They expect co-operation from us. We expect co-operation from them. What is the big deal in presenting a budget, as every government does every year? Why is the government not doing it?”