Melissa Lantsman
Thornhill, Ontario · Conservative · Canada
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the secretary of state confirmed what many Canadians already feared. A foreign government is funding and directing attacks on synagogues, businesses and the U.S. Consulate, and now the murder of a Toronto police officer. This government has known for years; they did nothing.”
“Mr. Speaker, one thing is clear, which is that the families of those police officers deserve better answers than that. The Liberals are in government. They have been there for 11 years. They are not bystanders in any of this. They let terrorists flood our country. They built a catch-and-release bail system.”
“I think this bill deserves to be debated and the House should give it that. Instead, the Liberals have rammed it through with what is called the programming motion to sweep this away right before they take their summer break. Let us go back to the member for Sarnia—Lambton—Bkejwanong .”
“That has never been done in this place except with Bill C-9 , the last bill the government passed through the House. My colleague mentioned that she had never seen that happen in her 15 years in this place, which is longer than I have been here.”
“In a previous life, she sat on this side of the House as the Conservative shadow minister for civil liberties. She participated in nearly every civil liberties debate in this chamber. Every single time, she told Canadians the truth, which was that the government could not be trusted with privacy.”
“Let me say this to anybody watching at home at this late hour: The Liberals' argument in this debate is completely disingenuous, and they know it. I appreciate the police chief of York Regional Police. We have an enormously good relationship, a great one. I have also met with the commissioner of the OPP and with the Toronto police chief.”
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“Maybe they do not make up the majority of the constituents in those ridings, but if anyone is scared to live in this country, to walk the streets, to wear a yarmulke, to wear a Star of David or to put a mezuzah on the door, to walk into a synagogue or to walk into a church, because there are officials in Ottawa who said the church burnings are understandable, and that is to say nothing about the Hindu temples that are desecrated in this country, I hope the Prime Minister is successful, because we cannot go on like this. (1530)”
“If they are thanked for a second time by a terrorist organization, we all know that they are probably on the wrong side of history. I do not know if they need to be thanked for a third time to actually get it, but we have gone from “free Palestine” chants to full-blown extremism in this country, just as long as it targets Jews who look a bit too complicit for comfort. Forget nuance and forget humanity. If we squint hard enough, anyone with a Hebrew name or an Israeli cousin is now a war criminal in this country. That is what the Liberals have allowed to happen in our streets. I would like to have seen something in the throne speech on this. I know that there are many constituents in many different ridings.”
“It is not that they feel scared; they are actually in danger. The government has been absolutely silent on Jews in this country, the ones who were shot at and harassed and whose businesses were being firebombed. We have seen lawless mobs in the streets screaming genocidal slogans at their fellow Canadians. If one goes to the faculty clubs of our universities or, frankly, the halls of this place or even close to it— Jacob Mantle: Or the Liberal Party. Melissa Lantsman: Mr. Speaker, I actually did not think it would be worse than with the last foreign minister, but we have a new foreign minister who, whether she knows it or not, is parroting Hamas talking points. That very same terrorist organization that is listed as a terrorist organization in this country has thanked this country for its position, for a second time now.”
“This is coming from a Prime Minister who said that a plan is better than no plan and that he was the man with a plan. We do not see that right now, and I suspect that we are not going to see that, because it is what they do in the government of the 13 ministers who are still there and some of the new ones who now fill that second row. It is a government of lofty statements, and it is the exact reason that, when we knocked on doors, affordability, crime and immigration were the number one things that people talked about in so many different regions. The immigration system had a consensus in this country for a generation. Let me talk about what the throne speech did not say, because I would be remiss if I did not say it. I come from a community whose people are terrified of living in this country.”
“They are saying the exact same things, except for some of the new things they are saying, which they borrowed from the Conservative platform. I invite them to borrow more and go all the way, not with these half measures that we are seeing, with a GST cut that does not go far enough and includes only first-time homebuyers, or a tax cut that is about half of the one that we promised. That is not going to stand up when someone has a $5,000 mortgage to pay. If they are going to take our ideas, they should go all the way with them. That brings me to the Speech from the Throne, which is an exact regurgitation of what we heard on the campaign, except without detail. There is no detail. There is no meat on the bones of any of this. It is a lot of grand, lofty statements about what is going to happen and what they are going to do.”
“They cannot do any of that, and that is what I heard every single day at every single door in more than 40 ridings across the country, from east to west: Young people cannot afford a home. I heard that if someone came here and drove a taxi today, or probably an Uber, there is no way they could buy a home in the suburbs, raise two kids and send them through university. There is no way that today, somebody with my last name, whose father was a cab driver, can go from the front seat of a taxi to the front row of Parliament Hill in one generation. That dream is absolutely dead in this country, which brings me to a government that was a big part of killing that dream. Over the last 10 years, we saw the same ministers. There are 13 of the same ministers on the front bench. It feels a bit déjà vu.”
“They immigrated here from the former Soviet Union. My dad was an uncredentialed engineer who drove a taxi to put my mom through school. They put two kids through university and watched them get jobs and homes. I also tell a joke that my parents bought their first home, in the place I now represent, for about seven raspberries and 12 almonds. They did that on a taxi driver's salary and with a woman who was still in school, trying to make it in the corporate world. They did that in a safe neighbourhood where they could raise kids the way they wanted to, in the freedom of this country, the freedom they ran from the Soviet Union to attain. (1525) People cannot do that anymore.”
“When I ran the first time, I did not have my mom with me. I am part of a club that not a lot of people my age are a part of. I am part of the orphan club. I have lost both my parents. I lost my father between the first and second elections. He was here for my first election. I often tell their story, because I think it is the embodiment of one that so many share in this country. I come by conservatism honestly. I often tell people that I am a product of a mixed marriage: My mom was a Liberal, and my father was a Conservative. My mom always said that she did not leave the Liberal Party, but that the Liberal Party left her. Boy, is that ever true today. She left a long time ago and supported me throughout my journey to elected politics. I say that because my parents are the embodiment of the Canadian immigrant story.”
“I thank my family, both blood and the ones we acquire on this journey. Everybody knows that politics is a family business, and I have the best family in the business. They are the ones who are honest with us, who tell us that we are not eating enough, that a slushy is not considered lunch, that we look tired or that our jacket does not match. They are the very ones who tell us to go a bit more, go to one more event or one more door and talk to one more person; they also know when it is time to go home because it is better for us. I thank all of them. I thank my partner, who is lax in all the things that I miss: the dinners and birthdays of family members, the celebrations that normal people with normal jobs get to do much more often than we do. She has never once put that ahead of what we do for the people of Thornhill.”
“The second victory feels a bit more profound. I think the people of Thornhill have entrusted me with this honour to serve them because of the work we have done, our advocacy and what the team and this party have promised to Canadians. We have done that with the biggest mandate in the riding's history of any MP. I am so proud and honoured, always, to have this seat. None of this is done on our own. I would like to thank all the staff and volunteers, not only leading up to the election and election campaign but also for the years before, travelling the country from riding to riding. I thank all of those who helped, who came in the snow and the rain, who stuffed envelopes, who banged in signs and who went door to door talking to everyday Canadians about the issues that matter to them.”
“Mr. Speaker, congratulations on taking that seat. I hope you bring back dignity and honour to that office, and I know you will. I would like to start off by saying that I am splitting my time with the member for Battle River—Crowfoot , somebody I have known to be a great colleague and friend. We are going to miss him around here. When he made the decision he is going to tell you about, I called him a mensch and told him he could look it up. I want to thank him, Danielle and the entire family for what he is going to do in putting his country first. I also want to thank the people of Thornhill for entrusting me a second time to take their seat here in the House of Commons. The first time around, they took a chance on a relatively unknown quantity to fill the shoes of a long-time Conservative MP and former cabinet minister.”
“He literally said, on Tuesday morning, that he would cap government spending, and he said it again today, at 2%. By the afternoon, he dropped a bill in the House of Commons to raise spending by 8%. How is the Prime Minister going to reconcile what he said on Tuesday morning with what he did on Tuesday afternoon?”
“Mr. Speaker, this week, the Prime Minister introduced a spending bill. It was the main estimates for 2025-26. To be fair, his spending is not as bad as Justin Trudeau's; it is actually worse. To start, the Prime Minister inherited an obese Liberal government. We know that. He promised to “spend less”. The first spending bill that he dropped in the House of Commons spends 8% more than Trudeau did in his last year in office. That is almost three times bigger than population and inflation combined. We know that the Prime Minister is going to say that this new spending is an investment, but he is going to spend a record $26 billion on consultants. That is $1,400 per family, per year, and that is more than the tax cut he just talked about.”
“Mr. Speaker, the minister ought to know that the housing market is already in chaos. Sellers cannot sell and buyers cannot buy. It is proving out: Only 310 houses were sold across the entire GTA. That is a staggering 89% below the 10-year average. Lower supply and higher prices spell more trouble for Canadians. Instead of building homes and bringing the costs down, the minister is actually building more bureaucracy. We know that housing prices went up 179% when the minister was in charge of housing in Vancouver. How much higher are they going to get when he is in charge of housing for the entire country?”
“Mr. Speaker, we are seeing two very different narratives on housing: one from the campaign and a very different one from the minister . The new housing minister , the former mayor of Vancouver who let housing prices go up 179% in just eight years, is saying something very different. The minister answered a resounding “no” when he was asked if home prices should come down from their record highs. If he is adamant that prices should not go down, how much does the minister think they should go up?”